A Book of the Seasons: The Cedar Swamps

 I think I could write a poem

to be called Concord.

For argument I should have

the River, the Woods,

the Ponds, the Hills, the Fields,

the Swamps and Meadows . . .

Henry Thoreau,  

September 4, 1841

The white cedar swamp –

reddish staminate flowers

ready to open.

April 23, 1856

Go to new trees

like cedars and firs 

and you hear new birds.

April 24, 1854 

April 23. P.M. — To Cedar Swamp via Assabet. Warm and pretty still. Even the riversides are quiet at this hour (3 P.M.) as in summer; the birds are neither seen nor heard. The anthers of the larch are conspicuous, but I see no pollen. White cedar to-morrow. April 23, 1855 

April 23, 2025

April 23. P. M. — Up Assabet to white cedars . . . The white cedar swamp consists of hummocks, now surrounded by water, where you go jumping from one to another. The fans are now dotted with the minute reddish staminate flowers, ready to open. The skunk cabbage leaf has expanded in one open place there; so it is at least as early as the hellebore of yesterday. April 23, 1856

April 24. P. M. — Up Assabet, and thence to Cedar Swamp. . .The white cedar female blossoms are open. Hear amid the white cedars the fine, clear singing warbler of yesterday, whose harsh note I may have heard the 18th,very clear and fast. Go to new trees, like cedars and firs, and you hear new birds.  I have also observed that the early birds are about the early trees, like maples, alders, willows, elms, etc.  New plant (Racemed andromeda)  flower-budded at Cedar Swamp amid the high blueberry, panicled andromeda, clethra, etc. – upright dense racemes of reddish flower-buds on reddish terminal shoots. April 24, 1854 

April 24. P. M. — To Flint’s Pond . . . I can find no red cedar in bloom, but it will undoubtedly shed pollen to-morrow. It is on the point of it. I am not sure that the white cedar is any earlier. The sprigs of red cedar, now full of the buff-colored staminate flowers, like fruit, are very rich. The next day they shed an abundance of pollen in the house. It is a clear buff color, while that of the white cedar is very different, being a faint salmon. It would be very pleasant to make a collection of these powders, – like dry ground paints. They would be the right kind of chemicals to have.  April 24, 1855 

April 25. The red cedar has fairly begun to-day; maybe the first yesterday. Put the red yesterday and the white to-day. April 25, 1854

April 26. The white cedar gathered the 23d does not shed pollen in house till to-day, and I doubt if it will in swamp before to-morrow.

April 26, 1856 

April 26. P. M. — Up Assabet to White Cedar Swamp . . .The white cedar is apparently just out. The higher up the tree, the earlier. April 26, 1857 

April 29. P. M. — To Cedar Swamp . . . The white cedar now sheds pollen abundantly. Many flowers are effete, though many are not open. Probably it began as much as three days ago. I strike a twig, and its peculiar pinkish pollen fills the air. Sat on the knoll in the swamp, now laid bare. How pretty a red maple in bloom (they are now in prime), seen in the sun against a pine wood, like these little ones in the swamp against the neighboring wood, they are so light and ethereal, not a heavy mass of color impeding the passage of the light, and they are of so cheerful and lively a color . . . A pigeon woodpecker alights on a dead cedar top near me. Its cackle, thus near, sounds like eh eh eh eh eh, etc., rapidly and emphatically repeated. Some birch sprouts in the swamp are leafed as much as any shrub or tree.  April 29, 1856

May 1. Hear a golden-crested* wren at Cedar Swamp. May 1, 1854

May 4. P. M. — To Cedar Swamp via Assabet. In the Cedar Swamp Andromeda calyculata abundantly out; how long? Viburnum nudum leafing. Smilacina trifolia recently up; will apparently open in ten or twelve days. May 4, 1856

May 29. P. M. — To Cedar Swamp by Assabet. The white maple keys have begun to fall and float down the stream like the wings of great insects. May 29, 1854

June 3.  P. M. — To White Cedar Swamp . . .The racemed andromeda (Leucothoe) has been partly killed, — the extremities of the twigs, — so that its racemes are imperfect, the lower parts only green. It is not quite out; probably is later for this injury. The ground of the cedar swamp, where it has been burnt over and sprouts, etc., have sprung up again, is covered with the Marchantia polymorpha. Now shows its starlike or umbrella-shaped fertile flowers and its shield-shaped sterile ones. It is a very rank and wild- looking vegetation, forming the cuticle of the swamp's foundation. June 3, 1857

June 8.  P. M. -— To Cedar Swamp . . . I find no Andromeda racemosa in flower. It is dead at top and slightly leafed below. Was it the severe winter, or cutting off the protecting evergreens?. . . At Cedar Swamp, saw the pe-pe catching flies like a wood pewee, darting from its perch on a dead cedar twig from time to time and returning to it. It appeared to have a black crown with some crest, yellowish (?) bill, gray-brown back, black tail, two faint whitish bars on wings, a dirty cream-white throat, and a gray or ash white breast and beneath, whitest in middle. June 8, 1856

