The white-red-purple-berried bush in Hubbard's Meadow.

September 11.

September 11, 2021

2 P. M. - To Hubbard's Meadow Grove.

The skunk-cabbage's checkered fruit (spadix), one three inches long; all parts of the flower but the anthers left and enlarged.

Bidens cernua, or nodding burr marigold, like a small sunflower (with rays) in Heywood Brook, i. e. beggar- tick.

Bidens connata (?), without rays, in Hubbard's Meadow.

Blue-eyed grass still.

Drooping neottia very common.

I see some yellow butterflies and others occasionally and singly only.

The smilax berries are mostly turned dark.

I started a great bittern from the weeds at the swimming-place.

It is very hot and dry weather.

We have had no rain for a week, and yet the pitcher-plants have water in them. Are they ever quite dry? Are they not replenished by the dews always, and, being shaded by the grass, saved from evaporation? What wells for the birds!

The white-red-purple-berried bush in Hubbard's Meadow, whose berries were fairest a fortnight ago, appears to be the Viburnum nudum, or withe-rod.

Our cornel (the common) with berries blue one side, whitish the other, appears to be either the Cornus sericea or C. stolonifera of Gray, i. e. the silky, or the red-osier cornel (osier rouge), though its leaves are neither silky nor downy nor rough.

This and the last four or five nights have been perhaps the most sultry in the year thus far.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 11, 1851

Bidens cernua and Bidens connata. See September 11, 1852 ("How much fresher some flowers look in rainy weather!. . .their beauty is enhanced, as if by the contrast of the louring atmosphere with their bright colors.Such are the purple gerardia and the Bidens cernua."); September 12, 1851 ("the Bidens cernua, nodding burr-marigold, with five petals"); September 12, 1859 ("The four kinds of bidens (frondosa, connata, cernua, and chrysanthemoides) abound now, . . . the third and fourth are conspicuous and interesting, expressing by their brilliant yellow the ripeness of the low grounds"); September 13, 1852("The great bidens in the sun in brooks affects me as the rose of the fall. They are low suns in the brook."); September 14, 1854 ("The great bidens, the flower and ornament of the riversides at present, and now in its glory,. . . Full of the sun. It needs a name."); September 15, 1856 ("What I must call Bidens cernua, like a small chrysanthemoides, is bristly hairy, somewhat connate and apparently regularly toothed"); September 19, 1851 ("Large-flowered bidens,or beggar-ticks,or bur-marigold, now abundant by riverside.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Bidens Beckii and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Great Bidens

Blue-eyed grass still. See August 25, 1851 and August 30, 1854 ("Blue-eyed grass still"). See also June 17. 1853 ("The dense fields of blue-eyed grass now blue the meadows, as if, in this fair season of the year, the clouds that envelop the earth were dispersing, and blue patches began to appear, answering to the blue sky. The eyes pass from these blue patches into the surrounding green as from the patches of clear sky into the clouds. "); September 23, 1859 ("So live that only the most beautiful wild-flowers will spring up where you have dwelt,") and note to May 29, 1853 ("That exceedingly neat and interesting little flower blue-eyed grass now claims our attention.') See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, blue-eyed grass

We have had no rain for a week, and yet the pitcher-plants have water in them. See August 18, 1854 ("We can walk across the Great Meadows now in any direction. They are quite dry. Even the pitcher-plant leaves are empty."); August 21, 1854 ("In Hubbard's meadow, between the two woods, I can not find a pitcher-plant with any water in it."); August 22, 1854 ("I find at length a pitcher-plant with a spoonful of water in it. It must be last night's dew."); November 16, 1852 ("At Holden's Spruce Swamp. The water is frozen in the pitcher-plant leaf."); February 11, 1858 ("The water in the pitcher-plant leaves is frozen, but I see none burst. They are very tightly filled and smooth, apparently stretched.")

The white-red-purple-berried bush in Hubbard's Meadow, whose berries were fairest a fortnight ago, appears to be the Viburnum nudum, or withe-rod. See August 24, 1851 ("Is that the naked viburnum, so common, with its white, red, then purple berries, in Hubbard's meadow?"); August 24, 1852 ("The Viburnum nudum shows now rich, variegated clusters amid its handsome, firm leaves, bright rosy-cheeked ones mingled with dark-purple.  All do not appear to turn purple."); August 29, 1858 ("[J. Farmer] calls the Viburnum nudum 'withe-wood' and  makes a withe by treading on one end and twisting by the other till he cracks it and makes it flexible so that it will bend without breaking.") See also  August 28, 1852 ("The viburnums, dentatum and nudum, are in their prime. The sweet viburnum not yet purple, and the maple-leaved still yellowish."); August 28, 1856 ("The panicled cornel berries are whitening, but already mostly fallen."); August 28, 1852 ("The berries of the alternate leaved cornel have dropped off mostly."); August 31, 1856 ("The Viburnum nudum berries are now in prime, a handsome rose-purple."); 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, — i. e. three or four very distinct and marked colors, side by side. If gathered when rose-colored, they soon turn dark purple and are soft and edible, though before bitter. They add a new and variegated wildness to the swampy sprout-lands. Remarkable for passing through so many stages of color before they arrive at maturity. A singular and pleasing contrast, also, do the different kinds of viburnum and cornel berries present when compared with each other.") 

