Saturday, April 1, 2023

A Book of the Seasons: the Phoebe arrives in Early Spring


For the first time I perceive this spring that the year is a circle.  
I would make a chart of our life, 
know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.
Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

My first phoebe flirts 
its tail and sings pre vit, pre 
vit, pre vit, pre-VEE 
April 1, 1859



March 16The first phoebe near the water is heard.  March 16, 1854

March 27.  C. saw a phoebe, i e. pewee, the 25th. March 27, 1858

March 29. Hear a phoebe early in the morning over the street . . .  see five or six painted turtles in the sun, – probably some were out yesterday, — and afterward, along a ditch just east of the pine hill near the river, a great many more, as many as twenty within a rod . . .  They seem to come out into the sun about the time the phoebe is heard over the water.  March 29, 1858

March 30. Spring is already upon us . . . The pewee is heard, and the lark. March 30, 1851

March 30. Saw a pewee from the railroad causeway.  March 30, 1852

March 31 The pewee sings in earnest, the first I have heard; and at even I hear the first real robin's song.  March 31, 1860

April 1. Up Assabet . . . Hear a phoebe. April 1, 1857

April 1.  At the Pokelogan up the Assabet, I see my first phoebe, the mild bird. It flirts its tail and sings pre vit, pre vit, pre vit, pre vit incessantly, as it sits over the water, and then at last, rising on the last syllable, says pre-VEE, as if insisting on that with peculiar emphasis. April 1, 1859

April 2. For a long distance, as we paddle up the river, we hear the two-stanza'd lay of the pewee on the shore, - pee-wet, pee-wee, etc. Those are the two obvious facts to eye and ear, the river and the pewee. April 2, 1852

April 2. There are many fuzzy gnats now in the air . . . not, perhaps, so thick as they will be, but they are suddenly much thicker than they were, and perhaps their presence affects the arrival of the phoebe, which, I suspect, feeds on them. April 2, 1859

April 5. I have noticed the few phoebes, not to mention other birds, mostly near the river. Is it not because of the greater abundance of insects there, those early moths or ephemeræ? April 5, 1853

April 5.The snipe too, then, like crows, robins, blackbirds, and hens, is found near the waterside . . .  and there too especially are heard the song and tree sparrows and pewees. April 5, 1855

April 6 Just beyond Wood’s Bridge, I hear the pewee. With what confidence after the lapse of many months, I come out to this waterside, some warm and pleasant spring morning, and, listening, hear, from farther or nearer, through the still concave of the air, the note of the first pewee! If there is one within half a mile, it will be here, and I shall be sure to hear its simple notes from those trees, borne over the water. April 6, 1856 

April 7.  At the Hubbard Bridge, we hear the incessant note of the phoebe,— pevet, pe-e-vet, pevee’ —its innocent, somewhat impatient call. April 7, 1856

April 9 Hear a phoebe near the river. April 9, 1855

April 13 Pewee days and April showers . . . First shad caught at Haverhill to-day. Journal, April 13, 1853

April 15 Robins sing now at 10 A. M. as in the morning, and the Phoebe.  April 15, 1855


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/HDTphoebe

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