June 10. We continued on, round the head of “Cedar Swamp,” and may say that we drank at the source of it or of Saw Mill Brook, where a spring is conducted through a hollow log to a tub for cattle. . . .What shall this great wild tract over which we strolled be called? Many farmers have pastures there, and wood-lots, and orchards. It consists mainly of rocky pastures. It contains what I call the Boulder Field, the Yellow Birch Swamp, the Black Birch Hill, the Laurel Pasture, the Hog-Pasture, the White Pine Grove, the Easterbrooks Place, the Old Lime-Kiln, the Lime Quarries, Spruce Swamp, the Ermine Weasel Woods; also the Oak Meadows, the Cedar Swamp, the Kibbe Place, and the old place northwest of Brooks Clark‘s. Ponkawtasset bounds it on the south. There are a few frog-ponds and an old mill-pond within it, and Bateman‘s Pond on its edge. What shall the whole be called? June 10, 1853

November 3.  P. M. — To Annursnack . . . Returning, I see at the very northwest end of the White Cedar Swamp a little elder, still quite leafy and green, near the path on the edge of the swamp. Its leafets are commonly nine, and the lower two or more are commonly divided. This seemed peculiarly downy beneath, even “sub-pubescent,” as Bigelow describes the Sambucus pubens to be. Compare it with the common. Also by it is Viburnum nudum, still quite fresh and green, the slender shoots from starting plants very erect and straight. The lower leaves of the water andromeda are now red, and the lambkill leaves are drooping (is it more than before?) and purplish from the effect of frost in low swamps like this.   November 3, 1858

November 14. Went through the white cedar swamp. There are white cedars, larch (now bare), spruce, etc.; cedars two feet through, the only ones I know in Concord. It was here were cut the cedar posts which Alcott put into Emerson's summer-house. They could not be spared even for that. It is a stout tree here, tapering with singular abruptness. Its small flattish leaves, dispersed crosswise and at other or different angles with each other, give it a peculiarly light, fantastic look. Myriads of little ones are springing in the more open parts of the swamp. They are turned a reddish green now. The large trees have a very rough bark, regularly furrowed perpendicularly, and a bright-yellow resin between the furrows. I find that the inner bark makes a good lye. Is this used by the Indians? Methinks these are flower-buds which are formed at the ends of the leafets and will open early in the spring. This swamp must be visited in midsummer. You see great shelf-shaped fungi, handsomely buttressed and perfectly horizontal , on the under side of slanting dead trees, at different stages one above another. November 14, 1853

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cedar Swamps

 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

 

According to Thoreau Place Names "Cedar Swamp" is a large swampt hat straddles the notrhern boundary between Concord and Carlisle, with the southern portion in what Thoreau called "Easterbrook Country.  See June 10, 1853. A distinct "White Cedar Swamp" likely was a swampy area now a pond about 400 meters due north of the former residence of George M. Barrett on Mill Road right where College Road starts. "Gleason misplaces Cedar Swamp somewhat on his map placing it in a wetland about 500 meters northeast of the pond/ex-swamp.

 Note. Thoreau  misidentified the  the ruby-crowned as the golden-crowned wren  He was put in doubt when  he saw a red crest on what he had been calling the golden-crested wren, and did not truly identify a golden-crested wren until  Christmas  1859. See note to December 25, 1859

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-cedar

There are now but few bright leaves to be seen.

October 28

Cattle coming down from up country. 

P. M. — Up Assabet to Cedar Swamp. 

Here is an Indian-summer day. Not so warm, indeed, as the 19th and 20th, but warm enough for pleasure. 

The majority of the white maples are bare, but others are still thickly leaved the leaves being a greenish yellow. It appears, then, that they hold their leaves longer than our other maples, or most trees. The majority of them do not acquire a bright tint at all, and, though interesting for their early summer blush, their autumnal colors are not remarkable. 

The dogwood on the island is perhaps in its prime, — a distinct scarlet, with half of the leaves green in this case. Apparently none have fallen. I see yet also some Cornus sericea bushes with leaves turned a clear dark but dull red, rather handsome. 

Some large red oaks are still as bright as ever, and that is here a brownish yellow, with leaves partly withered; and some are already quite bare.

Swamp white oak withers apparently with the white. Some of both are still partly greenish, while others of both are bare. 

