The last cricket, full of cheer and faith, piping to himself, as the last man might.

November 12.

I cannot but regard it as a kindness in those who have the steering of me that, by the want of pecuniary wealth, I have been nailed down to this my native region so long and steadily, and made to study and love this spot of earth more and more.

What would signify in comparison a thin and diffused love and knowledge of the whole earth instead, got by wandering? The traveller's is but a barren and comfortless condition.

Wealth will not buy a man a home in nature, — house nor farm there. The man of business does not by his business earn a residence in nature, but is denaturalized rather.

What is a farm, house and land, office or shop, but a settlement in nature under the most favorable conditions? It is insignificant, and a merely negative good fortune, to be provided with thick garments against cold and wet, an unprofitable, weak, and defensive condition, compared with being able to extract some exhilaration, some warmth even, out of cold and wet themselves, and to clothe them with our sympathy.

The rich man buys woollens and furs, and sits naked and shivering still in spirit, besieged by cold and wet. But the poor Lord of Creation, cold and wet he makes to warm him, and be his garments.

Tansy is very fresh still in some places.

Tasted to-day a black walnut, a spherical and corrugated nut with a large meat, but of a strong oily taste.

November 12, 2020

8 P. M. — Up river to Hubbard Bathing-Place.

Moon nearly full.

A mild, almost summer evening after a very warm day, alternately clear and overcast. The meadows, with perhaps a little mist on them, look as if covered with frost in the moonlight.

At first it is quite calm, and I see only where a slight wave or piece of wet driftwood along the shore reflects a flash of light, suggesting that we have come to a season of clearer air. This occasional slight sparkling on either hand along the water ' s edge attends me.

I come out now on the water to see our little river broad and stately as the Merrimack or still larger tides, for though the shore be but a rod off, the meeting of land and water being concealed, it is as good as if a quarter of a mile distant, and the near bank is like a distant hill.

There is now and of late months no smell of muskrats, which is probably confined to the spring or rutting season.

While the sense of seeing is partly slumbering, that of hearing is more wide awake than by day, and, now that the wind is rising, I hear distinctly the chopping of every little wave under the bow of my boat.

Hear no bird, only the loud plunge of a muskrat from time to time.

The moon is wading slowly through broad squadrons of clouds, with a small coppery halo, and now she comes forth triumphant and burnishes the water far and wide, and makes the reflections more distinct.

Trees stand bare against the sky again. This the first month in which they do.

I hear one cricket singing still, faintly deep in the bank, now after one whitening of snow. His theme is life immortal. The last cricket, full of cheer and faith, piping to himself, as the last man might.

The dark squadrons of hostile clouds have now swept over the face of the moon, and she appears unharmed and riding triumphant in her chariot. Suddenly they dwindle and melt away in her mild, and all-pervading light, dissipated like the mists of the morning. They pass away and are forgotten like bad dreams.

Landed at the bathing-place.

There is no sound of a frog from all these waters and meadows which a few months ago resounded so with them; not even a cricket or the sound of a mosquito.

I can fancy that I hear the sound of peeping hylodes ringing in my ear, but it is all fancy.

How short their year! How early they sleep! Nature is desert and iron-bound; she has shut her door. How different from the muggy nights of summer, teeming with life! That resounding life is now buried in the mud, returned into Nature's womb, and most of the birds have retreated to the warm belt of the earth.

Yet still from time to time a pickerel darts away. And still the heavens are unchanged; the same starry geometry looks down on their active and their torpid state.

And the first frog that puts his eye forth from the mud next spring shall see the same everlasting starry eyes ready to play at bo-peep with him, for they do not go into the mud.

However, you shall find the muskrats lively enough now at night, though by day their cabins appear like deserted cabins. When I paddle near one, I hear the sudden plunge of one of its inhabitants, and some times see two or three at once swimming about it. Now is their day.

It is remarkable that these peculiarly aboriginal and wild animals, whose nests are perhaps the largest of any creatures hereabouts, should still so abound in the very midst of civilization and erect their large and conspicuous cabins at the foot of our gardens. However, I notice that unless there is a strip of meadow and water on the garden side they erect their houses on the wild side of the stream.

The hylodes, as it is the first frog heard in the spring, so it is the last in the autumn. I heard it last, me thinks, about a month ago.

