The mildest and pleasantest days since November came in..

November 29, 30, and December 1. 

The snow which fell the 23d whitened the ground but a day or two. 

These have been the mildest and pleasantest days since November came in. November 29th, walked in p. m. to old stone bridge and down bank of river by Sam Barrett's house.

When I stood on the caving swallow banks by the bridge about 4 o'clock, the sun sank below some clouds, or they rose above it, and it shone out with that bright, calm, memorable light which I have else where described, lighting up the pitch pines and everything. 

The patches of winter rye, at this season so green by contrast, are an interesting feature in the landscape.

When I got out of the wood, going toward Barrett's, the softness of the sunlight on the russet landscape, the smooth russet grassy fields and meadows, was very soothing, the sun now getting low in a November day. 

The stems and twigs of the maples, etc., looking down the river, were beautifully distinct. You see distinctly the form of the various clumps of maples and birches. 

Geese in river swam as fast as I walked. 

Many broken but apparently rather recent turtles' eggs on the bank.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 29, 1852

November 29, 30, and December 1. have been the mildest and pleasantest days since November came in. See December 2, 1859 ("Nov. 30, Dec. 1 and 2 were remarkably warm and springlike days, — a moist warmth.”)

About 4 o'clock, the sun sank below some clouds, or they rose above it, and it shone out with that bright, calm, memorable light which I have else where described. See November 29, 1853 ("I begin to see, under the clouds in the west horizon, a clear crescent of yellowish sky, and suddenly a glorious yellow sunlight falls on all the eastern landscape . . . I think that we have some such sunsets as this, and peculiar to the season, every year. I should call it the russet afterglow of the year.") See also November 9, 1858 (“ We had a true November sunset after a dark, cloudy afternoon. The sun reached a clear stratum just before setting, beneath the dark cloud, though ready to enter another on the horizon’s edge, and a cold, yellow sunlight suddenly illumined the withered grass of the fields around, near and far, eastward. Such a phenomenon as, when it occurs later, I call the afterglow of the year."); November 10, 1858 (" dark-blue or slate-colored clouds in the west, and the sun going down in them. All the light of November may be called an afterglow."); November 22, 1851 ("The light of the setting sun, just emerged from a cloud and suddenly falling on and lighting up the needles of the white pine. . . .After a cold gray day this cheering light almost warms us by its resemblance to fire."); November 23, 1851 ("Another such a sunset to - night as the last."); November 25, 1851 ("That kind of sunset which I witnessed on Saturday and Sunday is perhaps peculiar to the late autumn. The sun is unseen behind a hill. Only this bright white light like a fire falls on the trembling needles of the pine.")
");

To sit under the face of an old clock that has been ticking one hundred and fifty years!

October 3. 

October 3, 2017

The Rhus radicans also turns yellow and red or scarlet, like the Toxicodendron. 

Asters, and still more goldenrods, look quite rare now. 

See a cowbird alone. 

Getting over the wall near Sam Barrett's the other day, I had gone a few rods in the road when I met Prescott Barrett, who observed, 

“Well, you take a walk round the square sometimes.” 

So little does he know of my habits. I go across lots over his grounds every three or four weeks, but I do not know that I ever walked round the square in my life. 

How much more agreeable to sit in the midst of old furniture like Minott's clock and secretary and looking-glass, which have come down from other generations, than in  that which was just brought from the cabinet-maker's and smells of varnish, like a coffin! To sit under the face of an old clock that has been ticking one hundred and fifty years, – there is something mortal, not to say immortal, about it! A clock that began to tick when Massachusetts was a province. Meanwhile John Beatton's heavy tombstone is cracked quite across and widely opened. [It has fallen also and has been set up.]