How handsome the great red oak acorns now! I stand under the tree on Emerson’s lot. They are still falling. I heard one fall into the water as I approached, and thought that a musquash had plunged. They strew the ground and the bottom of the river thickly, and while I stand here I hear one strike the boughs with force as it comes down, and drop into the water. The part that was covered by the cup is whitish-woolly. How munificent is Nature to create this profusion of wild fruit, as it were merely to gratify our eyes! Though inedible they are more wholesome to my immortal part, and stand by me longer, than the fruits which I eat. If they had been plums or chestnuts I should have eaten them on the spot and probably forgotten them. They would have afforded only a momentary gratification, but being acorns, I remember, and as it were feed on, them still. They are untasted fruits forever in store for me. I know not of their flavor as yet. That is postponed to some still unimagined winter evening. These which we admire but do not eat are nuts of the gods. When time is no more we shall crack them. I cannot help liking them better than horse-chestnuts, which are of a similar color, not only because they are of a much handsomer form, but because they are indigenous. What hale, plump fellows they are! They can afford not to be useful to me, nor to know me or be known by me. They go their way, I go mine, and it turns out that sometimes I go after them. 

The hemlock is in the midst of its fall, and the leaves strew the ground like grain. They are inconspicuous on the tree.

The Populus grandidentata leaves are not all fallen yet. This, then, is late to lose its leaves, later, rather, than the sugar maple. Its leaves are large and conspicuous on the ground, and from their freshness make a great show there. It is later to fall than the tremuliformic, as it was later to bloom. 

I now begin to notice the evergreen ferns, when the others are all withered or fallen. 

The black willows have been bare some time. 

Panicled andromeda and winterberry are about bare. 

Pitch pines are falling; and white cedars are apparently in the midst of their fall, turning a pale brown and strewing the ground. 

There are now but few bright leaves to be seen, 'viz.

3  Pitch pine (though most is faded on the trees).
2  Larch.
1  Scarlet oak.
4  Populus grandidentata (thin-leaved).
6  A few yellow leaves on young willows, coniferous ones and S. sericea especially, still holding on to the extremity of the twigs.
8  Some crimson Viburnum nudum (thin-leaved).
9  Meadow-sweet.
10  Some Viburnum dentatum, greenish purple (thin leaved, not conspicuous).
5  Some small white birch tops.
5  High blueberry (more common than last).
7  Some silky cornel.
14  Flowering dogwood.
11  Gooseberry.
12  Common wild rose, yellow inclining to scarlet.
12  Rosa Carolina (clear dark red) and sweet-briar.
13  Staghorn sumach, in cool places and shaded.

Numbered in the order of their importance, most being either very thin-leaved now, or rare.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 28, 1858

The majority of the white maples are bare, but others are still thickly leaved. See note to October 14, 1858 ("The white maples are now apparently in their autumnal dress”)

The dogwood on the island is perhaps in its prime, — a distinct scarlet, with half of the leaves green in this case. See June 8, 1858 (“ Cornus florida at Island well out, say the 3d.”); August 30, 1854 (“Dogwood leaves have fairly begun to turn”); October 12, 1858 (“The C. florida at Island shows some scarlet tints, but it is not much exposed.”)

 I see yet also some Cornus sericea bushes with leaves turned a clear dark but dull red, rather handsome. See  October 9, 1858 (“Some Cornus sericea looks quite greenish yet.”); October 12, 1858 (“The Cornus sericea begins to fall, though some of it is green”); October 17, 1858 (“The Cornus sericea is a very dark crimson, though it has lost some leaves.”)


How handsome the great red oak acorns now! See October 12, 1858 (“Acorns, red and white (especially the first), appear to be fallen or falling. They are so fair and plump and glossy that I love to handle them, and am loath to throw away what I have in my hand.”); September 30, 1854 ("The conventional acorn of art is of course of no particular species, but the artist might find it worth his while to study Nature’s varieties again.”)

The hemlock is in the midst of its fall, and the leaves strew the ground like grain. See  October 8, 1857 (“Hemlock leaves are copiously falling. They cover the hillside like some wild grain. ”); October 16, 1857 (“Hemlock leaves are falling now faster than ever, and the trees are more parti-colored. The falling leaves look pale-yellow on the trees, but become reddish on the ground.”); November 11, 1855 (“At the Hemlocks I see a narrow reddish line of hemlock leaves . .. mathematically level. This chronicles the hemlock fall, which I had not noticed, we have so few trees, and also the river’s rise”)

The Populus grandidentata leaves are not all fallen yet.  See November 5, 1858 ("A few Populus grandidentata leaves are still left on"); November 10, 1858 ("There are still a few leaves on the large Populus tremuliformis, but they will be all gone in a day or two. They have turned quite yellow.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,the Big-toothed Aspen (Populus grandidentata)t

I now begin to notice the evergreen ferns. See October 23, 1857 ("The ferns which I can see on the bank, apparently all evergreens, are polypody at rock, marginal shield fern, terminal shield fern, and (I think it is) Aspidium spinulosum,. . .The above-named evergreen ferns are so much the more conspicuous on that pale-brown ground. They stand out all at once and are seen to be evergreen; their character appears.”). See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part One: Maidenhair and Ebony Spleenwort; Part Two: Aspidium spinulosum & Aspidium cristatum;

Part Three: Polypody, Marginal Shield Fern, Terminal Sheild Fern

There are now but few bright leaves to be seen. See October 23, 1857(“I can find no bright leaves now in the woods.”)

