I would make a chart of our life,
know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.
Observe all kinds of coincidences,
as what kinds of birds come with what flowers.
Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852
They come with the storm
the falling and driving snow –
a flock of snowbirds.
February 13, 1853
One of these pigweeds
lasts the snow-birds all winter –
after every storm.
February 6. Pigweed and Roman wormwood are ragged as ever on a larger scale, and the butterweed as stiffly upright. February 6, 1857
February 10 I hear the faint metallic chirp of a tree sparrow in the yard from time to time, or perchance the mew of a linaria. It is worth the while to let some pigweed grow in your garden, if only to attract these winter visitors. It would be a pity to have these weeds burned in the fall. February 10, 1855
February 13 In the midst of the snow-storm on Sunday (to-day), I am called to window to see a dense flock of snow birds on and under the pigweed in the garden. February 13, 1853
February 13 One of these pigweeds in the yard lasts the snow-birds all winter, and after every new storm they re-visit it. How inexhaustible their granary! February 13, 1855
March 2 See a large flock of snow buntings, the white birds of the winter, rejoicing in the snow. I stand near a flock in an open field. They are trotting about briskly over the snow amid the weeds, —apparently pigweed and Roman wormwood, —as it were to keep their toes warm, hopping up to the weeds. March 2, 1858
July 10. The pigweed about seashore is remarkably white and mealy. July 10, 1855
July 19. In the cultivated ground the pigweed, butterweed, and Roman wormwood, and amaranth are now rank and conspicuous weeds. July 19, 1860
August 31. These weeds require cultivated ground, and Nature perseveres each year till she succeeds in producing a bountiful harvest by their seeds . . . Now that the potatoes are cared for, Nature is preparing a crop of chenopodium and Roman wormwood for the birds. August 31, 1859
September 26. The seeds of pigweed are yet apparently quite green. Maybe they are somewhat peculiar for hanging on all winter. September 26, 1858
January 2. I see, near the back road and railroad, a small flock of eight snow buntings feeding on the the seeds of the pigweed, picking them from the snow,-- apparently flat on the snow, their legs so short, -- and, when I approach, alighting on the rail fence. They are pretty black, with white wings and a brown crescent on their breasts. They have come with this deeper snow and colder weather. January 2, 1856
January 6. I see tree sparrows twittering and moving with a low creeping and jerking motion amid the chenopodium in a field, upon the snow, so chubby or puffed out on account of the cold that at first I took them for the arctic birds. January 6. 1858
January 15. Speaking of Roman wormwood springing up abundantly when a field which has been in grass for twenty years or more is plowed, Rice says that, if you carefully examine such a field before it is plowed, you will find very short and stinted specimens of wormwood and pigweed there, and remarkably full of seed too! January 15, 1861
January 19 At noon it is still a driving snow-storm, and a little flock of redpolls is busily picking the seeds of the pigweed in the garden. January 19, 1855
January 20. I see where snowbirds in troops have visited each withered chenopodium that rises above the snow in the yard — and some are large and bushlike — for its seeds, their well-filled granary now. There are a few tracks reaching from weed to weed, where some have run, but under the larger plants the snow is entirely trodden and blackened, proving that a large flock has been there and flown. January 20, 1853
See also:
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Birds
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Lesser Redpoll
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Tree Sparrow
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Snow Bunting
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Pigweed
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 © 2009-2025
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