Our cornel (the common) with berries blue one side, whitish the other, appears to be either the Cornus sericea or C. stolonifera of Gray, i. e. the silky, or the red-osier cornel. See June 13, 1852 ("I think I know four kinds of cornel beside the dogwood and bunchberry: . . . (Cornus alternifolia? or sericea?); . . . (C. circinata?); . . . (C. paniculata); and the red osier by the river (C. stolonifera), which I have not seen this year."); August 28, 1852 ("Now the red osier berries are very handsome along the river, overhanging the water, for the most part pale blue mixed with whitish, -- part of the pendant jewelry of the season. . . . The white-berried and red osier are in their prime. The other three kinds I have not seen.); August 28, 1856 ("The bright china-colored blue berries of the Cornus sericea begin to show themselves along the river."); August 31, 1856 (“The Cornus sericea, with its berries just turning,"); September 1, 1854 ("The Cornus sericea berries are now in prime, of different shades of blue, lighter or darker, and bluish white. . . .a great ornament to our causeways and riverside.”); September 3, 1856 (“The white berries of the panicled cornel, soon and apparently prematurely dropping from its pretty fingers, are very bitter. So also are those of the C. sericea. ”); September 4, 1857 ("Cornus sericea berries begin to ripen") September 4, 1859 ("The Cornus sericea and C. paniculata are rather peculiar for turning to a dull purple on the advent of cooler weather and frosts,"); September 7, 1856 ("Apparently Cornus stolonifera (?) by brook . . . with the sericea. ")   See also August 27, 1856 ("There are many wild-looking berries about now."); September 3, 1853 ("Now is the season for those comparatively rare but beautiful wild berries which are not food for man.. . .Berries which are as beautiful as flowers, but far less known, the fruit of the flower."); September 11, 1859 ("September is the month when various small, and commonly inedible, berries in cymes and clusters hang over the roadsides and along the walls and fences, or spot the forest floor. ")

The forms of ice-crystals must include all others.

February 8. 

2 p. m. — Up river to Fair Haven Hill. Thermometer 43. 

40° and upward may be called a warm day in the winter. We have had much of this weather for a month past, reminding us of spring. February may be called earine (springlike). 

There is a peculiarity in the air when the temperature is thus high and the weather fair, at this season, which makes sounds more clear and pervading, as if they trusted themselves abroad further in this genial state of the air. 

A different sound comes to my ear now from iron rails which are struck, as from the cawing crows, etc. Sound is not abrupt, piercing, or rending, but softly sweet and musical. It will take a yet more genial and milder air before the bluebird's warble can be heard.

Walking over Hubbard's broad meadow on the softened ice, I admire the markings in it. The more interesting and prevailing ones now appearing ingrained and giving it a more or less marbled look, — one, what you may call checkered marbling (?), consisting of small polygonal figures three quarters [of an inch in] diameter, bounded by whitish lines more or less curved within the ice, and apparently covered with an entire thin surface ice, and so on for rods (these when five or six inches wide make a mackerel-sky ice); the other apparently passing from this into a sort of fibrous structure of waving lines, hair-like or rather flame-like, — call it phlogistic : — only far more regular and beautiful than I can draw. 

Sometimes like perhaps a cassowary's feathers, the branches being very long and fine. This fibrous or phlogistic structure is evidently connected with the flow of the surface water, for I see some old holes, now smoothly frozen over, where these rays have flowed from all sides into the hole in the midst of the checked ice, making a circular figure which reminded me of a jellyfish:  only far more beautiful than  this. 

The whitish lines which bound these figures and form  the parallel fibres are apparently lines of fine bubbles more dense than elsewhere. I am not sure that these markings always imply a double or triple ice, i. e. a thinner surface ice, which contains them. 

The ice is thus marked under my feet somewhat as the heavens overhead; there is both the mackerel sky and the fibrous flame or asbestos-like form in both. The mackerel spotted or marked ice is very common, and also reminds me of the reticulations of the pickerel. 

