Geese go over in the spring about 10 o'clock in the morning,

March 26.

There is a large specimen of what I take to be the common alder by the poplar at Egg Rock, five inches in diameter. It may be considered as beginning to bloom to-day.

Some white maples appear still as backward as the red.

Saw about 10 A. M. a gaggle of geese, forty-three in number, in a very perfect harrow flying northeasterly. One side the harrow was a little longer than the other. They appeared to be four or five feet apart.

At first I heard faintly, as I stood by Minott's gate, borne to me from the southwest through the confused sounds of the village, the indistinct honking of geese.

I was somewhat surprised to find that Mr. Loring at his house should have heard and seen the same flock. I should think that the same flock was commonly seen and heard from the distance of a mile east and west.

It is remarkable that we commonly see geese go over in the spring about 10 o'clock in the morning, as if they were accustomed to stop for the night at some place southward whence they reached us at that time.

Goodwin saw six geese in Walden about the same time.

The scales of the alder run to leaves sometimes.

P. M. Up Assabet to stone-heaps, in boat.

A warm, moist, April-like afternoon, with wet-looking sky, and misty.  For the first time I take off my coat.

Everywhere are hovering over the river and floating, wrecked and struggling, on its surface, a miller-like insect, without mealy wings, very long and narrow, six- legged with two long feelers and, I believe, two long slender grayish wings, from my harbor to the heaps, or a couple of miles at least, food for fishes. This was the degree and kind of warmth to bring them forth.

The tortoises, undoubtedly painted, drop now in several instances from the limbs and floating rails on which they had come out to sun.

I notice by the Island a yellow scum on the water close to the shore, which must be the pollen of the alders just above. This, too, is perhaps food for fishes.

Up the Assabet, scared from his perch a stout hawk, -- the red-tailed undoubtedly, for I saw very plainly the cow-red when he spread his wings from off his tail (and rump?).

I rowed the boat three times within gunshot before he flew, twice within four rods, while he sat on an oak over the water,-- I think because I had two ladies with me, which was as good as bushing the boat. Each time, or twice at least, he made a motion to fly before he started.

The ends of his primaries looked very ragged against the sky.

This is the hen-hawk of the farmer, the same, probably, which I have scared off from the Cliff so often. It was an interesting eagle-like object, as he sat upright on his perch with his back to us, now and then looking over his shoulder, the broad-backed, flat-headed, curve-beaked bird.

Heard a pewee. This, it seems to me, is the first true pewee day, though they have been here some time.

What is that cress-like weed in and on the edge of the river opposite Prescott Barrett's? A fresher and more luxuriant growth of green leaf than I have seen yet; as if it had grown in winter.

I do not perceive any fresh additions to the stone-heaps, though perhaps I did not examine carefully enough.

Went forth just after sunset.

A storm gathering, an April-like storm. I hear now in the dusk only the song sparrow along the fences and a few hylas at a distance. And now the rattling drops compel me to return.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 26, 1853

There is a large specimen of what I take to be the common alder by the poplar at Egg Rock. See December 30, 1855 ("For a few days I have noticed the snow sprinkled with alder and birch scales. I go now through the birch meadow southwest of the Rock. The high wind is scattering them over the snow there. ")

Saw about 10 A. M. a gaggle of geese, forty-three in number, in a very perfect harrow flying northeasterly. See March 24, 1859 (" C. sees geese go over again this afternoon."); March 25, 1853 ("A Lincoln man heard a flock of geese, he thinks it was day before yesterday."); March 27, 1857 ("Farmer says that he heard geese go over two or three nights ago."); March 27 and 28, 1860 (" Louis Minor tells me he saw some geese about the 23d."); March 28, 1859 ("I suspect it will be found that there is really some advantage in large birds of passage flying in the wedge form and cleaving their way through the air, — that they really do overcome its resistance best in this way, — and perchance the direction and strength of the wind determine the comparative length of the two sides . . .Undoubtedly the geese fly more numerously over rivers which, like ours, flow northeasterly, — are more at home with the water under them.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring, Geese Overhead

