To have the leisure to see the parallax of cows in a pasture.

October 5

Sunday. P. M. — To Hill and over the pastures westward. 

Sally Cummings and Mike Murray are out on the Hill collecting apples and nuts. Do they not rather belong to such children of nature than to those who have merely bought them with their money? There are few apples for them this year, however, and it is too early for walnuts (too late for hazelnuts). The grapes are generally gone, and their vines partly bare and yellowed, though without frost. 

I amuse myself on the hilltop with pulling to pieces and letting fly the now withered and dry pasture thistle tops. They have a much coarser pappus than the milkweeds. I am surprised, amid these perfectly withered and bleached thistles, to see one just freshly in flower. 

The autumnal dandelion is now comparatively scarce there. 

In the huckleberry pasture, by the fence of old barn boards, I notice many little pale-brown dome-shaped (puckered to a centre beneath) puff-balls, which emit their dust. When you pinch them, a smoke-like brown dust (snuff-colored) issues from the orifice at their top, just like smoke from a chimney. It is so fine and light that it rises into the air and is wafted away like smoke. They are low Oriental domes or mosques. Sometimes crowded together in nests, like a collection of humble cottages on the moor, in the coal pit or Numidian style; for there is suggested some humble hearth beneath, from which this smoke comes up, as it were the homes of slugs and crickets. 

They please me not a little by their resemblance to rude dome-shaped, turf-built cottages on the plain, wherein some humble but everlasting life is lived. Amid the low and withering grass or the stubble there they are gathered, and their smoke ascends between the legs of the herds and the traveller. I imagine a hearth and pot, and some snug but humble family passing its Sunday evening beneath each one. Some, when you press them harder, emit clear water — the relics of rain or dew — along with the dust, which last, how ever, has no affinity for it, but is quite dry and smoke like. 

I locate there at once all that is simple and admirable in human life. There is no virtue which their roofs exclude. I imagine with what contentment and faith I could come home to them at evening. I see some not yet ripe, still entire and rounded at top. When I break them open, they are found to be quite soggy, of a stringy white consistency, almost cream-like, riper and yellowish at top, where they will burst by and by. Many have holes eaten into them. On one I find a slug feeding, with a little hole beneath him, and a cricket has eaten out the whole inside of another in which he is housed. This before they are turned to dust. Large chocolate-colored ones have long since burst and are spread out wide like a shallow dish. 

Crickets are seen now moving slowly about in the paths, often with their heads only concealed in a burrow, as if looking out for winter quarters. I saw, on my return, a dozen crickets of various sizes gathered on an apple paring which I had dropped in the path when I came along. 

The sweet-briar rose hips are very handsome now, but these hips do not deserve to be coupled with haws as articles of food, even in extremities. They are very dry, hard, seedy, and unpalatable. I see some fresh-grown callitriche in some clear well-filled leafy pools which are commonly dry at this season.

The singular long pointed reddish bulbs in the axils of the Lysimachia stricta are one of the signs of the season, cool and late. 

It is well to find your employment and amusement in simple and homely things. These wear best and yield most. I think I would rather watch the motions of these cows in their pasture for a day, which I now see all headed one way and slowly advancing, — watch them and project their course carefully on a chart, and report all their behavior faithfully, — than wander to Europe or Asia and watch other motions there; for it is only ourselves that we report in either case, and perchance we shall report a more restless and worthless self in the latter case than in the first.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 5, 1856

Sally Cummings and Mike Murray are out on the Hill collecting apples and nuts. See October 23, 1857 ("Sal Cummings, a thorough countrywoman, conversant with nuts and berries, calls the soapwort gentian “blue vengeance,” mistaking the word. A masculine wild eyed woman of the fields. Somebody has her daguerreotype..")

I amuse myself on the hilltop with pulling to pieces and letting fly the now withered and dry pasture thistle tops . . . I am surprised . . . to see one just freshly in flower. See September 29, 1858 ("Let off some pasture thistle-down. One steadily rose from my hand, freighted with its seed, till it was several hundred feet high, and then passed out of sight . . .It may still be travelling when I am sleeping."); See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Thistle and Thistle-down

Long pointed reddish bulbs in the axils of the Lysimachia stricta are one of the signs of the season . . . October 16, 1853 ("The Lysimachia stricta, with its long bulb-lets in the axils, how green and fresh by the shore of the pond!")