When others wither

I now begin  to notice 

the evergreen ferns.

A wood tortoise making a hole for her eggs -- a striped snake running about in its new skin.

June 10. 

June 10, 2017

At R.W.E.'s a viburnum, apparently nudum var. cassinoides (?) (pyrifolium Pursh), four or five days at least. (Vide in press.) It agrees with Bigelow's account, except that the leaves are decidedly serrate and the calyx-segments not acute. Has but a very slight tendency to thorns! ! Twigs of this year red. The cymes are nearly sessile; petioles, etc., very little rusty-dotted. Compare it with prunifolium, and see fruit. It stands in a row with E.'s pear trees and has been mistaken for one, which, when not in flower, it very much resembles. Probably came from Watson's with them. (On the 13th I see apparently the same at Watson's, Plymouth, which he calls, and imported as, V. prunifolium!) 

P. M. — To White Cedar Swamp. 

A wood tortoise making a hole for her eggs just like a picta's hole. 

The Leucothoe racemosa, not yet generally out, but a little (it being mostly killed) a day or two. 

In Julius Smith's yard, a striped snake (so called) was running about this forenoon, and in the afternoon it was found to have shed its slough, leaving it half way out a hole, which probably it used to confine it in. It was about in its new skin. Many creatures — devil's- needles, etc., etc. — cast their sloughs now. Can't I?

Fanner tells me to-day that he has seen a regular barn swallow with forked tail about his barn, which was black, not rufous; also of an owl's nest in a pine, the young probably two or three weeks old. Vide June 24th.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 10, 1857

A wood tortoise making a hole for her eggs just like a picta's hole. See June 10, 1856 (“A painted tortoise laying her eggs ten feet from the wheel-track on the Marlborough road.”); June 18, 1855 (“a painted tortoise lays her eggs near the Leaning Hemlocks. . . .”); June 16, 1855 ("A painted tortoise just burying three flesh-colored eggs . . . Find near by four more about this business.”); June 7, 1854 (“Yesterday I saw the painted and the wood tortoise out. Now I see a snapping turtle. . . It had just been excavating”); June 28, 1860  (“I see no tortoises laying nowadays, but I meet to-day with a wood tortoise which is eating the leaves of the early potentilla, and, soon after, another . . .deliberately eating sorrel.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau The Wood Turtlw (Emys insculpta)

The Leucothoe racemosa, not yet generally out, but a little (it being mostly killed) a day or two. See note to June 3, 1857 (“The racemed andromeda (Leucothoe) has been partly killed, — the extremities of the twigs, — so that its racemes are imperfect.”)

Many creatures — devil's- needles, etc., etc. — cast their sloughs now. See June 10, 1856 (“[W]ater-plants are thickly covered and defiled with the sloughs, perhaps of those little fuzzy gnats (in their first state) which have so swarmed over the river.”); June 6, 1857 (“[S]ee many great devil's-needles . . . stationary on twigs, etc. . . . their eyes . . . whitish and opaque . . . evidently just escaped from the slough.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau.the Devil's-needle

You should travel as a common man.

June 3.

Alternate-leaf dogwood
June 3, 2017

P. M. — To White Cedar Swamp. 

Salix lucida out of bloom, but S. nigra still in bloom. I see a large branch of S. lucida, which has been broken off probably by the ice in the winter and come down from far up-stream and lodged, butt downward, amid some bushes, where it has put forth pink fibres from the butt end in the water, and is growing vigorously, though not rooted in the bottom. It is thus detained by a clump of bushes at high water, where it begins to sprout and send its pink fibres down to the mud, and finally the water, getting down to the summer level, leaves it rooted in the bank. 

The first Crataegus on Hill is in many instances done, while the second is not fairly or generally in bloom yet.

The pitch pine at Hemlocks is in bloom. The sterile flowers are yellowish, while those of the P. resinosa are dark-purple. As usual, when I jar them the pollen rises in a little cloud about the pistillate flowers and the tops of the twigs, there being a little wind. 

The bass at the Island will not bloom this year. (?)

The racemed andromeda (Leucothoe) has been partly killed, — the extremities of the twigs, — so that its racemes are imperfect, the lower parts only green. It is not quite out; probably is later for this injury. 

The ground of the cedar swamp, where it has been burnt over and sprouts, etc., have sprung up again, is covered with the Marchantia polymorpha. Now shows its starlike or umbrella-shaped fertile flowers and its shield-shaped sterile ones. It is a very rank and wild- looking vegetation, forming the cuticle of the swamp's foundation. 