Everywhere are hovering over the river and floating, wrecked and struggling, on its surface, a miller-like insect . . the degree and kind of warmth to bring them forth. See March 7, 1859 ("Their appearance is a regular early spring, or late winter, phenomenon"); April 25, 1854 ("Many shad-flies in the air and alighting on my clothes. The summer approaches by almost insensibly increasing lieferungs of heat,  . . Each creature awaits with confidence its proper degree of heat.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Insect Hatches in Spring (millers, perla, shad-flies or ephemera)

Up the Assabet, scared from his perch a stout hawk, -- the red-tailed undoubtedly See March 6, 1858 ("I see the first hen-hawk, or hawk of any kind, methinks, since the beginning of winter. Its scream, even, is inspiring as the voice of a spring bird."); . March 2, 1855 ("Hear two hawks scream. There is something truly March-like in it, like a prolonged blast or whistling of the wind through a crevice in the sky. which, like a cracked blue saucer, overlaps the woods. Such are the first rude notes which prelude the summer’s quire, learned of the whistling March wind") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: the Hawks of March

The first true pewee day, though they have been here some time. See March 16, 1854.  ("The first phoebe near the water is heard.");  April 2, 1852 ("For a long distance, as we paddle up the river, we hear the two-stanza'd lay of the pewee on the shore, - pee-wet, pee-wee, etc. Those are the two obvious facts to eye and ear, the river and the pewee.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Phoebe

I do not perceive any fresh additions to the stone-heaps, See April 19, 1854 ("Yesterday, as I was returning down the Assabet, . . . I was surprised to find the river so full of sawdust from the pail-factory and Barrett's mill that I could not easily distinguish if the stone-heaps had been repaired"); May 3, 1855 ("Sitting on the bank near the stone-heaps, I see large suckers rise to catch insects,—sometimes leap."): June 11, 1858 (""Examine the stone-heaps. One is now a foot above water and quite sharp. They contain, apparently freshly piled up, from a wheelbarrow to a cartload of stones; but I can find no ova in them. "); July 31, 1859 ("A man fishing at the Ox-Bow said without hesitation that the stone-heaps were made by the sucker,")

We go listening for early birds with bread and cheese for our dinners.

March 20.  

A rather cool and breezy morning, which was followed by milder day.

March 20, 2022

We go listening

for early birds with bread and

cheese for our dinners.

(Yesterday I forgot to say I painted my boat. Spanish brown and raw oil were the ingredients. I found the painter had sold me the brown in hard lumps as big as peas, which I could not reduce with a stick; so I passed the whole when mixed through an old coffee-mill, which made a very good paint-mill, catching it in an old coffee- pot , whose holes I puttied up, there being a lack of vessels ; and then I broke up the coffee-mill and nailed a part over the bows to protect them , the boat is made so flat. I had first filled the seams with some grafting- wax I had, melted.) 

How handsome the curves which the edge of the ice makes, answering somewhat to those of the shore, but more regular, sweeping entirely round the pond  as if defined by a vast, bold sweep! 

It is evident that the English do not enjoy that contrast between winter and summer that we do, that there is too much greenness and spring in the winter.  There is no such wonderful resurrection of the year. Birds kindred with our first spring ones remain with them all winter, and flowers answering to our earliest spring ones put forth there in January. In one sense they have no winter but such as our spring. Our April is their March; our March, their February; our February, January, and December are not theirs at all under any name or sign. 

Those alder catkins on the west side of Walden tremble and undulate in the wind, they are so relaxed and ready to bloom, the most forward blossom-buds. 

Here and there around the pond, within a rod of the water, is the fisherman's stone fireplace, with its charred brands, where he cheered and warmed himself and ate his lunch. 

The peculiarity of to-day is that now first you perceive that dry, warm, summer-presaging scent from dry oak and other leaves, on the sides of hills and ledges. You smell the summer from afar. The warm [ sic ] makes a man young again. There is also some dryness, almost dustiness, in the roads. 

The mountains are white with snow, and sure as the wind is northwest it is wintry; but now it is more westerly. The edges of the mountains now melt into the sky. It is affecting to be put into communication with such distant objects by the power of vision, -actually to look into rich lands of promise. 

In this spring breeze, how full of life the silvery pines, probably the under sides of their leaves. 