I see some quite thin ice which had formed on puddles on the ice, now soaked through, and in these are very interesting figures bounded by straight and crinkled particularly white lines. I find, on turning the ice over, that these lines correspond to the raised edges of and between bubbles which have occupied a place in the ice, i. e. upward [?] in it. 

Then there is occasionally, where puddles on the ice have frozen, that triangular rib-work of crystals, — a beautiful casting in alto-relievo of low crystaling as to form triangular and other figures. Shining splinters in the sun. Giving a rough hold to the feet.

One would think that the forms of ice-crystals must include all others.

I see hundreds of oak leaves which have sunk deep into the ice. Here is a scarlet oak leaf which has sunk one inch into the ice, and the leaf still rests at the bottom of this mould. Its stem and lobes and all their bristly points are just as sharply cut there as is the leaf itself, fitting the mould closely and tightly, and, there being a small hole or two in the leaf, the ice stands up through them half an inch high, like so many sharp tacks. 

Indeed, the leaf is sculptured thus in bas-relief, as it were, as sharply and exactly as it could be done by the most perfect tools in any material. But as time has elapsed since it first began to sink into the ice, the upper part of this mould is enlarged by melting more or less, and often shows the outline of the leaf exaggerated and less sharp and perfect. 

You see these leaves at various depths in the ice, — many quite concealed by new ice formed over them, for water flows into the mould and thus a cast of it is made in ice. 

So fragments of rushes and sedge and cranberry leaves have on all sides sunk into the ice in like manner. 

The smallest and lightest-colored object that falls on the ice begins thus at once to sink through it, the sun as it were driving it; and a great many, no doubt, go quite through.This is especially common after a long warm spell like this. 

I see, even, that those colored ridges of froth which have bounded the water that overflowed the ice, since they contain most of the impurities or coloring matter, sink into the ice accordingly, making rough furrows an inch or more deep often. The proper color of water is perhaps best seen when it overflows white ice. Pliny could express a natural wonder. 

About an old boat frozen in, I see a great many little gyrinus-shaped bugs swimming about in the water above the ice. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 8, 1860



40° and upward may be called a warm day in the winter. See January 25, 1860 ("Above 40° is warm for winter.") ; March 20, 1855 ("It is remarkable by what a gradation of days which we call pleasant and warm, beginning in the last of February, we come at last to real summer warmth. At first a sunny, calm, serene winter day is pronounced spring, or reminds us of it; and then the first pleasant spring day perhaps we walk with our greatcoat buttoned up and gloves on.”); April 26, 1860 (" To-day it is 53° at 2, yet cold, such a difference is there in our feelings.What we should have called a warm day in March is a cold one at this date in April.”)

February may be called earine (springlike). There is a peculiarity in the air at this season, which makes sounds more clear and pervading.. . .It will take a yet more genial and milder air before the bluebird's warble can be heard. See February 8, 1857("Music is perpetual, and only hearing is intermittent. I hear it in the softened air of these warm February days which have broken the back of the winter") See also  February 9, 1854 (" There is a peculiar softness and luminousness in the air this morning, perhaps the light being diffused by vapor. It is such a warm, moist, or softened, sunlit air as we are wont to hear the first bluebird's warble in. . . .The voices of the school-children sound like spring. . . . February belongs to the spring; it is a snowy March"); February 24, 1857 ("[A]s I cross from the causeway to the hill, thinking of the bluebird, I that instant hear one's note from deep in the softened air.") See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring: Change in the Air

A different sound comes to my ear now from iron rails which are struck  See   February 16, 1855 ("Sounds sweet and musical through this air, as crows, cocks, and striking on the rails at a distance.”); February 24, 1852 ("I now hear at a distance the sound of the laborer's sledge on the rails. The very sound of men's work reminds, advertises, me of the coming of spring.”)

Here is a scarlet oak leaf which has sunk one inch into the ice, and the leaf still rests at the bottom of this mould. Compare February 2, 1860 (" Oak leaves, absorbing the heat of the sun, have sunk into the ice an inch in depth and afterward been blown out, leaving a perfect type of the leaf with its petiole and lobes sharply cut, with perfectly upright sides, so that I can easily tell the species of oak that made it.")

I see a great many little gyrinus-shaped bugs swimming about in the water above the ice. See February 10, 1860 ("Those little gyrinus-shaped bugs of the 8th, that had come out through a crevice in the ice about a boat frozen in, and were swimming about in the shallow water above the ice, I see are all gone now that that water is frozen, — have not been frozen in; so they must have returned back under the ice when it became cold,. . .That is, in a thaw in the winter some water-insects — beetles, etc. — will come up through holes in the ice and swim about in the sun."); February 28. 1860 ("Looking from Hubbard's Bridge, I see a great water-bug even on the river, so forward is the season.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Water-bug (Gyrinus) and Skaters (Hydrometridae)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February 8

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

 "A book, each page written in its own season, 

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2023

The spawn of April 18th is gone!