I feel the suckers' nests with my paddle, but do not see them on account of the depth of the river. 

Many small devil's-needles, like shad-flies, in bushes.

Early potatoes are being hoed. 

The gardener is killing the piper grass. 

I have several friends and acquaintances who are very good companions in the house or for an afternoon walk, but whom I cannot make up my mind to make a longer excursion with; for I discover, all at once, that they are too gentlemanly in manners, dress, and all their habits. I see in my mind's eye that they wear black coats, considerable starched linen, glossy hats and shoes, and it is out of the question. It is a great disadvantage for a traveller to be a gentleman of this kind; he is so ill-treated, only a prey to landlords. 

It would be too much of a circumstance to enter a strange town or house with such a companion. You could not travel incognito; you might get into the papers. 

You should travel as a common man. 

If such a one were to set out to make a walking-journey, he would betray himself at every step. Every one would see that he was trying an experiment, as plainly as they see that a lame man is lame by his limping. The natives would bow to him, other gentlemen would invite him to ride, conductors would warn him that this was the second-class car, and many would take him for a clergyman; and so he would be continually pestered and balked and run upon. You would not see the natives at all. 

Instead of going in quietly at the back door and sitting by the kitchen fire, you would be shown into a cold parlor, there to confront a fireboard, and excite a commotion in a whole family. The women would scatter at your approach, and their husbands and sons would go right up to hunt up their black coats, — for they all have them; they are as cheap as dirt. You would go trailing your limbs along the highways, mere bait for corpulent innholders, as a pickerel's leg is trolled along a stream, and your part of the profits would be the frog's. 

No, you must be a common man, or at least travel as one, and then nobody will know that you are there or have been there. 

I would not undertake a simple pedestrian excursion with one of these, because to enter a village, or a hotel, or a private house, with such a one, would be too great a circumstance, would create too great a stir. You could only go half as far with the same means, for the price of board and lodgings would rise everywhere; so much you have to pay for wearing that kind of coat. Not that the difference is in the coat at all, for the character of the scurf is determined by that of the true liber beneath. 

Innkeepers, stablers, conductors, clergymen, know a true wayfaring man at first sight and let him alone. 

It is of no use to shove your gaiter shoes a mile further than usual. Sometimes it is mere shiftlessness or want of originality, — the clothes wear them; sometimes it is egotism, that cannot afford to be treated like a common man, — they wear the clothes. They wish to be at least fully appreciated by every stage-driver and schoolboy. They would like well enough to see a new place, perhaps, but then they would like to be regarded as important public personages. They would consider it a misfortune if their names were left out of the published list of passengers because they came in the steerage, — an obscurity from which they might never emerge.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 3, 1857

Salix lucida out of bloom  . . . See May 14, 1857("Salix lucida at bridge; maybe staminate earlier.”); September 3, 1856 (“The S. lucida makes about the eleventh willow that I have distinguished. When I find a new and rare plant in Concord I seem to think it has but just sprung up here, — that it is, and not I am, the newcomer, — while it has grown here for ages before I was born.”) September 2, 1856 (“[A]t the stone bridge, am surprised to see the Salix lucida, a small tree with very marked and handsome leaves, on the sand, water's edge, at the great eddy. . . .”)

The first Crataegus on Hill is in many instances done, while the second is not fairly or generally in bloom yet.  See June 1, 1857 (“The second thorn on Hill will evidently open tomorrow.. . . That largest and earliest thorn is now in full bloom, and I notice that its an apple tree, . . ..”); June 1, 1856 (“The late crataegus on hill, about May 31st.”); June 12, 1855 (“A hawthorn grows near by, just out of bloom, twelve feet high — Crataegus Oxyacantha.”)  Crataegus, commonly called hawthorn, thornapple, May-tree, whitethorn, or hawberry, is a large genus of shrubs and trees in the family Rosaceae,. Wikipedia

The racemed andromeda has been partly killed, . . .  See June 8, 1856 (“I find no Andromeda racemosa in flower. It is dead at top and slightly leafed below. Was it the severe winter, or cutting off the protecting evergreens?”); (April 24, 1854 ("New plant (Racemed andromeda) flower-budded at Cedar Swamp . . . upright dense racemes of reddish flower-buds on reddish terminal shoots.”)

The ground of the cedar swamp, where it has been burnt over . . . is covered with the Marchantia polymorphs . . . a very rank and wild-looking vegetation, forming the cuticle of the swamp's foundation. See April 23, 1856 ("The white cedar swamp consists of hummocks, now surrounded by water, where you go jumping from one to another.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cedar Swamps

We walk down the big gorge planning to go to the waterfall. It is been wet and rainy and there is a lot of water. Everything is green and lush. I am awestruck looking at the cliffs above and the greenery rocks trees forest ferns.caverns. And reflections in the stream rushing by. I take a picture of yellow birch  growing on the rocks. Jane spots a hermit thrush on its nest at the mouth of the gorge. Rather than disturb it we turn around and hike out 

A hermit thrush nests

here at the mouth of the gorge.