Goose Pond is wholly open. 

Unexpectedly dry and crispy the grass is getting in warm places.

 At Flint's Pond, gathered a handful or two of chestnuts on a sloping bank under the leaves, every one sound and sweet, but mostly sprouting. There were none black as at C. Smith's, proving that in such places as this, somewhat warm and dry, they are all preserved the winter through. Now, then, new groves of chestnuts (and of oaks?) are being born. 

Under these wet leaves I find myriads of the snow-fleas, like powder. 

Some brooks are full of little wiggling creatures somewhat like caddis-worms, stemming the stream, — food for the early fishes. 

The canoe birch sprouts are red or salmon- colored like those of the common, but soon they cast off their salmon - colored jackets and come forth with a white but naked look, all dangling with ragged reddish curls. 

What is that little bird that makes so much use of these curls in its nest, lined with coarse grass? 

The snow still covers the ground on the north side of hills, which are hard and slippery with frost. 

I am surprised to find Flint's Pond not more than half broken up. Probably it was detained by the late short but severe cold, while Walden, being deeper, was not. Standing on the icy side, the pond appears nearly all frozen; the breadth of open water is far removed and diminished to a streak; I say it is beginning to break up. Standing on the water side (which in Flint's is the middle portion ), it appears to be but bordered with ice, and I say there is ice still left in the pond.

Saw a bluish-winged beetle or two. 

In a stubble-field east of Mt. Tabor, started up a pack ( though for numbers, about twenty, it may have been a bevy ) of quail, which went off to some young pitch pines, with a whir like a shot, the plump  round birds. 

The redpolls are still numerous.

On the warm, dry cliff, looking south over Beaver Pond, I was surprised to see a large butterfly, black with buff-edged wings, so tender a creature to be out so early, and, when alighted, opening and shutting its wings. What does it do these frosty nights? Its chrysalis must have hung in some sunny nook of the rocks. Born to be food for some early bird.

Cutting a maple for a bridge over Lily Brook, I was rejoiced to see the sap falling in large, clear drops from the wound. 

H. D Thoreau, Journal, March 20, 1853

March 20, 1853 How handsome the curves which the edge of the ice makes, See Walden is melting apace

I painted my boat . . . I had first filled the seams with some grafting- wax. See March 16, 1854 ("See and hear honey-bees about my boat in the yard, attracted probably by the beeswax in the grafting-wax which was put on it a year ago.) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Boat in. Boat out.

Those alder catkins on the west side of Walden tremble and undulate in the wind, they are so relaxed and ready to bloom, the most forward blossom-buds. See  March 22, 1853 ("The very earliest alder is in bloom and sheds its pollen. I detect a few catkins at a distance by their distinct yellowish color. This the first native flower."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring:: Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding

The edges of the mountains now melt into the sky. It is affecting to be put into communication with such distant objects by the power of vision. See February 21, 1855 ("We now notice the snow on the mountains, because on the remote rim of the horizon its whiteness contrasts with the russet and darker hues of our bare fields"); March 11, 1854 ("The distant mountains are all white with snow while our landscape is nearly bare."); May 17, 1858 ("I doubt if in the landscape there can be anything finer than a distant mountain-range. They are a constant elevating influence.");  October 22, 1857 ("But what a perfect crescent of mountains we have in our northwest horizon! Do we ever give thanks for it?")See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Mountains in the Horizon

Now first you perceive that dry, warm, summer-presaging scent from dry oak and other leaves, on the sides of hills and ledges. You smell the summer from afar. See February 18, 1857 (“I was surprised to find how sweet the whole ground smelled when I lay flat and applied my nose to it”); March 4, 1854 ("I begin to sniff the air and smell the ground."); March 18,1853 ("To-day first I smelled the earth.”) April 2, 1856 ("I am tempted to stretch myself on the bare ground above the Cliff, to feel its warmth in my back, and smell the earth and the dry leaves . I see and hear flies and bees about. A large buff-edged butterfly flutters by along the edge of the Cliff, — Vanessa antiopa.”); April 27, 1860 ("There is a certain summeriness in the air now, especially under a warm cliff like this, where you smell the very dry leaves, and hear the pine warbler and the hum of insects")