I do not remember any hum of insects for a long time, though I heard a cricket to-day.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 12, 1853

The meadows, with perhaps a little mist on them, look as if covered with frost in the moonlight. See November 12, 1851 ("The moonlight reflected from (apparently) the fine frost crystals on the withered grass"). See also September 22, 1854 ("By moonlight all is simple.."); November 13, 1858 (“We looked out the window at 9 P. M. and saw the ground for the most part white with the first sugaring, which at first we could hardly tell from a mild moonlight, – only there was no moon."); December 10, 1856 ("The nights are light on account of the snow, and, there being a moon, there is no distinct interval between the day and night."); and Li Po :(Thoughts in Night Quiet):

Seeing moonlight here at my bed,

and thinking it’s frost on the ground,

I look up, gaze at the mountain moon,

then back, dreaming of my old home.

Trees stand bare against the sky again. This the first month in which they do. See November 12, 1851 ("The openness of the leafless woods is particularly apparent now by moonlight.")

 

And still the heavens are unchanged; the same starry geometry looks down. See November 12, 1851 ("It is worth the while always to go to the waterside when there is but little light in the heavens and see the heavens and the stars reflected. There is double the light that there is elsewhere, and the reflection has the force of a great silent companion."); See also October 28, 1852 ("After whatever revolutions in my moods and experiences, when I come forth at evening, as if from years of confinement to the house, I see the few stars which make the constellation of the Lesser Bear in the same relative position, - the everlasting geometry of the stars.") 

You shall find the muskrats lively enough now at night . .  . Now is their day. See October 7, 1852 ("The muskrats have begun to erect their cabins . . .  Do they build them in the night? "); November 7, 1858 ("I pass a musquash-house, apparently begun last night."); November 16, 1852 ("Muskrat-houses completed. Interesting objects looking down a river-reach at this season, and our river should not be represented without one or two of these cones. They are quite conspicuous half a mile distant, and are of too much importance to be omitted in the river landscape.")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musquash

The moon is wading slowly through broad squadrons of clouds, with a small coppery halo, and now she comes forth triumphant and burnishes the water far and wide, and makes the reflections more distinct. See August 12, 1851 ("The traveller’s whole employment is to calculate what cloud will obscure the moon and what she will triumph over. . . And when she has fought her way through all the squadrons of her foes, and rides majestic in a clear sky, he cheerfully and confidently pursues his way, and rejoices in his heart.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November Moonlight

The last cricket, full of cheer and faith, piping to himself, as the last man might. See November 12, 1851 ("The ground is frozen and echoes to my tread. There are absolutely no crickets to be heard now. They are heard, then, till the ground freezes.") See also November 8, 1853 ("Perchance I heard the last cricket of the season yesterday. They chirp here and there at longer and longer intervals, till the snow quenches their song."); November 8, 1859 (" I hear a small z-ing cricket."); November 11, 1855 ("Frogs are rare and sluggish, as if going into winter quarters. A cricket also sounds rather rare and distinct. "); November 11, 1858 ("I afterward hear a few of the common cricket on the side of Clamshell. Thus they are confined now to the sun on the south sides of hills and woods. They are quite silent long before sunset. "); November 13, 1851 ("Not a mosquito left. Not an insect to hum. Crickets gone into winter quarters."); November 13, 1858 ("Of course frozen ground, ice, and snow have now banished the few remaining skaters (if there were any ?), crickets, and water-bugs."); November 15, 1859 ("I hear in several places a faint cricket note, either a fine z-ing or a distincter creak, also see and hear a grasshopper's crackling flight."); November 19, 1857 ("Turning up a stone on Fair Haven Hill, I find many small dead crickets about the edges, which have endeavored to get under it and apparently have been killed by the frost"); November 22, 1851 ("He turned over a stone, and I saw under it many crickets and ants still lively, which had gone into winter quarters there apparently. . . . That is the reason, then, that I have not heard the crickets lately.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cricket in November

November 12. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, November 12

The moon is a small

halo wading slowly through 

broad squadrons of clouds.

With a little mist 

and moonlight the meadows look

as covered with frost.

I hear one cricket – 

his theme is life immortal

now after one snow.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  The last cricket, full of cheer and faith

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 © 2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-531112

 

The hawk rises when we approach and circles about over the wood.

May 30. 