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

The Rhus radicans also turns yellow and red or scarlet, like the Toxicodendron. Rhus radicans. Poison ivy. Also known as Rhus toxicodendron or Toxicodendron radicans.  See  March 13, 1857 ("Elliott, the botanist, says . . . [of] Rhus Toxicodendron (page 363): 'The juice which exudes on plucking the leaf-stalks from the stem of the R. radicans is a good indelible dye for marking linen or cotton.'."); March 24, 1856 (“Cut a piece of Rhus Toxicodendron resting on rock at Egg Rock, five eighths of an inch in diameter, which had nineteen rings of annual growth. It is quite hard and stiff.”);   May 12, 1855 (“Rhus radicans leafed there a day or two.”); . June 9, 1855 (“Rhus Toxicodendron on Island Rock.”);  August 19, 1856 (“Ivy berries dry and apparently ripe on the rocks (Toxicodendron)”); August 24, 1857 (“There was a dead Rhus radicans on it [a large elm]  two inches in diameter.”); September 2, 1857 (“In the botrychium swamp. . . I see a Rhus radicans running up a buttonwood which is some forty feet high . . . It is a vine one and a half and two inches wide, somewhat flattened, clinging close and flat to the tree . . .. You can hardly tell if it is alive or dead without looking upward. ”); September 4, 1857 (“At the cleft rock by the hill just west of this swamp, — call it Cornel Rock, – I found . . . quite a collection of rare plants there, – petty morel, Thalictrum dioicum, witch hazel, etc., Rhus radicans . . .”); September 30, 1857 (“Rhus Toxicodendron turned yellow and red, handsomely dotted with brown.”)

Asters, and still more goldenrods, look quite rare now. Compare October 3, 1852 ("The Aster undulates is common and fresh, also the Solidago nemoralis of Gray.")

Minott's clock.. . .A clock that began to tick when Massachusetts was a province. See September 30, 1857 ("He says that that tall clock which still ticks in the corner belonged to old John Beatton, who died before he was born; thought it was two hundred years old!!")

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

That singular springlike note of a bird which I heard once before about this time

February 17

The river very high, one inch higher than the evening of January 31st. The bridge at Sam Barrett’s caved in; also the Swamp Bridge on back road. Muskrats driven out. 

Hear this morning, at the new stone bridge, from the hill, that singular springlike note of a bird which I heard once before one year about this time (under Fair Haven Hill). 

February 17, 2024

The jays are uttering their unusual notes, and this makes me think of a woodpecker. It reminds me of the pine warbler, vetter vetter vetter vetter vet, except that it is much louder, and I should say has the sound of l rather than t, — veller, etc., perhaps. Can it be a jay? or a pigeon woodpecker? 

Is it not the earliest springward note of a bird? In the damp misty air. 

Was waked up last night by the tolling of a bell about 11 o’clock, as if a child had hold of the rope. Dressed and went abroad in the wet to see if it was a fire. It seems the town clock was out of order, and the striking part ran down and struck steadily for fifteen minutes. If it had not been so near the end of the week, it might have struck a good part of the night.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 17, 1855

Muskrats driven out. See February 17, 1857 ("The river is fairly breaking up, and men are out with guns after muskrats."); February 24, 1860 ("The river risen and quite over the meadows yesterday and to-day, and musquash begun to be killed. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Musquash

That singular springlike note of a bird which I heard once before one year about this time. See March 13, 1853 (“But what was that familiar spring sound from the pine wood across the river, a sharp vetter vetter vetter vetter,”); February 14, 1854 ("This greater liveliness of the birds methinks I have noticed commonly in warm, thawing days toward spring"); February 18, 1857 (“When I step out into the yard I hear that earliest spring note from some bird, perhaps a pigeon woodpecker (or can it be a nuthatch, whose ordinary note I hear?), the rapid whar whar, whar whar, whar whar, which I have so often heard before any other note.”);  March 5, 1859 ("Going down-town this forenoon, I heard a white-bellied nuthatch on an elm within twenty feet, uttering peculiar notes and more like a song than I remember to have heard from it.. . .It was something like to-what what what what what, rapidly repeated, and not the usual gnah gnah; and this instant it occurs to me that this may be that earliest spring note which I hear, and have referred to a woodpecker! (This is before I have chanced to see a bluebird, blackbird, or robin in Concord this year.) It is the spring note of the nuthatch"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, The Spring Note of the Nuthatch abd A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Nuthatch

The jays are uttering their unusual notes. See October 11, 1856 ("In the woods I hear the note of the jay, a metallic, clanging sound, some times a mew. Refer any strange note to him.") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Blue Jay

Was waked up last night by the tolling of a bell.  See May 3, 1852 ("There is a grand, rich, musical echo trembling on the air long after the clock has ceased to strike, like a vast organ, filling the air with a trembling music like a flower of sound. Nature adopts it. Beautiful is sound.”)

February 17.  See  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February 17

The first springlike note

at the stone bridge from the hill

in the misty air.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, That singular springlike note

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-550217