The stream rushing by.

 zphx- 20170603 

Shad-flies on the water, schooner-like.

May 4

P. M. — To Cedar Swamp via Assabet. 

Among others, I see republican swallows flying over river at Island. Again I see, as on the 30th of April, swallows flying low over Hosmer’s meadow, over water. though comparatively few. 

About a foot above the water, about my boat, are many of those little fuzzy gnats, and I suspect that it is these they are attracted by. (On the 6th, our house being just painted, the paint is peppered with the myriads of the same insects which have stuck to it. They are of various sizes, though all small, and there are a few shad-flies also caught. They are particularly thick on the coping under the eaves, where they look as if they had been dusted on, and dense swarms of them are hovering within a foot. Paint a house now, and these are the insects you catch. I suspect it is these fuzzy gnats that the swallows of the 30th were catching.) 

The river is gone down so much — though checked by the rain of the 2d and 3d — that I now observe the tortoises on the bottom, a sternothaerus among them. 

Hear the something like  twe twe twe twé, ter té te twe twe of the myrtle-bird, and see the bird on the swamp white oaks by Island. 

The aspen there just begun to leaf; not quite the white maple. 

I observe that the river meadows, especially Hosmer’s, are divided by two or more ridges and valleys (the latter alone now covered with water and so revealed), parallel with the river. The same phenomenon, but less remarkable, on the Wheeler meadow. Are they the traces of old river-banks, or where, in freshets, the current of the river meets the meadow current, and the sediment is deposited? 

See a peetweet on Dove Rock, which just peeps out. As soon as the rocks begin to be bare the peetweet comes and is seen teetering on them and skimming away from me. 

Having fastened my boat at the maple, met, on the bank just above, Luke Dodge, whom I met in a boat fishing up that way once or twice last summer and previous years. Was surprised to hear him say, “I am in my eighty-third year.” He still looks pretty strong and has a voice like a nutmeg-grater. Within two or three years at most, I have seen him walking, with that remarkable gait. It is encouraging to know that a man may fish and paddle in this river in his eighty-third year. 

He says he is older than Winn, though not the oldest man in the town. Mr. Tolman is in his eighty sixth year. 

Went up Dodge’s (an Englishman who once lived up it and no relation of the last-named) Brook and across Barrett’s dam. 

In the Cedar Swamp Andromeda calyculata abundantly out; how long? Viburnum nudum leafing. Smilacina trifolia recently up; will apparently open in ten or twelve days. 

At the dam, am amused with the various curves of jets of water which leak through at different heights. According to the pressure. For the most part a thin sheet was falling smoothly over the top and cutting short off some smaller jets from the first crack (or edge of the first plank), leaving them like white spikes seen through the water. The dam leaked in a hundred places between and under the planks, and there were as many jets of various size and curve. Reminds me of the tail-piece in Bewick, of landlord drawing beer(?) from two holes, and knowledge of artist shown. 

Shad-flies on the water, schooner-like. 

Hear and see a goldfinch, on the ground.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 4, 1856

I see republican swallows flying over river at Island. See April 30, 1856 ("I was surprised by the great number of swallows—white-bellied and barn swallows and perhaps republican — flying round and round, or skimming very low over the meadow, just laid bare, only a foot above the ground . . . There were a thousand or more of swallows, and I think that they had recently arrived together on their migration.");  May 11, 1856 ("There are many swallows circling low over the river behind Monroe’s, — bank swallows, barn, republican, chimney, and white-bellied. These are all circling together a foot or two over the water, passing within ten or twelve feet of me in my boat."); May 29, 1859 (“The republican swallow at Hosmer's barn just begun to lay.”)

These fuzzy gnats that the swallows of the 30th were catching. See April 30, 1855 ("Those myriads of little fuzzy gnats mentioned on the 21st and 28th must afford an abundance of food to insectivorous birds . . .There were plenty of myrtle-birds and yellow redpolls where the gnats were.")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Fuzzy Gnats (tipulidæ)

The river is gone down so much . . . that I now observe the tortoises on the bottom, a sternothaerus among them. See April 1, 1860  (" As we paddle up the Assabet we . . . see the sternothærus on the bottom."); April 14, 1855 ("The musk tortoise stirring on the bottom. "); Compare July 3, 1856 ("The tortoises improve every rock, and willow slanting over the water, and every floating board and rail. You will see one on the summit of a black willow stump several feet high, and two or more part way up. Some tumble from a height of five or six feet into the water before you.") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  the Musk Turtle (Sternothaerus odoratus)

