A Boook of the Seasons, Signs of the Spring: Woodpeckers Tapping

 

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

Henry Thoreau, March 17, 1857

The sound of the woodpecker tapping

 is as much a spring note as any 

these mornings.

March 11, 1859 

A woodpecker

drums and echoes

across the still meadow.

Gary Snyder, Manzanita

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

March 7.  I come out to hear a spring bird, the ground generally covered with snow yet and the channel of the river only partly open.  On the Hill I hear first the tapping of a small woodpecker.  March 7, 1859

March 11. But methinks the sound of the woodpecker tapping is as much a spring note as any these mornings; it echoes peculiarly in the air of a spring morning.  March 11, 1859

March 13. I hear the rapid tapping of the woodpecker from over the water.  March 13, 1855

March 15. I hear that peculiar, interesting loud hollow tapping of a woodpecker from over the water.  March 15, 1854

March 18. The tapping of the woodpecker about this time.  March 18, 1853

March 18. [Goodwin] Says that when you hear a woodpecker’s rat-tat-tat-tat-tat on a dead tree it is a sign of rain.  March 18, 1857

March 22. The tapping of the woodpecker, rat-tat-tat, knocking at the door of some sluggish grub to tell him that the spring has arrived, and his fate, this is one of the season sounds, calling the roll of birds and insects, the reveille.  March 22, 1853

March 22. The jays scream. I hear the downy woodpecker’s rapid tapping and my first distinct spring note (phe-be) of the chickadee.  March 22, 1855

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, while apparently the snow bunting, lesser redpoll, shrike, and doubtless several more — as owls, crossbills (?) — leave us, and woodcocks and hawks begin to lay.  March 22, 1860

*****

See also 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
• Geese Overhead
• 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)
• The Woodchuck Ventures Out
• Walking without Gloves
• Woodpeckers Tapping

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,

Signs of the Spring, woodpeckers tapping

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

tinyurl.com/HDTtapping