Hear of lady's-slipper seen the 23d; how long? 

I saw the Nuphar advena above water and yellow in Shrewsbury the 23d. 

P. M.–To hen-harrier's nest and to Ledum Swamp.

Edward Emerson shows me the nest which he and another discovered. It is in the midst of the low wood, sometimes inundated, just southwest of Hubbard's Bath, the island of wood in the meadow.

The hawk rises when we approach and circles about over the wood, uttering a note singularly like the common one of the flicker. 

The nest is in a more bushy or open place in this low wood, and consists of a large mass of sedge and stubble with a very few small twigs, as it were accidentally intermingled. It is about twenty inches in diameter and remarkably flat, the slight depression in the middle not exceeding three quarters of an inch. The whole opening amid the low bushes is not more than two feet in diameter. The thickness of it raises the surface about four inches above the ground. The inner and upper part is uniformly rather fine and pale-brown sedge. 

There are two dirty, or rather dirtied, white eggs left (of four that were), one of them one and seven tenths inches long, and not “spherical,” as Brewer says, but broad in proportion to length. [Another is one and seven eighths inches long by one and a half inches. Vide the last (which was addled).]

Ledum, one flower out, but perhaps if Pratt had not plucked some last Sunday it might have bloomed here yesterday? It is decidedly leafing also.

Andromeda Polifolia by the ditch well out, how long?

I perceive the turpentine scent of the ledum in the air as I walk through it. 

As I stand by the riverside some time after sundown, I see a light white mist rising here and there in wisps from the meadow, far and near, — less visible within a foot of me, — to the height of three or four or ten feet. It does not rise generally and evenly from every part of the meadow, but, as yet, over certain spots only, where there is some warm breath of the meadow turned into cloud.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal  May 30, 1858

Hear of lady's-slipper seen the 23d. See note to May 30, 1856 ("The lady’s-slipper in pitch pine wood-side near J. Hosmer’s Desert, probably about the 27th.")

The nest is in the midst of the low wood, sometimes inundated, just southwest of Hubbard's Bath, the island of wood in the meadow. The hawk rises when we approach and circles about over the wood, uttering a note singularly like the common one of the flicker. See May 14, 1857 ("See a pair of marsh hawks, the smaller and lighter-colored male, with black tips to wings, and the large brown female, sailing low over J. Hosmer's sprout-land and screaming, apparently looking for frogs or the like. Or have they not a nest near? They hover very near me.");  See May 20, 1856 (“Two marsh hawks, male and female, flew about me a long time, screaming, the female largest, with ragged wing ,. . . they have, no doubt, a nest thereabouts. ”)

Ledum, one flower out, but perhaps if Pratt had not plucked some last Sunday it might have bloomed here yesterday. See February 4, 1858 ("Discover the Ledum latifolium, quite abundant over a space about six rods in diameter just east of the small pond-hole")

May 30 See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 30

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 © 2009-2021

Looked for the black duck's nest.

June 23. 

June 23, 2017

Skinner, the harness-maker, tells me that he found a black duck's nest Sunday before the last, i. e. the 14th, with perhaps a dozen eggs in it, a mere hollow on the top of a tussock, four or five feet within a clump of bushes forming an islet (in the spring) in Hubbard's great meadow. He scared up the duck when within a few feet. 

Pratt says he knows of a black walnut at Hunt's on Ponkawtasset. 

P. M. — Looked for the black duck's nest, but could find no trace of it. Probably the duck led her young to the river as soon as hatched. What with gunners, dogs, pickerel, bullfrogs, hawks, etc., it is a wonder if any of them escape. 

Small rudbeckia, i. e. hirta, at Hubbard's Bath.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 23, 1857

Small rudbeckia, i. e. hirta . . . See June 20, 1856 ("Rudbeckia hirta budded.”); July 31, 1856 (“Measured a Rudbeckia hirta flower; more than three inches and three eighths in diameter.”)

A black duck's nest a mere hollow on the top of a tussock, four or five feet within a clump of bushes forming an islet . See June 24, 1857 ("Melvin thinks there cannot be many black ducks' nests in the town, else his dog would find them"); June 4, 1856 (“found, on a hummock in the open swamp, in the midst of bushes, at the foot of a pitch pine, a nest about ten inches over, made of dry sedge and moss. I think it must have been a duck’s nest.”);

There is a slight coolness in the air, yet the sun is occasionally very warm.