April 22.

April 22, 2018

Hear martins about a box. 

P. M. — To Hubbard’s Great Meadow. 

The spawn of April 18th is gone! It was fresh there and apparently some creature has eaten it. 

I see spawn (R. halecina-like) in the large pool southeast of this and catch one apparently common-sized (!) R. halecina near it. The general aspect dark-brown, with bronze-colored stripes along sides of back one tenth of an inch wide; spots, roundish with a dull-green halo; a roundish spot on each orbit; no bright spots. 

I catch apparently another in the Great Meadow, and I think some R. halecina are still spawning, for I see some fresh spawn there. 

Andromeda, apparently a day or two,—at least at edge of Island Wood, which I have not seen. 

I walk along several brooks and ditches, and see a great many yellow-spotted turtles; several couples copulating. The uppermost invariably has a depressed sternum while the other’s is full. 

The Emys picta are evidently breeding also. See two apparently coupled on the shore. 

You see both kinds now in little brooks not more than a foot wide, slowly and awkwardly moving about one another. They can hardly make their way against the swift stream. I see one E. picta holding on to a weed with one of its fore feet. Meanwhile a yellow-spotted turtle shoots swiftly down the stream, carried along by the current, and is soon out of sight. 

The E. picta are also quite common in the shallows on the river meadows. 

I see many masses of empty or half-empty R. halecina spawn.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 22, 1858

The spawn of April 18th is gone! See April 7, 1858 (“I brought home the above two kinds of spawn in a pail. Putting some of the Rana halecina spawn in a tumbler of water. . . .”); April 14, 1858 (“My Rana halecina spawn in tumbler is now flatted out and begins to betray the pollywog form.”);  April 17, 1858 (“The Rana halecina spawn in tumbler begins to struggle free of the ova”); April 18, 1858 (“Put some R. halecina spawn which has flatted out in a ditch on Hubbard’s land.”); April 27, 1858 (“I noticed yesterday that again the newly laid spawn at the cold pool on Hubbard's land was all gone, and that in the larger pool south of it was much diminished. What creature devours it? ”)

A great many yellow-spotted turtles; several couples copulating. See  June 5, 1857  (“I see a great many tortoises in that pool, showing their heads and backs above water and pursuing each other about the pool. It is evidently their copulating-season.”); also March 26, 1860 (“The yellow-spotted tortoise may [first] be seen February 23, as in '57, or not till March 28, as in '55”);and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow-Spotted Turtle

It is the nicest day of spring so far. The second sunny day in a row after about two weeks rain sleet and snow. The dogs and I walk to the view and back. Little acorn leads the way choosing the trails (she knows them well).we take the under view Trail and while the dogs veer off here and there they generally follow me and follow acorn who dashes up the last steep and decides we are going to take the shortcut up. The snow is virtually gone although it seems two days ago the view seen from a distance was a white spot on the hill. At the view there is a wind that is chilly in the shade and so I move down to the right in the sun. The sky is blue the lake is blue the pond is blue. I am sitting in the sun on the deck now listening to the cheer up cheer ee of a Robin.. The phoebe is here nesting in his usual spot. But there have not been many signs of spring. One hepatica discovered on the hike yesterday. Spring beauty is not yet in bloom.. The phoebe was here on time and also the hermit thrush ( seen only, not heard.) At the lower view I hear the wood frog in the wetland below (quacking) – a first.. Also the jingle of the juncos who I suppose are staging for their trip north.

Second sunny day 

after two weeks in a row

of rain sleet and snow.

Zphx 20180422

A pack of partridges as big as robins

June 26. 

Friday. 

Stand over a bream's nest close to the shore at Hubbard's rear wood. At length she ventures back into it, after many approaches. The apparent young bream, hardly half an inch long, are hovering over it all the while in a little school, never offering to swim away from over that yellow spot; such is their instinct. The old one at length returns and takes up her watch beneath, but I notice no recognition of each other. 

The largest tupelo I remember in Concord is on the northerly edge of Staples's clearing. 

See a pack of partridges as big as robins at least. 

I must be near bobolinks' nests many times these days, — in E. Hosmer's meadow by the garlic and here in Charles Hubbard's, — but the birds are so overanxious, though you may be pretty far off, and so shy about visiting their nests while you are there, that you watch them in vain. The female flies close past and perches near you on a rock or stump and chirps whit tit, whit tit, whit it tit tit te incessantly. 