I would rather watch the motions of these cows in their pasture for a day. See note to  July 5, 1853 ("Such a habit have cows in a pasture of moving forward while feeding . . .   I had to watch my opportunity to look between them.")

Surprised amid these

withered thistles to see one

freshly in flower.

 

A moist, misty, rain-threatening April day. Walden is still covered with ice.

April 16

I have not seen a tree sparrow, I think, since December. 

5.30 A. M. — To Pinxter Swamp over Hill. 

A little sunshine at the rising. I, standing by the river, see it first reflected from E. Wood’s windows before I can see the sun. 

Standing there, I hear that same stertorous note of a frog or two as was heard the 13th, apparently from quite across all this flood, and which I have so often observed before. What kind is it? It seems to come from the edge of the meadow, which has been recently left bare. Apparently this low sound can be heard very far over the water. 

The robins sing with a will now. What a burst of melody! It gurgles out of all conduits now; they are choked with it. There is such a tide and rush of song as when a river is straightened between two rocky walls. It seems as if the moming’s throat were not large enough to emit all this sound. 

The robin sings most before 6 o’clock now. I note where some suddenly cease their song, making a quite remarkable vacuum. 

As I walk along the bank of the Assabet, I hear the yeep yeep yeep yeeep yeeep yeep, or perhaps peop, of a fish hawk, repeated quite fast, but not so shrill and whistling as I think I have heard it, and directly I see his long curved wings undulating over Pinxter Swamp, now flooded. 

From the hilltop I see bare ground appearing in ridges here and there in the Assabet meadow.

A grass-bird, with a sort of spot on its breast, sings, here here hé, che che che, chit chit chit, t’ chip chip chip chip chip. The latter part especially fast. 

The F. juncorum says, phe phe phe phe ph-ph-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p, faster and faster; flies as I advance, but is heard distinctly still further off. 

Aprill 16, 2016

A moist, misty, rain-threatening April day. About noon it does mizzle a little. The robin sings throughout it. It is rather raw, tooth-achy weather. 

P. M. —Round Walden. 

The Stellaria media is abundantly out. I did not look for it early, it was so snowy. It evidently blossomed as soon after the 2d of April—when I may say the snow began to go off in earnest—as possible.  

The shepherd’s-purse, too, is well out, three or four inches high, and may have been some days at least.

Cheney’s elm shows stamens on the warm side pretty numerously. Probably that at Lee’s Cliff a little earlier.

Plowing and planting are now going on commonly. As I go down the railroad, I see two or three teams in the fields. Frost appears to be out of most soil. 

I see a pine warbler, much less yellow than the last, searching about the needles of the pitch and white pine. Its note is somewhat shorter, -- a very rapid and continuous trill or jingle which I remind myself of by wetter wetter wetter wetter wet’, emphasizing the last syllable. 

Walden is still covered with ice, which is still darker green and more like water than before. A large tract in the middle is of a darker shade and particularly like water. Mr. Emerson told me yesterday that there was a large tract of water in the middle! This ice trembles like a batter for a rod around when I throw a stone on to it. One as big as my fist, thrown high, goes through. It appears to be three or four inches thick. It extends quite to the shore on the north side - and is there met by snow. 

The needles of the pines still show where they were pressed down by the great burden of snow last winter. I see a maple twig eaten off by a rabbit four and a quarter feet from the ground, showing how high the snow was there. 

Golden saxifrage at Hubbard’s Close. 