September 27.

September 27, 2014

The bluebird family revisit their box and warble as in spring. 

P. M. — To Clamshell by boat. 

Solidago speciosa not quite out!! 

Viburnum nudum berries are soon gone. I noticed none to speak of in Hubbard's Swamp, September 15th. 

Start up a snipe in the meadow. 

Bathed at Hubbard's Bath, but found the water very cold. Bathing about over. 

It is a very fine afternoon to be on the water, some what Indian-summer-like. I do not know what constitutes the peculiarity and charm of this weather; the broad water so smooth, notwithstanding the slight wind, as if, owing to some oiliness, the wind slid over without ruffling it. There is a slight coolness in the air, yet the sun is occasionally very warm. 

I am tempted to say that the air is singularly clear, yet I see it is quite hazy. Perhaps it is that transparency it is said to possess when full of moisture and before or after rain. Through this I see the colors of trees and shrubs beginning to put on their October dress, and the creak of the mole cricket sounds late along the shore. 

The Aster multiflorus may easily be confounded with the A. Tradescanti. Like it, it whitens the roadside in some places. It has purplish disks, but a less straggling top than the Tradescanti.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 27, 1856

The bluebird family revisit their box... See September 12, 1854 ("I see plump young bluebirds in small flocks along the fences . . .")

Viburnum nudum berries are soon gone. See September 3, 1856 ("Gather four or five quarts of Viburnum nudum berries, now in their prime, attracted more by the beauty of the cymes than the flavor of the fruit. The berries, which are of various sizes and forms, — elliptical, oblong, or globular, — are in different stages of maturity on the same cyme, and so of different colors, — green or white, rose-colored, and dark purple or black.")

Bathing about over. See  September 2, 1854 ("Bathe at Hubbard’s. The water is surprisingly cold . . .. It is a very important and remarkable autumnal change. It will not be warm again probably."); September 12, 1854 ("I find it colder again than on the 2d, so that I stay in but a moment."); September 26 1854 ("Took my last bath the 24th . Probably shall not bathe again this year. It was chilling cold.") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Luxury of Bathing

A very fine afternoon to be on the water, some what Indian-summer-like  See September 21, 1854 ("A fine-grained air, seething or shimmering as I look over the fields, reminds me of the Indian summer that is to come.")

The creak of the mole cricket sounds late along the shore.  See September 27, 1855 ("I traced the note of what I have falsely thought the Rana palustris, or cricket frog, to its true source [and] I found a mole cricket (Gryllotalpa brevipennis)."); August 22, 1856 ("The creak of the mole cricket is heard along the shore."); August 18, 1853 ("What means this sense of lateness that so comes over one now") See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Cricket in August; A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cricket in Spring and "What Thoreau Heard in the Song of the Crickets" by Lewis Hyde, NYT Sept. 23, 2023.

The Aster multiflorus may easily be confounded with the A. Tradescanti.  See September 21, 1858 ("Saw no Aster Tradescanti in this walk, but an abundance of A. multiflorus in its prime, in Salem and Marblehead.")

https://tinyurl.com/HDT560927

What a solid winter we have had! All the town still under deep snow and ice

March 18

March 18, 2016

March 18, 2026

P. M. — Up river. 

It is still quite tight at Hubbard’s Bath Bend and at Clamshell, though I hesitate a little to cross at these places. There are dark spots in the soft, white ice, which will be soon worn through. 

What a solid winter we have had! No thaw of any consequence; no bare ground since December 25th; but an unmelting mass of snow and ice, hostile to all greenness. Have not seen a green radical leaf even, as usual, all being covered up. 

Nut Meadow Brook is open for a dozen rods from its mouth, and for a rod into the river. Higher up, it is still concealed by a snowy bridge two feet thick. 

I see the ripples made by some fishes, which were in the small opening at its mouth, making haste to hide themselves in the ice-covered river. This square rod and one or two others like it in the town are the only places where I could see this phenomenon now. Thus early they appear, ready to be the prey of the fish hawk. 

Within the brook I see quite a school of little minnows, an inch long, amid or over the bare dead stems of polygonums, and one or two little water-bugs (apple seeds). The last also in the broad ditch on the Corner road, in Wheeler’s meadow. 