Some of the Salix Torreyana by railroad is cordate and some not. The sterile one there is not, nor those near it. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 26, 1857

A bream's nest close to the shore . . .See note to July 10, 1853 ("The bream poised over its sandy nest on waving fin - how aboriginal! So it has poised here and watched its ova before this New World was known to the Old.")


See a pack of partridges as big as robins at least. See June 23, 1854 ("Disturb three different broods of partridges in my walk this afternoon in different places. . . ."); June 27,1852 ("I meet the partridge with her brood in the woods, a perfect little hen. . . .”); June 27, 1860 ("See on the open grassy bank and shore, just this side the Hemlocks, a partridge with her little brood.”); July 1, 1860 (I see young partridges not bigger than robins fly three or four rods. . .”); July 5, 1856 ("Young partridges (with the old bird), as big as robins, make haste into the woods from off the railroad.")

I must be near bobolinks' nests . . . See July 2, 1855 ("Young bobolinks are now fluttering over the meadow, but I have not been able to find a nest ..")

The Salix Torreyana by railroad. See May 12, 1857  (" . . .how many species of willow have been planted along the railroad causeway within ten years, of which no one knows the history . . ")

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.”);

Thimble-berries are now fairly ripe and abundant

July 13

P. M. — To Corner Spring. 

Orchis lacera, apparently several days, lower part of spike, willow-row, Hubbard side, opposite Wheildon's land. 

See quite a large flock of chattering red-wings, the flight of first broods. 

Thimble-berries are now fairly ripe and abundant along walls, to be strung on herd's-grass, but not much flavor to them; honest and wholesome. See where the mowers have plucked them. Gather the large black and blackening ones. No drought has shrivelled them this year. 

Heard yesterday a sharp and loud ker-pheet, I think from a surprised woodchuck, amid bushes, — the siffleur. Reminds me somewhat of a peetweet, and also of the squeak of a rabbit, but much louder and sharper. And all is still. 

Hubbard's meadow — or I will call it early meadow-aster, some days, now rather slender and small- bushed. Drosera longifolia and also rotundifolia, some time. Polygala sanguinea, some time, Hubbard's Meadow Path; say meadow-paths and banks. 

Saw and heard two or three redstarts at Redstart Woods, where they probably have nests. 

Have noticed bright-red geranium and pyrus leaves a week or more. 

In Hubbard's euphorbia pasture, cow blackbirds about cows. At first the cows were resting and ruminating in the shade, and no birds were seen. Then one after another got up and went to feeding, straggling into the midst of the field. With a chattering appeared a cowbird, and, with a long slanting flight, lit close to a cow's nose, within the shadow of it, and watched for insects, the cow still eating along and almost hitting it, taking no notice of it. Soon it is joined by two or three more birds. 

An abundance of spurry in the half-grown oats adjoining, apparently some time out. 

Yellow lily, how long? 

Am surprised to see an Aster laevis, out a day or two, in road on sandy bank. 

Goldfinches twitter over. 

Hydrocotyle, some time. 


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 13, 1856

See quite a large flock of chattering red-wings, the flight of first broods. See July 11, 1856 ("Hear now the link of bobolinks, and see quite a flock of red-wing blackbirds and young."); July 15, 1854 ("We seem to be passing, or to have passed, a dividing line between spring and autumn . . . Many birds begin to fly in small flocks like grown-up broods."); July 22, 1855 ("See small flocks of red-wings, young and old, now, over the willows."); July 29, 1859 ("See large flocks of red-wings now, the young grown.")

Thimble-berries are now fairly ripe and abundant . . . No drought has shrivelled them this year. See July 4, 1852 ("One thimble-berry which will be quite ripe by to-morrow.");  July 18, 1854 ("Every bush and bramble bears its fruit; the sides of the road are a fruit garden; blackberries, huckleberries, thimble-berries, fresh and abundant, no signs of drought; all fruits in abundance; the earth teems.") 

Saw and heard two or three redstarts at Redstart Woods, where they probably have nests. See June 23, 1855 ("Probably a redstart’s nest on a white oak sapling, twelve feet up, on forks against stem. Have it. See young redstarts about.”); July 8, 1857 ("To Laurel Glen. . . . Hear apparently redstarts there, — so they must have nests near")  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The American Redstart

Heard yesterday a sharp and loud ker-pheet, I think from a surprised woodchuck, amid bushes, — the siffleur. See July 14, 1845 ("Alek Therien, he called himself; a Canadian now, a woodchopper, a post-maker; makes fifty posts—holes them, i. e.—in a day; and who made his last supper on a woodchuck which his dog caught. And he too has heard of Homer, and if it were not for books, would not know what to do rainy days.")