Frogs sit round Callitriche Pool, where the tin is cast. We have waste places — pools and brooks, etc., -— where to cast tin, iron, slag, crockery, etc. No doubt the Romans and Ninevites had such places. To what a perfect system this world is reduced! A place for everything and everything in its place!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 16, 1856

I have not seen a tree sparrow, I think, since December. See  March 25, 1856 ("There have been few if any small migratory birds the past winter. I have not seen a tree sparrow, nuthatch, creeper, nor more than one redpoll since Christmas. They probably went further south.") Compare April 1, 1854 ("The tree sparrows, hyemalis, and song sparrows are particularly lively and musical in the yard this rainy and truly April day. The air rings with them. ); April 1, 1857 ("Hear a phoebe, and this morning the tree sparrows sing very sweetly about Keyes’s arbor-vitae and Cheney’s pines and apple trees"); April 4, 1853 ("I hear the twitter of tree sparrows from fences and shrubs in the yard and from alders by meadows and the riverside every day.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Tree Sparrow

 I hear that same stertorous note of a frog or two as was heard the 13th . . . What kind is it?  See April 13, 1856 ("As I go by the Andromeda Ponds, I hear the tut tut of a few croaking frogs, and at Well Meadow I hear once or twice a prolonged stertorous sound, as from river meadows a little later usually, which is undoubtedly made by a different frog from the first.").  March 31, 1857 ("To-day both croakers and peepers are pretty numerously heard, and I hear one faint stertorous (bullfrog-like ??) sound on the river meadow."); April 3, 1858 ("They were the R. halecina.. . .Their note is a hard dry tut tut tut tut, not at all ringing like the toad’s. . .; and from time to time one makes that faint somewhat bullfrog-like er er er. Both these sounds, then, are made by one frog, . . . This, I think, is the first frog sound I have heard from the river meadows or anywhere, except the croaking leaf-pool frogs and the hylodes" );   April 10, 1859 ("Hear the first stuttering frog croak — probably halecina — in the last Cassandra Pond.");  April 7, 1860 ("This is the Rana halecina day, — awakening of the meadows.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The first frogs to begin calling and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  the Leopard Frog (Rana Halecina) in Spring

The robins sing with a will now. The robin sings most before 6 o’clock now . . . About noon it does mizzle a little. The robin sings throughout it. See April 16, 1855 (The robins, etc., blackbirds, song sparrows sing now on all hands just before sunrise, perhaps quite as generally as at any season""); April 13, 1852 ("The robin is the only bird as yet that makes a business of singing, steadily singing, — sings continuously out of pure joy and melody of soul."); April 21, 1852 ("The robins sing through the ceaseless rain . . . It is a pure, immortal melody . . . I have not this season heard more robins sing than this rainy day.") See also  March 8, 1855 ("This sound reminds me of rainy, misty April days in past years.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Robins in Spring

I hear the yeep yeep yeep yeeep yeeep yeep, or perhaps peop, of a fish hawk . . . and directlyI see his long curved wings undulating over Pinxter Swamp, now flooded. See April 14, 1856 ("It flies quite low, surveying the water, in an undulating, buoyant manner, like a marsh hawk, or still more a. nighthawk, with its long curved wings.") See also  April 15, 1855 ("When he launches off, he utters a clear whistling note, — phe phe, phe phe, phe phe, — . . .  and we follow him with our eyes till we can only see faintly his undulating wings against the sky in the western horizon.") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Osprey (Fish Hawk)

The F. juncorum says, phe phe phe phe ph-ph-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p, faster and faster; flies as I advance, but is heard distinctly still further off. See  April 13, 1854 ("hear the F. juncorum, -- phẽ- phẽ- phẽ- phẽ- phẽ-, pher-phẽ-ē-ē-ē-ē-ē-ē-ē-ē. How . . . clear and distinct, “like a spoon in a cup,” the last part very fast and ringing"); April 27, 1852 ("Heard the field or rush sparrow this morning (Fringilla juncorum), George Minott's "huckleberry-bird." . . .sounding like phe, phe, phe, pher-pher-tw-tw-tw-t-t-t-t, — the first three slow and loud, the next two syllables quicker, and the last part quicker and quicker, becoming a clear, sonorous trill or rattle, like a spoon in a saucer") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Field Sparrow

A grass-bird, with a sort of spot on its breast, sings, here here hé, che che che, chit chit chit, t’ chip chip chip chip chip.  See  April 13, 1856 ("I hear a bay-wing on the railroad fence sing, the rhythm somewhat like, char char (or here here), che che, chip chip chip (fast), chitter chitter chitter chit (very fast and jingling), tchea tchea (jinglingly)") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Bay-Wing Sparrow