Hear the something like twe twe twe twé, ter té te twe twe of the myrtle-bird, and see the bird on the swamp white oaks by Island. See   May 4, 1855 ("Myrtle-birds numerous, and sing their tea lee, tea lee in morning. White-throated sparrows here, and numerous."); See also April 11, 1853   ("At Natural History Rooms . . . The yellow-rump warbler (what is it in Nuttall?) is bluish-gray, with two white bars on wings, a bright yellow crown, side breasts, and rump. Female less distinct."); May 1, 1855 ("The myrtle-bird is one of the commonest and tamest birds now. It catches insects like a pewee, darting off from its perch and returning to it, and sings something like a -chill chill, chill chill, chill chill, a-twear, twill twill twee  or it may be all tw – not loud; a little like the F. hyemalis , or more like pine warbler  – rapid, and more and more intense as it advances."); May 1, 1858 ("I also hear the myrtle-birds on the Island woods. Their common note is somewhat like the chill-lill or jingle of the F. hyemalis.");May 6, 1855 ("Myrtle-birds very numerous just beyond Second Division . They sing like an instrument teee teee te, ttt, ttt, on very various keys, i. e. high or low, some times beginning like phe-be. As I sat by roadside one drew near  perched within ten feet, and dived once or twice with a curve to catch the little black flies about my head, coming once within three feet, not minding me much.")

The aspen there (the Island) just begun to leaf.  See   April 14, 1855 ("The Populus tremuloides by the Island shed pollen — a very few catkins — yesterday at least.");  May 2, 1855 ("The young aspens are the first of indigenous trees conspicuously leafed");  May 2, 1859 ("I am surprised by the tender yellowish green of the aspen leaf just expanded suddenly");May 5, 1858  ("The aspen leaves at Island to-day appear as big as a nine pence suddenly");  May 11, 1854 (" I am surprised to find the great poplar at the Island conspicuously in leaf, — leaves more than an inch broad, from top to bottom of the tree, and are already fluttering in the wind, — and others near it — conspicuously before any other native tree, as tenderly green, wet, and glossy as if this shower had opened them. . . . The earliest of our indigenous trees, then, to leaf conspicuously is the early tremble.");  May 17, 1860   ("Standing in the meadow near the early aspen at the island, I hear the first fluttering of leaves, - a peculiar sound, at first unaccountable to me"); 

Soft rippling sound

near aspen at the island,

first fluttering leaves.

May 17, 1860

The trembling aspens

offer me a new summer

fluttering my thoughts.

June 6, 1857

See also A Book of the Seasons, the Aspens. 

See a peetweet on Dove Rock. See  April 30, 1856 (“As I go along the Assabet, a peetweet skims away from the shore.”);  See also April 21, 1855 ("A peep, peetweet, on the shore."); May 2, 1858 (“Peetweet on a rock”);  May 2, 1859 (" The river seems really inhabited when the peetweet is back and those little light-winged millers (?)"); May 8, 1860 (" The simple peep peep of the peetweet, as it flies away from the shore") [Thoreau's Peetweet  is the Spotted Sandpiper  (Actitis macularia)]

Dove Rock. See January 24, 1856 ("There is much of the water milkweed on the little island just above Dove Rock."); April 23, 1856 ("Along the shore by Dove Rock I hear a faint tseep like a fox colored sparrow, and, looking sharp, detect upon a maple a white-throated sparrow . . . Returning, when near the Dove Rock saw a musquash crossing in front . . .  Hear the yellow redpoll sing on the maples below Dove Rock");  May 19, 1856 (“As I sail up the reach of the Assabet above Dove Rock with a fair wind, a traveller riding along the highway is watching my sail while he hums a tune . . . As he looked at my sail, I listened to his singing. Perchance they were equally poetic, and we repaid each other.”); November 18, 1857 ("There is the meadow behind Brooks Clark’s . . .The stream which drains this empties into the Assabet at Dove Rock");  ([Stedman Buttrick] once, in the fall, shot a mackerel gull on what I call Dove Rock."); August 13, 1858 ("Young white maples below Dove Rock are an inch and a half high, and red maples elsewhere about one inch high.")

Luke Dodge . . . in his eighty-third year . . . died in Concord on September 29, 1869, age 94 yrs. 11 mos. 13 days.

Went up Dodge’s Brook and across Barrett’s dam. See May 31, 1853 ("In the meanwhile, Farmer, who was hoeing, came up to the wall, and we fell into a talk about Dodge's Brook, which runs through his farm.")

Shad-flies on the water, schooner-like. See May 1, 1854 ("The water is strewn with myriads of wrecked shad-flies, erect on the surface, with their wings up like so many schooners all headed one way.”) ; May 9, 1854 ("[Harris ] says the shad-flies (with streamers and erect wings ) are ephemeræ.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Insect Hatches in Spring

Hear and see a goldfinch, on the ground. See May 4, 1855 (" No goldfinches for long time."); May 17, 1856 ("A goldfinch twitters over."); May 18, 1856 ("A female goldfinch on an oak . . . When I get over the fence, a flock of twenty or more, male and female, rise from amid the stubble, and, alighting on the oaks, sing pleasantly all together, in a lively manner."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Goldfinch

May 4. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 4.

