A Book of the Seasons, Signs of the Spring: The gobbling of turkeys

No mortal is alert enough to be present at the first dawn of the spring. 

Henry Thoreau, March 17, 1857

For two or three days 

I have heard the first spring sound –

 gobbling of turkeys.

March 20, 1856

March 20, 2016

January 30. There are certain sounds invariably heard in warm and thawing days in winter, such as the crowing of cocks, the cawing of crows,  and sometimes the gobbling of turkeys. January 30, 1860

February 23. I have seen signs of the spring. February 23, 1857

March 2. We listen to the February cock-crowing and turkey-gobbling as to a first course, or prelude. March 2, 1859

March 19. I hear turkeys gobble. This too, I suppose, is a spring sound. March 19, 1858

March 20. For two or three days I have heard the gobbling of turkeys, the first spring sound, after the chickadees and hens, that I think of. March 20, 1856

March 22.  The phenomena of an average March . . . About twenty-nine migratory birds arrive (including hawks and crows), and two or three more utter their spring notes and sounds, as nuthatch and chickadee, turkeys, and woodpecker tapping. March 22, 1860

March 23. I spend a considerable portion of my time observing the habits of the wild animals, my brute neighbors. By their various movements and migrations they fetch the year about to me . . . But when I consider that the nobler animals have been exterminated here, — the cougar, panther, lynx, wolverene, wolf, bear, moose, deer, the beaver, the turkey, etc., etc., — I cannot but feel as if I lived in a tamed, and, as it were, emasculated country. March 23, 1856 

*****

See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau:I Have Seen 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
•  The crowing of cocks, the cawing of crows
• Ducks Afar, Sailing on the Meadow
• Frogs, and Turtles Stirring
• My greatcoat on my arm
• Greening Grasses and Sedges
• 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
• The Anxious Peep of the Early Robin
• The Crowing of Cocks, the Cawing of crows
• The Gobbling of Turkeys
• The Grackle Arrives
• The Hawks of March
• 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
• Walking without Gloves
• Woodpeckers Tapping

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: 

The gobbling of turkeys

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/HDTurkey