A cowbird. . . lit close to a cow's nose, within the shadow of it, and watched for insects. See August 25, 1855 ("I count about one hundred and fifty cowbirds about eight cows, running before their noses and in odd positions, awkwardly walking with a straddle, often their heads down and tails up a long time at once, occasionally flying to keep up with a cow.")

Goldfinches twitter over. See July 15, 1854 ("This cooler, still, cloudy weather after the rain is very autumnal and restorative to our spirits. The robin sings still, but the goldfinch twitters over oftener, and I hear the link link of the bobolink, and the crickets creak more as in the fall."); July 17, 1852 ("Again methinks I hear the goldfinch.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Goldfinch

July 13.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 13.

See quite a large flock

of chattering red-wings,

the flight of first broods. 

Ripe thimble-berries

now abundant along walls

but not much flavor.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Ripe Thimble-berries

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-560713

A walk along the side of the river.

December 20

Still no snow, and, as usual, I wear no gloves. 

P. M. — To Hubbard’s skating meadow. 

A few chickadees busily inspecting the buds at the willow-row ivy tree, for insects, with a short, clear chink from time to time, as if to warn me of their neighborhood. 

Boys are now devoted to skating after school at night, far into evening, going without their suppers. It is pretty good on the meadows, which are somewhat overflown, and the sides of the river, but the greater part of it is open. 

I walk along the side of the river, on the ice beyond the Bath Place. Already there is dust on this smooth ice, on its countless facets, revealed by the sun. 

How warm the dull-red cranberry vine rises above the ice here and there! 

I stamp and shake the ice to detect the holes and weak places where that little brook comes in there. They are plainly revealed, for the water beneath, being agitated, proclaims itself at every hole far and wide or for three or four rods. The edge of the ice toward the channel is either rubbed up or edged with a ridge of frozen foam. 

I see some gossamer on the weeds above the ice. Also, in now hard, dark ice, the tracks apparently of a fox, made when it was saturated snow. So long his trail is revealed, but over the pastures no hound can now trace him. 

There has been much overflow about every tussock in the meadow, making that rough, opaque ice, like yeast. The ice is that portion of the flood which is congealed and laid up in our fields for a season.

I mark the many preparations for another year which the farmer has made, — his late plowings, his muck-heaps in fields, perhaps of grass, which he intends to plow and cultivate, his ditches to carry off the winter’s floods, etc. 

December 20, 2025

How placid, like silver or like steel in different lights, the surface of the still, living water between these borders of ice, reflecting the weeds and trees, and now the warm colors of the sunset sky! 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 20, 1855

Boys are now devoted to skating after school at night, far into evening. . . It is pretty good on the meadows, which are somewhat overflown, and the sides of the river, but the greater part of it is open. See December 20, 1854 ("The river appears to be frozen everywhere. Where was water last night is a firm bridge of ice this morning. . . . All of the river that was not frozen before, and therefore not covered with snow on the 18th, is now frozen quite smoothly. ") See also  November 28, 1853 ("Boys skating in Cambridgeport, — the first ice to bear "); December 6, 1854 ("I see thick ice and boys skating all the way to Providence, but know not when it froze, I have been so busy writing my lecture."); December 14. 1851 ("The boys have been skating for a week, but I. . . I have hardly realized that there was ice, though I have walked over it about this business."); December 15, 1855 ("The boys have skated a little within two or three days, but it has not been thick enough to bear a man yet."); December 18, 1852 ("Loring's Pond beautifully frozen . . . I slid over it with a little misgiving, mistaking the ice before me for water. This is the first skating."); December 19, 1854 ("Skated a half-mile up Assabet and then to foot of Fair Haven Hill. This is the first tolerable skating.”);  and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, First Ice

Also, in now hard, dark ice, the tracks apparently of a fox, made when it was saturated snow. See December 8, 1854 ("Go over the fields on the crust to Walden . . . Already foxes have left their tracks. How the crust shines afar, the sun now setting! "); December 12, 1855 ("The snow having come, [and] now first, as it were, we have the fox for our nightly neighbor."); December 13, 1859 ("I see that the fox too has already taken the same walk before me, just along the edge of the button-bushes, where not even he can go in the summer. We both turn our steps hither at the same time.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Fox

The still, living water between these borders of ice, reflecting the weeds and trees, and now the warm colors of the sunset sky! See December 14, 1854 ("The river is open almost its whole length. It is a beautifully smooth mirror within an icy frame . . .  reflecting the weeds and trees

and houses and clouds.")

A few chickadees 

busily inspecting buds 

at the ivy tree.

