Henry Thoreau, March 17, 1857
The robin does not come singing,
but utters a somewhat anxious or inquisitive peep at first.
March 18, 1858
February 23. I have seen signs of the spring. February 23, 1857
February 27. Before I opened the window this cold morning, I heard the peep of a robin, that sound so often heard in cheerless or else rainy weather, so often heard first borne on the cutting March wind or through sleet or rain, as if its coming were premature. February 27, 1857
February 27. Mother hears a robin to-day. February 27, 1861
March 5. This instant it occurs to me that this may be that earliest spring note which I hear, and have referred to a woodpecker! (This is before I have chanced to see a bluebird , blackbird , or robin in Concord this year.) It is the spring note of the nuthatch. March 5, 1859
March 7. While I am watching [a shrike] eight or ten rods off, I hear robins down below, west of the hill . . . Hearing a peep, I looked up and saw three or four birds passing . . . They were robins, but the shrike instantly hid himself behind a bough . . . The robins kept their ground, one alighting on the very point which the shrike vacated . . . The first note which I heard from the robins, far under the hill, was sveet sveet, suggesting a certain haste and alarm, and then a rich, hollow, somewhat plaintive peep or peep-eep-eep, as when in distress with young just flown. When you first see them alighted, they have a haggard, an anxious and hurried, look. March 7, 1859
March 8. Stopping in a sunny and sheltered place on a hillock in the woods, — for it is raw in the wind, —I hear the hasty, shuffling, as if frightened, note of a robin from a dense birch wood . . . This sound reminds me of rainy, misty April days in past years. March 8, 1855
March 12. I hear my first robin peep distinctly at a distance. No singing yet. March 12, 1854
March 16. What a change since yesterday! Last night I came home through as incessant heavy rain as I have been out in for many years, . . . now, as we glide over the Great Meadows before this strong wind, we no longer see dripping, saturated russet and brown banks through rain, hearing at intervals the alarm notes of the early robins . . . but we see the bare and now pale-brown and dry russet hills. March 16, 1859
March 17. Sitting under the handsome scarlet oak beyond the hill, I hear a faint note far in the wood which reminds me of the robin. Again I hear it; it is he, — an occasional peep. March 17, 1858
March 18. I stand still now to listen if I may hear the note of any new bird, for the sound of my steps hinders, and there are so few sounds at this season in a still afternoon like this that you are pretty sure to detect one within a considerable distance. Hark ! Did I not hear the note of some bird then? Methinks it could not have been my own breathing through my nose. No, there it is again, — a robin; and we have put the winter so much further behind us. What mate does he call to in these deserted fields? It is as it were, a scared note as he whisks by, followed by the familiar but still anxious toot, toot, toot. He does not sing as yet . . . The bluebird and song sparrow sing immediately on their arrival, and hence deserve to enjoy some preeminence. They give expression to the joy which the season inspires. But the robin and blackbird only peep and chuck at first. March 18, 1853
March 18. The robin does not come singing, but utters a somewhat anxious or inquisitive peep at first. March 18, 1858
March 18. Three days ago, the 15th, we had steady rain with a southerly wind, with a clear interval and a brilliant double rainbow at sunset, — a day when all the russet banks were dripping, saturated with wet, and the peep of the robin was heard through the drizzle and the rain. March 18, 1859
March 21. Why are the early birds found most along the water? These song sparrows are now first heard commonly. The blackbirds , too , create some melody. And the bluebirds, how sweet their warble in the soft air, heard over the water! The robin is heard further off, and seen flying rapidly, hurriedly through the orchard. And now the elms suddenly ring with the chill - lill - lill and canary-like notes of the Fringilla hyemalis, which fill the air more than those of any bird yet , — a little strange they sound be cause they do not tarry to breed with us , — a ringing sound . . .How suddenly the newly arrived birds are dispersed over the whole town! How numerous they must be! Robins are now quite abundant, flying in flocks. One after another flits away before you from the trees, somewhat like grasshoppers in the grass, uttering their notes faintly, ― ventriloquizing, in fact. I hear [one] meditating a bar to be sung anon, which sounds a quarter of a mile off, though he is within two rods However, they do not yet get to melody. March 21, 1853
March 22. Overcast and cold. Yet there is quite a concert of birds along the river; the song sparrows are very lively and musical, and the blackbirds already sing o-gurgle ee-e-e . . . I also hear a short, regular robin song, though many are flitting about with hurried note. March 22, 1855
March 24. The chip of the [song sparrow] resembles that of a robin, i.e., its expression is the same, only fainter, and reminds me that the robin's peep, which sounds like a note of distress, is also a chip, or call-note to its kind. March 24, 1858
March 25. Hear the hurried and seemingly frightened notes of a robin and see it flying over the railroad lengthwise, and afterwards its tut tut at a distance. This and the birds of yesterday have come, though the ground generally is covered deep with snow. They will not only stay with us through a storm, but come when there are but resting-places for them. It must be hard for them to get their living now.March 25, 1856
April 2. The robin now peeps with scared note in the heavy overcast air, among the apple trees. The hour is favorable to thought. April 2, 1852
April 2. Sitting on the rail over the brook, I hear something which reminds me of the song of the robin in rainy days in past springs. April 2, 1854
*****
See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Robins in Spring. See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring:
- A Change in the Air
- A Sunny Nook in Spring
- Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding
- Braided Ripples of Melting Snow Shine in the Ruts
- Bright Blue Water
- Buzzing Flies
- Ducks Afar, Sailing on the Meadow
- Frogs, and Turtles Stirring
- Greening Grasses and Sedges
- I begin to think that my wood will last
- Insects and Worms Come Forth and are Active
- Listening for the Bluebird
- March is famous for its Winds
- Mosses Bright Green
- My Greatcoat on my Arm
- Perla-like Insects Appear
- Red Maple Sap Flows
- Ripples made by Fishes
- Skunks Active
- The Anxious Peep of the Early Robin
- The crowing of cocks, the cawing of crows
- The Days have grown Sensibly Longer
- The Eaves Begin to Run
- The Gobbling of Turkeys
- The Grackle Arrives
- The Hawks of March
- The New Warmth of the Sun
- The Note of the Dark-eyed Junco Going Northward
- The Red-Wing Arrives
- The Skunk Cabbage Blooms
- The Softened Air of these Warm February Days
- The Song Sparrow Sings
- The Spring Note of the Chickadee
- The Spring Note of the Nuthatch
- The Striped Squirrel Comes Out
- The Water Bug (Gyrinus)
- Walking without Gloves
- Woodpeckers Tapping
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,
Signs of the Spring, the anxious peep of the early robin
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau
"A book, each page written in its own season,
out-of-doors, in its own locality."
~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2023
https://tinyurl.com/HDTearlyrobin
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