Notwithstanding the backwardness of the season, all the town still under deep snow and ice, here they are, in the first open and smooth water, governed by the altitude of the sun. 

I see many small furrows, freshly made, in the sand at the bottom of the brook, from half an inch to three quarters wide, which I suspect are made by some small shellfish already moving, perhaps Paludina! 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 18, 1856

It is still quite tight at Hubbard’s Bath Bend and at Clamshell. See March 10, 1856 ("There is no opening yet in the main stream at Prichard's, Hubbard Bath, or the Clamshell, or probably anywhere but at Merrick's, and that a dozen rods long by. ten feet; and it is tight and strong under the bridges.")

Nut Meadow Brook is open for a dozen rods from its mouth. See February 1, 1856 ("Nut Meadow Brook open for some distance in the meadow. I was affected by the sight of some green polygonum leaves there. Some kind of minnow darted off.")

I see the ripples made by some fishes . . . making haste to hide themselves in the ice-covered river. See February 1, 1856 (“Nut Meadow Brook open for some distance in the meadow. I am affected by the sight of some green polygonum leaves there. Some kind of minnow darts off.”);  February 25, 1856 ("Am surprised to see some little minnows only an inch long in an open place in Well Meadow Brook."); March 9, 1854 ("I detect the trout minnows not an inch long by their quick motions or quirks, soon concealing themselves"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Ripples made by Fishes

One or two little water-bugs (apple seeds). See March 10, 1855 (" When on the 6th I saw the gyrinus at Second Division Brook, I saw no peculiarity in the water or the air to remind me of them, but to-day they are here and yesterday they were not. I go looking deeper for tortoises, when suddenly my eye rests on these black circling apple seeds in some smoother bay.); See also A Book of the Seasons , by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, the water-bug (Gyrinus)

Notwithstanding the backwardness of the season . . . here they are. . .  governed by the altitude of the sun. See March 18, 1853 ("The season is so far advanced that the sun affects me as I have not been affected for a long time."); March 15, 1853 ("Notwithstanding this day is so cold . . . the sidewalks melt in the sun, such is its altitude.”);  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: the new warmth of the sun 

Many small furrows, freshly made, in the sand at the bottom of the brook. . . made by some small shellfish already moving, perhaps Paludina. See March 20, 1856 ("Where I saw those furrows in the sand in Nut Meadow Brook the other day, I now explore, and find within a square foot or two half a dozen of Paludina decisa with their feet out . . .Maybe it is the love season."); March 22, 1856 ("Crows .. . visit the edge of water—this and brooks —before any ground is exposed. Is it for small shellfish?"); March 22, 1860 ("The phenomena of an average March . . .trout glance in the brooks, brook minnows are seen; see furrows on sandy bottoms, and small shell snails copulate")

March 18. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, March 18

  

 The small opening 

 in the ice-covered river –

ripples made by fish.

Furrows in the sand 

at the bottom of the brook –

     perhaps small shell snails. 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  What a solid winter we have had! 

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-560318

Birch scales (bird-like) on the snow.

January 7.

At breakfast time the thermometer stood at -12°. Earlier it was probably much lower. Smith’s was at -24° early this morning. 

The latches are white with frost at noon. They say there was yet more snow at Boston, two feet even. 

P. M. — Up river. 

The snow is much deeper on the river than it was, —on an average, eight or nine-inches. 

The cold weather has brought the crows, and for the first time this winter I hear them cawing amid the houses. 

I noticed yesterday, from three to six feet behind or northwest of a small elm, a curve in a drift answering to the tree, showing how large an eddy it had produced. The whole surface of the snow on fields and river is composed now of flat, rough little drifts, like the surface of some rough slaty rocks. 

Hardly anywhere is the ice visible now. It is completely frozen at the Hubbard’s Bath bend now, — a small strip of dark ice, thickly sprinkled with those rosettes of crystals, two or three inches in diameter, this surrounded by a broad border of yellowish spew. The water has oozed out from the thinnest part of the black ice, and I see a vapor curling up from it. 

There is also much vapor in the air, looking toward the woods. I go along the edge of the Hubbard Meadow woods, the north side, where the snow is gathered, light and up to my middle, shaking down birds’ nests. 