How warm the dull-red

cranberry vines rise above

the ice here and there!

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A walk along the side of the river.

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-551220

 

More nests

June 13, 2013

June 13.

C. finds a pigeon woodpecker’s nest in an apple tree, five of those pearly eggs, about six feet from the ground; could squeeze your hand in. 

Also a peetweet’s, with four eggs, in Hubbard’s meadow beyond the old swamp oak site; and two kingbirds’ nests with eggs in an apple and in a willow by riverside.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 13, 1855

A pigeon woodpecker’s nest in an apple tree, five of those pearly eggs . . . See June 13, 1858 ("In the great apple tree front of the Miles house I hear young pigeon woodpeckers.");  June 10, 1856 ("In a hollow apple tree, hole eighteen inches deep, young pigeon woodpeckers, large and well feathered. . . .”); July 22, 1855 (“The pigeon woodpeckers have flown. Dog day weather begins.”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker).


Two kingbirds’ nests with eggs in an apple and in a willow by riverside. See June 14, 1855 ("A kingbird’s nest with four eggs on a large horizontal stem or trunk of a black willow, four feet high, over the edge of the river, amid small shoots from the willow; outside of mikania, roots, and knotty sedge, well lined with root fibres and wiry weeds"); June 16, 1855 ("Examined a kingbird’s nest found before (13th) in a black willow over edge of river, four feet from ground. Two eggs."); see also note to June 8, 1858 ("A kingbird's nest with three eggs, lined with some hair, in a fork — or against upright part — of a willow. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Kingbird

Trillium berries bright-red.

Trillium berries bright red.

August 21

P. M. — To Conantum via Hubbard Bath. 

The river is warmer than I supposed it would become again, yet not so warm as in July. 

A small, wary dipper, — solitary, dark -colored, diving amid the pads. The same that lingered so late on the Assabet.

Leaves of small hypericums begin to be red. 

Red choke-berries are dried black; ripe some time ago. 

In Hubbard's meadow, between the two woods, I can not find a pitcher-plant with any water in it. 

Some of the Hubbard aster are still left, against the upper Hubbard Wood by the shore, which the mowers omitted.

Have noticed winged grasshoppers or locusts a week or more. 

Spikenard berries are now mahogany-color.  Trillium berries bright-red.  The fever-bush berries are partly turned red, perhaps prematurely.

Now, say, is hazelnut time.  

I see robins in small flocks and pigeon woodpeckers with them.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 21, 1854

The river is warmer than I supposed it would become again.  See August 14, 1854 ("I find by bathing that the river grows steadily cooler, as yet for a fortnight, though we have had no rain here."); September 2, 1854 ("The water is surprisingly cold on account of the cool weather and rain, but especially since the rain of yesterday morning. It is a very important and remarkable autumnal change. It will not be warm again probably."); September 6, 1854 ("The water is again warmer than I should have believed; say an average summer warmth, yet not so warm as it has been. It makes me the more surprised that only that day and a half of rain should have made it so very cold when I last bathed here."); September 24, 1854 ("It is now too cold to bathe with comfort."); 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 small, wary dipper, — solitary, dark -colored, diving amid the pads. See September 9, 1858 ("At length the walker who sits meditating on a distant bank sees the little dipper sail out from amid the weeds and busily dive for its food along their edge. Yet ordinary eyes might range up and down the river all day and never detect its small black head above the water."); December 26, 1853 ("A small diver, probably a grebe or dobchick, dipper, or what-not, with the markings, as far as I saw, of the crested grebe, but smaller. It had a black head, a white ring about its neck, a white breast, black back, and apparently no tail. It dove and swam a few rods under water, and, when on the surface, kept turning round and round warily and nodding its head the while.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Little Dipper

Leaves of small hypericums begin to be red. See August 7, 1853 (""I see the leaves of the two smallest johnsworts reddening. The common johnswort is quite abundant this year and still yellows the fields.): August 31, 1853 ("Leaves of Hypericum mutilum red about water.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

Red choke-berries are dried black; ripe some time ago. See note to July 25, 1853 ("Cerasus Virginiana, — choke-cherry, — just ripe.");  August 15, 1852 ("The red choke-berry is small and green still. I plainly distinguish it, also, by its woolly under side.); August 25, 1854 (Choke-berries are very abundant there, but mostly dried black.")