The Stellaria media is abundantly out . . .The shepherd’s-purse, too, is well out. See April 2, 1856 ("Some of the earliest plants are now not started because covered with snow, as the stellaria and shepherd’s purse.”); see also  March 5, 1860 ("Chickweed and shepherd's-purse in bloom in C.'s garden, and probably all winter, or each month."); March 22, 1860 ("Stellaria media and shepherd's-purse bloom;");   April 14, 1855 ("Most of the stellaria has been winter-killed, but I find a few flowers on a protected and still green sprig, probably not blossomed long.”); April 25, 1855 ("Shepherd’s-purse will bloom to-day”); April 26, 1852 ("Chickweed (Stellaria media), naturalized, shows its humble star-like white flowers now")

Cheney’s elm shows stamens on the warm side pretty numerously. Probably that at Lee’s Cliff a little earlier. See T April 15, 1852 ("he broad flat brown buds on Mr. Cheney's elm, containing twenty or thirty yellowish-green threads, surmounted with little brownish-mulberry cups, which contain the stamens and the two styles, -- these are just expanding or blossoming now."); April 17, 1855 (“The flowers of the common elm at Lee’s are now loose and dangling, apparently well out a day or two in advance of Cheney’s, but I see no pollen.”)

I see a pine warbler, much less yellow than the last.  See April 9, 1856 ("Its bright yellow or golden throat and breast, etc., are conspicuous at this season.”); see also  April 16, 1857 (" Meanwhile I hear the note of the pine warbler.")April 15, 1855 ("In the meanwhile, as we steal through the woods, we hear the pleasing note of the pine warbler, bringing back warmer weather"); April 15, 1859 (" The warm pine woods are all alive this afternoon with the jingle of the pine warbler, the for the most part invisible minstrel."); April 15, 1860 (" At Conantum pitch pines hear the first pine warbler") and  A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Pine Warbler 

Walden is still covered with ice, which is still darker green and more like water than before.  See April 13, 1856 ("Dark-green clear ice . . . quite hard still. At a little distance you would mistake it for water; further off still . . . it is blue as in summer.“). Only in 1852 did Walden’s ice last past April 16th. See Walden ("In 1845 Walden was first completely open on the 1st of April; in '46, the 25th of March; in '47, the 8th of April; in '51, the 28th of March; in '52, the 18th of April; in '53, the 23rd of March; in '54, about the 7th of April.) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Ice-Out

Callitriche Pool, where the tin is cast.  See April 16, 1855 ("This pool dries up in summer. The very pools, the receptacles of all kinds of rubbish, now, soon after the ice has melted, so transparent and of glassy smoothness and full of animal and vegetable life, are interesting and beautiful objects.”)

A rain-threatening

and misty, moist April day –

robins sing throughout.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Walden is still covered with ice.

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 ©  2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/HDT-560416

A quarter moon in the sky

follows us  back through the old growth trees

coming home after our walk at dusk, 

orange sky in the west,

to end a perfect day,

we hear the first hermit thrush,.

 astonishing.

April 16, 2016 zphx

Summer yellow bird; young red maples and yellow birch: a yellow redpoll still.

May 10

Canada plum opens petals to-day and leafs. Domestic plum only leafs. 

Summer yellowbird. 

Young red maples are generally later to leaf than young sugar maples; hardly began before yesterday; and large white are not so forward as young sugar. 

Muhlenberg’s willow leafed four or five days. 

Young yellow birch leaf, say two days. 

In Callitriche Pool hear a bullfrog belch or dump. Is that a proserpinaca with finely divided leaves in this pool? 

Hear a tree-toad, — or, maybe, a woodpecker tapping. 

A juncus in Hubbard’s Close two feet high and big as a crow’s quill. 

Round-leafed cornel leaf to-morrow; also pignut leaf to-day in some places. 

The beech leaf-buds are more backward, apparently, than chestnut, but some leaves are expanding with the flower-buds, which are now opened so as to show the separate buds. 

Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum, early blueberry, in bloom; probably may shed pollen. 