Dove Rock just peeps out –

see a peetweet  teetering 

and skimming away. 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Shad-flies on the water

 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-560504 

 

 

;

Confusing spring hawks: frog hawk, broad-winged hawk, partridge hawk, hen hawk, marsh hawk, hen harrier, Falco fuscus (or sharp-shinned hawk)?? The books are very unsatisfactory.

April 23

River higher than before since winter. Whole of Lee Meadow covered. 

Saw two pigeon woodpeckers approach and, I think, put their bills together and utter that o-week, o-week. 

The currant and second gooseberry are bursting into leaf. 

April 23, 2015

P.M. — To Cedar Swamp via Assabet. 

Warm and pretty still. Even the riversides are quiet at this hour (3 P.M.) as in summer; the birds are neither seen nor heard. 

The anthers of the larch are conspicuous, but I see no pollen. White cedar to-morrow.

See a frog hawk beating the bushes regularly. What a peculiarly formed wing! It should be called the kite. Its wings are very narrow and pointed, and its form in front is a remarkable curve, and its body is not heavy and buzzard-like. It occasionally hovers over some parts of the meadow or hedge and circles back over it, only rising enough from time to time to clear the trees and fences. 

Soon after I see hovering over Sam Barrett’s, high sailing, a more buzzard-like brown hawk, black-barred beneath and on tail, with short, broad, ragged wings and perhaps a white mark on under side of wings. The chickens utter a note of alarm. Is it the broad-winged hawk (Falco Pennsylvanicus)? (Probably not.)

But why should the other be called F. fuscus? I think this is called the partridge hawk. The books are very unsatisfactory on these two hawks. 

Apparently barn swallows over the river. And do I see bank swallows also? 

C. says he has seen a yellow-legs. 

I have seen also for some weeks occasionally a brown hawk with white rump, flying low, which I have thought the frog hawk in a different stage of plumage; but can it be at this season? and is it not the marsh hawk? Yet it is not so heavy nearly as the hen-hawk -- probably female hen-harrier [i. e. marsh hawk].

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 23, 1855


Saw two pigeon woodpeckers approach and, I think, put their bills together and utter that o-week, o-week. See  April 8, 1855 (" Hear and see a pigeon woodpecker, something like week-up week-up. April 15, 1858 (" See a pair of woodpeckers on a rail and on the ground a-courting. One keeps hopping near the other, and the latter hops away a few feet, and so they accompany one another a long distance, uttering sometimes a faint or short a-week"); April 22, 1856 ("Going through Hubbard’s root-fence field, see a pigeon woodpecker on a fence post. He shows his lighter back between his wings cassock-like and like the smaller woodpeckers. Joins his mate on a tree and utters the wooing note o-week o-week,");  October 5, 1857 ("The pigeon woodpecker utters his whimsical ah-week ah-week, etc., as in spring."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker).

Is it the broad-winged hawk (Falco Pennsylvanicus)? (Probably not.) See October 11, 1856 (“Farrar gave me a wing and foot of a hawk which he shot about three weeks ago . . . This foot has a sharp shin and stout claws, but the wing is much larger than that of the Falco fuscus (or sharp-shinned hawk), being . . . the size of the F. Pennsylvanicus. This wing corresponds in its markings very exactly with the description of that, and I must so consider it . . . Nuttall describes it as very rare, — apparently he has not seen one, — and says that Wilson had seen only two ”)

The books are very unsatisfactory on these two hawks. See May 4, 1855 ("I think that what I have called the sparrow hawk falsely, and latterly pigeon hawk, is also the sharp-shinned (vide April 26th and May 8th, 1854, and April 16th, 1855), for the pigeon hawk’s tail is white-barred. “); July 2, 1856 (“Looked at the birds in the Natural History Rooms in Boston. Observed no white spots on the sparrow hawk’s wing, or on the pigeon or sharp-shinned hawk’s. Indeed they were so closed that I could not have seen them. Am uncertain to which my wing belongs.”) See also  A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Hawk (Merlin); and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the sharp-shinned hawk. 

A brown hawk with white rump, flying low, which I have thought the frog hawk in a different stage of plumage. . . probably female hen-harrier.  See May 1, 1855 (" What I have called the frog hawk is probably the male hen-harrier, . . .MacGillivray . . .says . . . the large brown bird with white rump is the female"); March 21, 1859 ("I see a female marsh hawk. . I not only see the white rump but the very peculiar crescent-shaped curve of its wings. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier)

April 23. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, April 23

Buzzard-like brown hawk

black-barred beneath and on tail –

Is it the broad-winged?

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The books are very unsatisfactory

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-550423