In Hubbard's meadow, between the two woods, I can not find a pitcher-plant with any water in it. See August 18, 1854 ("We can walk across the Great Meadows now in any direction. They are quite dry. Even the pitcher-plant leaves are empty."); August 19, 1854 ("There is now a remarkable drought, some of whose phenomena I have referred to during several weeks past.") August 22, 1854 ("I find at length a pitcher-plant with a spoonful of water in it. It must be last night's dew."); September 11, 1851("We have had no rain for a week, and yet the pitcher-plants have water in them. Are they ever quite dry? Are they not replenished by the dews always, and, being shaded by the grass, saved from evaporation?") See also November 15, 1857 ("The water is frozen solid in the leaves of the pitcher plants."); November 16, 1852 (" At Holden's Spruce Swamp. The water is frozen in the pitcher-plant leaf"); February 11, 1858 ("The water in the pitcher-plant leaves is frozen,.") and see A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Purple Pitcher Plant

Some of the Hubbard aster are still left, against the upper Hubbard Wood by the shore. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Asters in August

Which the mowers omitted. See August 5, 1854 ("A platoon of haymakers has just attacked the meadow-grass . . . We are now in the midst of the meadow-haying season.");  August 22, 1854 ("There are three or four haymakers still at work in the Great Meadows, though but very few acres are left uncut") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Haymaking

Have noticed winged grasshoppers or locusts a week or more. See August 21, 1852 ("Young turkeys are straying in the grass which is alive with grasshoppers."); August 21, 1853 ("Saw one of those light-green locusts about three quarters of an inch long on a currant leaf in the garden."); September 4, 1856 ("The crackling flight of grasshoppers. The grass also is all alive with them, and they trouble me by getting into my shoes, which are loose, and obliging me to empty them occasionally")

Spikenard berries are now mahogany-color. See September 4, 1856 ("Aralia racemosa berries just ripe . . . not edible."); September 4, 1859 ("See a very large mass of spikenard berries fairly ripening, eighteen inches long."); September 6, 1852 ("The “doubly compound racemed panicles” of the spikenard berries, varnish-colored berries, or color of varnished mahogany.")

Trillium berries bright red. See August 19, 1852 ("The trillium berries, six-sided, one inch in diameter, like varnished and stained cherry wood, glossy red, crystalline and ingrained, concealed under its green leaves in shady swamps."); August 22, 1852 ("Perhaps fruits are colored like the trillium berry and the scarlet thorn to attract birds to them.”); September 1, 1851("The fruit of the trilliums is very handsome.. . .a dense crowded cluster of many ovoid berries turning from green to scarlet or bright brick color.")

The fever-bush berries are partly turned red, perhaps prematurely. See September 24, 1859 ("Fever-bush berries are scarlet now, and also green. They have a more spicy taste than any of our berries, carrying us in thought to the spice islands. Taste like lemon-peel.")

Now, say, is hazelnut time. See August 8, 1852 ("The squirrels are now devouring the hazelnuts fast."); August 13, 1854 ("Squirrels have begun to eat hazelnuts, and I see their dry husks on the ground turned reddish-brown.);  August 18, 1852 ("Hazelnuts; methinks it is time to gather them if you would anticipate the squirrels."); August 24, 1858 ("Squirrels have eaten hazelnuts and pitch pine cones for some days. Now and of late we remember hazel bushes, —we become aware of such a fruit-bearing bush. They have their turn, and every clump and hedge seems composed of them."); August 29, 1858 ("I fear it is already too late for me . . . They must have been very busy collecting these nuts and husking them for a fortnight past, climbing to the extremities of the slender twigs. Who witnesses the gathering of the hazelnuts, the hazel harvest? Yet what a busy and important season to the striped squirrel! "); September 3, 1858 ("Notwithstanding the abundance of hazelnuts here, very little account is made of them, and I think it is because pains is not taken to collect them before the squirrels have done so."); September 9, 1859 ("Now for hazelnuts, — where the squirrels have not got them." )

 
I see robins in small flocks. See August 15, 1852 ("Birds fly in flocks"); August 19, 1852 ("The small fruits of most plants are now generally ripe or ripening, and this is coincident with the flying in flocks of such young birds now grown as feed on them."); August 27, 1858 ("Robins fly in flocks."); September 18, 1852 ("The robins of late fly in flocks, and I hear them oftener."); September 19, 1854 ("I see large flocks of robins keeping up their familiar peeping and chirping."); October 1, 1853 ("Robins and bluebirds collect and flit about."); October 20, 1857 ("The barberry bushes are now alive with, I should say, thousands of robins feeding on them. They must make a principal part of their food now. ")

And pigeon woodpeckers with them. See September 19, 1854 ("I see large flocks of robins with a few flickers, the former keeping up their familiar peeping and chirping.")

August 21. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 21

Small, wary dipper – 

solitary, dark-colored – 

diving midst the pads.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Trillium berries bright-red.

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-540821