A yellow redpoll still.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 10, 1855

Canada plum opens petals to-day and leafs. See May 10, 1852 ("The Canada (?) (N. Brooks's) plum in bloom, and a cherry tree."). May 10, 1856 ("Mr. Prichard’s Canada plum will open as soon as it is fair weather.") See also May 5, 1855 ("Canada plum and cultivated cherry and Missouri currant look as if they would bloom to-morrow. "); May 12,1856 ("Prichard’s Canada plum will probably bloom to-morrow.”)

Summer yellowbird. See. w. May 10, 1853 ("At this season the traveller passes through a golden gate on causeways where these willows are planted, as if he were approaching the entrance to Fairyland; and there will surely be found the yellowbird, and already from a distance is heard his note, a tche tche tche tcha tchar tcha, — ah, willow, willo"); May 10, 1858 ("For some days the Salix alba have shown their yellow wreaths here and there, suggesting the coming of the yellowbird, and now they are alive with them. ")See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Summer Yellowbird

Young red maples are generally later to leaf than young sugar maples; hardly began before yesterday. See  May 3, 1855 ("Young red maple leaf to-morrow");  May 4, 1855 ("Red maple blossoms begin to cover ground."); May 6, 1853 (" There are pretty large leaves on the young red maples (which have no flowers), disposed crosswise, as well as on the sugar maple, but not so with larger flowering maples."); May 6, 1855 ("The young sugar maples leafing are more conspicuous now than any maples.”) ; May 6, 1859 ("Young red maples suddenly bursting into leaf are very conspicuous now in the woods") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Spring Leaf-Out and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Maple

Young yellow birch leaf, say two days.  See May 12, 1853 ("The yellow birch is considerably the most forward, its flowers, not, perhaps, its leaves, which last are only expanded on young trees, though here is one large one leaved out."); May 13, 1855 ("Only a part of the yellow birches are leafing, but not yet generally the large ones. I notice no catkins");   May 17, 1854 ("The birches burst out suddenly into leaf and make a great show. It is the first to clothe large tracts of deciduous woodlands with green, and perchance it marks an epoch in the season, the transition decidedly and generally from bare twigs to leaves . . . The light reflected from their tender yellowish green is like sunlight."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau the Yellow Birch

In Callitriche Pool hear a bullfrog belch. See  May 10, 1858 ("I hear in several places the low dumping notes of awakened bullfrogs . . . It is a certain revelation and anticipation of the livelong summer to come. It gives leave to the corn to grow and to the heavens to thunder and lighten.") See also April 16, 1856 ("Frogs sit round Callitriche Pool, where the tin is cast. We have waste places — pools and brooks, etc., -— where to cast tin, iron, slag, crockery, etc."); April 16, 1855 ("This pool dries up in summer. The very pools, the receptacles of all kinds of rubbish, now, soon after the ice has melted, so transparent and of glassy smoothness and full of animal and vegetable life, are interesting and beautiful objects.”);  May 25, 1852 (" I hear the first troonk of a bullfrog")   May 25, 1855 ("Heard the first regular bullfrog’s trump on the 18th; none since."); The different frogs mark the seasons pretty well,- the peeping hyla, the dreaming frog, and the bullfrog .June 13, 1851 (" I believe that all may be heard at last occasionally together. The bullfrog belongs to summer. ") and A Book of the Seasons,by Henry Thoreau, The Bullfrog in Spring

Hear a tree-toad, — or, maybe, a woodpecker tapping. See April 26, 1854 ("Did I hear a tree toad to-day?"); May 6, 1858 ("I heard from time to time a new note from my Rana palustris in the firkin in my chamber. . . . I recognized it as a sound I hear along the riverside . . . perhaps even like the tapping of a woodpecker. Yes, quite like it thus close by.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Tree-toad

Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum, early blueberry, in bloom; probably may shed pollen. See May 10, 1856 ("Some Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum out in Cut woods; maybe a day, as it has rained steadily the last two days. It seems to bloom with or immediately after the bear-berry."); See also  May 5, 1860 ("Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum flowers against rocks, not long . . . Hear of bear-berry well out the 29th of April at Cliffs, and there probably some days.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Blueberries

A yellow redpoll still. See April 27, 1854 ("The yellow redpolls still numerous; sing chill lill lill lill lill lill. "); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow Redpoll ( Palm) Warbler

May 10.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, May 10

Summer yellowbird. 