Returning, just before sunset, the few little patches of ice look green as I go from the sun (which is in clouds). It is probably a constant phenomenon in cold weather when the ground is covered with snow and the sun is low, morning or evening, and you are looking from it. 

I see birch scales (bird-like) on the snow on the river more than twenty rods south of the nearest and only birch, and trace them north to it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 7, 1856

Ice looks green as I go from the sun. See February 12, 1860 ("Returning just before sunset, I see the ice beginning to be green..."); January 20, 1859 (“The green of the ice and water begins to be visible about half an hour before sunset. Is it produced by the reflected blue of the sky mingling with the yellow or pink of the setting sun?”); February 21, 1854 ("The ice in the fields by the poorhouse road — frozen puddles — amid the snow, looking westward now while the sun is about setting, in cold weather, is green.”). See also January 27, 1854 ("Walden ice has a green tint close by, but is distinguished by its blueness at a distance.”)

I go along the edge of the Hubbard Meadow woods, the north side, where the snow is gathered, light and up to my middle, shaking down birds’ nests. See December 30, 1855 (“He who would study birds’ nests must look for them in November and in winter as well as in midsummer, for then the trees are bare and he can see them, and the swamps and streams are frozen and he can approach new kinds”)

I see birch scales (bird-like) on the snow on the river more than twenty rods south of the nearest and only birch.  See January 7, 1854 ("The bird-shaped scales of the white birch are blown more than twenty rods from the trees.")

January 7. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January 7

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 © 2009-2024

The red inner sides of the hickory bud-scales turned back.

May 14

Our peaches begin to bloom; others probably earlier. Domestic plums open; some maybe yesterday. Missouri currant open yesterday or day before. One apple on a roof open. 

The beech blossom in house opens; say to-morrow in woods, and probably will leaf generally by the next day. 

Second gooseberry in garden open. 

White ash begins to leaf; and waxwork. Clethra leafs. High blueberry open by Hubbard’s Bath. Black scrub oak leafs, and chinquapin. Red choke-berry leafed, say two days later than black. 

May 14, 2015

P. M. — To Cliffs via Hubbard’s Bath. 

See a male hen-harrier skimming low along the side of the river, often within a foot of the muddy shore, looking for frogs, with a very compact flock of small birds, probably swallows, in pursuit. Occasionally he alights and walks or hops flutteringly a foot or two over the ground. 

The Lombardy poplar and silvery white leafed at least two days ago. 

Vaccinium vacillans leafed, and perhaps flower opened, if that is one near West Fair Haven Spring. 

Some hickories, just opening their leaves, make quite a show with the red inner sides of the bud-scales turned back. 

All the oak leaves off the shrub oak plain, except apparently a few white oaks. 

Some gaylussacias leafed. Uva-ursi at Cliffs out some time, and some new shoots leafing. 

Under the dead pine on which the fish hawk sat on the 12th inst, a half-mile from the river, I find a few fish bones — one, I am pretty sure from comparison, the jaw of a pout. So that in three instances, the only ones observed this year, they were feeding on pouts.

Probably the mice, etc., had picked up the rest of his droppings. Thus these inhabitants of the interior get a taste of fish from time to time, -- crumbs from the fish hawk’s table. 

Prinos verticillatus leafs.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 14, 1855

Our peaches begin to bloom; others probably earlier. See May 13, 1854 ("Peach trees in bloom in our garden") See also May 14, 1858 ("To-day, for the first time, it appears to me summerlike and a new season. There is a tender green on the meadows and just leafing trees. The blossoms of the cherry, peach, pear, etc., are conspicuous, and the air is suddenly full of fragrance. Houses are seen to stand amid blossoming fruit trees, and the air about them is full of fragrance and the music of birds.")
.