Young yellow birch leaf two days –

yellow redpoll still.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A yellow redpoll still.

                                     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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550510

The mountains, after this our warmest day as yet, have a peculiar soft mantle of blue haze.

April 16. 

P. M. — To Flint’s Pond. 

A perfectly clear and very warm day, a little warmer than the 31st of March or any yet, and I have not got far before, for the first time, I regret that I wore my greatcoat. 

Noticed the first wasp, and many cicindelae on a sandy place. Have probably seen the latter before in the air, but this warmth brings them out in numbers.

The gray of Hubbard’s oaks looks drier and more like summer, and it is now drier walking, the frost in most places wholly out. I got so near a grass-bird as to see the narrow circle of white round the eye. 

The spots on the Emys guttata, in a still, warm leafy-paved ditch which dries up, are exceedingly bright now. Does it last? 

At Callitriche Pool (I see no flowers on it), I see what looks like minnows an inch long, with a remarkably forked tail—fin; probably larvae of dragon-flies. The eyed head conspicuous, and something like a large dorsal fin. They dart about in this warm pool and rest at different angles with the horizon. 

The water ranunculus was very forward here. This pool dries up in summer. The very pools, the receptacles of all kinds of rubbish, now, soon after the ice has melted, so transparent and of glassy smoothness and full of animal and vegetable life, are interesting and beautiful objects. 

Stow’s cold pond-hole is still full of ice though partly submerged, —the only pool in this state that I see. 

The orange-copper vanessa, middle-sized, is out, and a great many of the large buff-edged are fluttering over the leaves in wood-paths this warm afternoon. 

I am obliged to carry my great coat on my arm. 

A striped snake rustles down a dry open hillside where the withered grass is long. 

I cannot dig to the nest of the deer mouse in Britton’s Hollow, because of the frost about six inches beneath the surface. (Yet, though I have seen no plowing in fields, the surveyors plowed in the road on the 14th.) As far as I dug, their galleries appeared at first to be lined with a sort of membrane, which I found was the bark or skin of roots of the right size, their galleries taking the place of the decayed wood. An oak stump. 

At Flint’s, sitting on the rock, we see a great many ducks, mostly sheldrakes, on the pond, which will hardly abide us within half a mile. With the glass I see by their reddish heads that all of one party ——the main body—are females. 

You see little more than their heads at a distance and not much white but on their throats, perchance. When they fly, they look black and white, but not so large nor with that brilliant contrast of black and white which the male exhibits. In another direction is a male by himself, conspicuous, perhaps several. 

Anon alights near us a flock of golden-eyes — surely, with their great black (looking) heads and a white patch on the side; short much clear black, contrasting with much clear white. Their heads and bills look ludicrously short and parrot-like after the others. 

Our presence and a boat party on the pond at last drives nearly all the ducks into the deep easterly cove. We steal down on them carefully through the woods, at last crawling on our bellies, with great patience, till at last we find ourselves within seven or eight rods —as I measure afterward —of the great body of them, and watch them for twenty or thirty minutes with the glass through a screen of cat-briar, alders, etc. 

There are twelve female sheldrakes close together, and, nearest us, within two rods of the shore, where it is very shallow, two or more constantly moving about within about the diameter of a rod and keeping watch while the rest are trying to sleep, — to catch a nap with their heads in their backs; but from time to time one will wake up enough to plume himself. 

It seems as if they must have been broken of their sleep and were trying to make it up, having an arduous journey before them, for we had seen them all disturbed and on the wing within half an hour. 

They are headed various ways. Now and then they seem to see or hear or smell us, and utter a low note of alarm, something like the note of a tree-toad, but very faint, or perhaps a little more wiry and like that of pigeons, but the sleepers hardly lift their heads for it. How fit that this note of alarm should be made to resemble the croaking of a frog and so not betray them to the gunners! 