See a male hen-harrier skimming low along the side of the river, often within a foot of the muddy shore, looking for frogs. See May 14, 1853 ("What is that small slate-colored hawk with black tips to wings?") and note to May 14, 1857 ("See a pair of marsh hawks, the smaller and lighter-colored male, with black tips to wings, and the large brown female, sailing low over J. Hosmer's sprout-land and screaming, apparently looking for frogs or the like.”); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier)

 Under the dead pine on which the fish hawk sat on the 12th inst, a half-mile from the river, I find a few fish bones. See May 12, 1855 ("See I direct my glass toward the dead tree on Cliffs, and am surprised to see the fish hawk still sitting there, about an hour after he first alighted; and now I find that he is eating a fish, which he had under his feet on the limb."). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Osprey (Fish Hawk)

Some hickories, just opening their leaves, make quite a show with the red inner sides of the bud-scales turned back. See May 17, 1853 ("How red are the scales of some hickory buds, now turned back!"); May 24, 1860 (“I notice the first shadows of hickories, - not dense and dark shade, but open-latticed, a network of sun and shadow on the north sides of the trees.”); May 26, 1857 ("The very sudden expansion of the great hickory buds, umbrella-wise."); May 29, 1857 (“Those great hickory buds, how much they contained! You see now the large reddish scales turned back at the base of the new twigs. Suddenly the buds burst, and those large pinnate leaves stretched forth in various directions.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau. The Hickory. and 

Kristel Schoonderwoerd

 Spring is the New Fall (May 15, 2020 )

May 14.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, May 14.

Their leaves just open

hickories make quite a show –

red inner bud-scales.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The red inner sides of the hickory bud-scales turned back.

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-550514

The bushes ringing with the evening song of song sparrows and robins, and the evening sky reflected from the surface of the rippled water

April 25

A moist April morning. 

A small native willow leafing  and showing catkins to-day; also the black cherry in some places. 

The common wild rose to-morrow. Balm-of-Gilead will not shed pollen apparently for a day or more. Shepherd’s-purse will bloom to-day,—the first I have noticed which has sprung from the ground this season, or of an age. 

Say lilac begins to leaf with common currant. 

April 25, 2023

P. M. — To Beck Stow’s. 

Hear a faint cheep and at length detect the white throated sparrow, the handsome and well-marked bird, the largest of the sparrows, with a yellow spot on each side of the front, hopping along under the rubbish left by the woodchopper. I afterward hear a faint cheep very rapidly repeated, making a faint sharp jingle,—no doubt by the same. Many sparrows have a similar faint metallic cheep, —the tree sparrow and field sparrow, for instance. I first saw the white-throated sparrow at this date last year. 

Hear the peculiar squeaking notes of a pigeon woodpecker. 

Two black ducks circle around me three or four times, wishing to alight in the swamp, but finally go to the river meadows. I hear the whistling of their wings. Their bills point downward in flying. 

The Andromeda calyculata is out in water, in the little swamp east of Beck Stow’s, some perhaps yesterday; and C. says he saw many bluets yesterday, and also that he saw two F. hyemalis yesterday. 

I have noticed three or four upper jaws of muskrats on the meadow lately, which, added to the dead bodies floating, make more than half a dozen perhaps drowned out last winter.

After sunset paddle up to the Hubbard Bath. The bushes ringing with the evening song of song sparrows and robins, and the evening sky reflected from the surface of the rippled water like the lake grass on pools. 

A spearers’ fire seems three times as far off as it is.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 25, 1855

The common wild rose to-morrow. See   June 13, 1853 (""The smooth wild rose yesterday.);  July 11, 1855 ("What a splendid show of wild roses, whose sweetness is mingled with the aroma of the bayberry!") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Rose

Hear a faint cheep and at length detect the white throated sparrow, the handsome and well-marked bird. See April 25, 1854 ("[Saw] on the low bushes, — shrub oaks, etc., — by path, a large sparrow with ferruginous- brown and white-barred wings, — the white-throated sparrow, — uttered a faint ringing chirp.")  see also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  the White-throated Sparrow

Hear the peculiar squeaking notes of a pigeon woodpecker. See April 23, 1852 (" Heard the pigeon woodpecker today, that long-continued unmusical note, somewhat like a robin's, heard afar, yet pleasant to hear because associated with a more advanced stage of the season"); April 23, 1855 ("Saw two pigeon woodpeckers approach and, I think, put their bills together and utter that o-week, o-week.") See also A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker)

The bushes ringing with the evening song of song sparrows and robins See April  9, 1855 ("At sunset after the rain, the robins and song sparrows fill the air along the river with their song.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia)

A spearers’ fire seems three times as far off as it is. See April 25, 1856 ("At evening see a spearer’s light.")

April 25.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, April 25

Bushes ring with song –

evening sky reflected from

the rippled water.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The evening song of song sparrows and robins

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-550425