They appear to sink about midway in the water, and their heads are all a rich reddish brown, their throats white. Now and then one of the watchmen lifts his head and turns his bill directly upward, showing his white throat. 

There are some black or dusky ducks in company with them at first, apparently about as large as they, but more alarmed. Their throats look straw colored, somewhat like a bittern’s, and I see their shovel bills. These soon sail further off. 

At last we arise and rush to the shore within three rods of them, and they rise up with a din, — twenty-six mergansers (I think all females), ten black ducks, —and five golden-eyes from a little further off, also another still more distant flock of one of these kinds.

The black ducks alone utter a sound, their usual hoarse quack. They all fly in loose array, but the three kinds in separate flocks. We are surprised to find ourselves looking on a company of birds devoted to slumber after the alarm and activity we just witnessed. 

Returning, at Goose Pond, which many water bugs (gyrinus) were now dimpling, we scare up two black ducks. The shore is strewn with much fresh eel-grass and the fine, now short eriocaulon with its white roots, apparently all pulled up by them an drifted in.

The spearer’s light to-night, and, after dark, the sound of geese honking all together very low over the houses and apparently about to settle on the Lee meadow. 

Have not noticed fox-colored sparrows since April 13th. 

I am startled sometimes these mornings to hear the sound of doves alighting on the roof just over my head; they come down so hard upon it, as if one had thrown a heavy stick on to it, and I wonder it does not injure their organizations. Their legs must be cushioned in their sockets to save them from the shock? 

When we reach Britton’s clearing on our return this afternoon, at sunset, the mountains, after this our warmest day as yet, have a peculiar soft mantle of blue haze, pale blue as a blue heron, ushering in the long series of summer sunsets, and we are glad that we stayed out so late and feel no need to go home now in a hurry.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 16, 1855

[A] little warmer than the 31st of March or any yet, and I have not got far before, for the first time, I regret that I wore my greatcoat. See March 31, 1855 (“I am uncomfortably warm, gradually unbutton both my coats, and wish that I had left the outside one at home.”)

At Flint’s, sitting on the rock, we see a great many ducks, mostly sheldrakes, on the pond. See April 16, 1859 ("Sheldrakes yet on Walden."); See also  April 22, 1855 ("Goosanders, . . .can get out of sight about as well by diving as by flying. At a distance you see only the male, alternately diving and sailing, when the female may be all the while by his side") Also. Henry Thoreau, A Book of the Seasons, The Sheldrake (Merganser, Goosander)

A striped snake rustles down a dry open hillside where the withered grass is long. See April 16, 1861("Horace Mann says that he killed a bullfrog which had swallowed and contained a common striped snake.") See also April 2, 1858 (" No doubt on almost every such warm bank now you will find a snake lying out"); April 9, 1856 ("saw a striped snake, which probably I had scared into the water from the warm railroad bank”); April 20, 1854 ("A striped snake on a warm, sunny bank.");  May 19, 1856 (‘"a small striped snake in the act of swallowing a Rana palustris. . .”); November 1, 1856 (“A striped snake basks in the sun amid dry leaves.”). Also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Striped Snake

We are glad that we stayed out so late and feel no need to go home now in a hurry. See June 14, 1853 ("Home is farther away than ever. Here is home; the beauty of the world impresses you"); May 23, 1853 (" A certain lateness in the sound, pleasing to hear . . . releases me from the obligation to return in any particular season. I have passed the Rubicon of staying out. I have said to myself, that way is not homeward; I will wander further from what I have called my home — to the home which is forever inviting me. In such an hour the freedom of the woods is offered me,"); June 13, 1854 ("When I have stayed out thus late many miles from home, and have heard a cricket beginning to chirp louder near me in the grass I have felt that I was not far from home after all, -- began to be weaned from my village home.")

Butterflies flutter

over the leaves in wood-paths

this warm afternoon.

A striped snake rustles

down a dry open hillside

in the withered grass.

Pale blue mountain haze

ushers in summer sunsets –

Our warmest day yet

Glad we stayed out late --

we feel no need now to go

home in a hurry.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A peculiar soft mantle of blue haze.

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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