In this spring breeze, how full of life the silvery pines, probably the under sides of their leaves. See February 10, 1860 ("I see that Wheildon's pines are rocking and showing their silvery under sides as last spring, — their first awakening, as it were. "); March 21, 1859 (“That fine silvery light reflected from its needles (perhaps their undersides) incessantly in motion.”); April 29, 1852 ("The pines have an appearance they have not worn before, yet not easy to describe"); May 1, 1855 ("Why have the white pines at a distance that silvery look around their edges or thin parts? Is it owing to the wind showing the under sides of the needles? Methinks you do not see it in the winter.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: First silvery sheen from needles of the white pine waving in the wind

Goose Pond is wholly open. Compare March 21, 1855("Crossed Goose Pond on ice."); March 24, 1854 ("Goose Pond half open. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Ice-Out

Under these wet leaves I find myriads of the snow-fleas, like powder. See January 30, 1860 ("The snow-flea seems to be a creature whose summer and prime of life is a thaw in the winter. It seems not merely to enjoy this interval like other animals, but then chiefly to exist. It is the creature of the thaw."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Snow-flea

The canoe birch sprouts are red or salmon-colored . . . but soon they . . . come forth with a white but naked look, all dangling with ragged reddish curls. See April 7, 1856 ("The tops of young white birches now have a red-pink color."); January 9, 1860 ("I am interested by a clump of young canoe birches on the hillside shore of the pond. There is an interesting variety in the colors of their bark, passing from bronze at the earth, through ruddy and copper colors to white higher up, with shreds of different color from that beneath peeling off. . . .It is as if the tree unbuttoned a thin waistcoat and suffered it to blow aside, revealing its bosom or inner garment, which is a more ruddy brown, or sometimes greenish or coppery; and thus one cuticle peels off after another till it is a ruddy white, as if you saw to a red ground through a white wash; . . .It may be, then, half a dozen years old before it assumes the white toga which is its distinctive dress. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Birches in Season

The redpolls are still numerous. See March 23, 1853 ("The birds which are merely migrating or tarrying here for a season are especially gregarious now, — the redpoll, Fringilla hyemalis, fox-colored sparrow, etc.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Lesser Redpoll

A large butterfly, black with buff-edged wings, so tender a creature to be out so early. See  March 21, 1853 ("Saw two more of those large black and buff butterflies. The same degree of heat brings them out everywhere.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Buff-edged Butterfly

Rejoiced to see the sap. See  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Red Maple Sap Flows

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, We go listening for early birds

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-530329

Walking in the Rain.

April 4.

Last night, a sugaring of snow, which goes off in an hour or two in the rain. Rains all day.

The steam-cloud from the engine rises but slowly in such an atmosphere, and makes a small angle with the earth. It is low, perhaps, for the same reason that the clouds are.

The robins sang this morning, nevertheless, and now more than ever hop about boldly in the garden in the rain, with full, broad, light cow-colored breasts.

P. M. -- Rain, rain.

To Clematis Brook via Lee's Bridge.

Again I notice that early reddish or purplish grass that lies flat on the pools, like a warm blush suffusing the youthful face of the year.

A warm, dripping rain, heard on one's umbrella as on a snug roof, and on the leaves without, suggests comfort.

We go abroad with a slow but sure contentment, like turtles under their shells. We never feel so comfortable as when we are abroad in a storm with satisfaction. Our comfort is positive then. We are all compact, and our thoughts collected. We walk under the clouds and mists as under a roof. Now we seem to hear the ground a-soaking up the rain, and not falling ineffectually on a frozen surface. We, too, are penetrated and revived by it.

Robins still sing, and song sparrows more or less, and blackbirds, and the unfailing jay screams.

How the thirsty grass rejoices! It has pushed up so visibly since morning, and fields that were completely russet yesterday are already tinged with green. We rejoice with the grass.

I hear the hollow sound of drops falling into the water under Hubbard's Bridge, and each one makes a conspicuous bubble which is floated down-stream. Instead of ripples there are a myriad dimples on the stream.

The lichens remember the sea to-day. The usually dry cladonias, which are so crisp under the feet, are full of moist vigor.

The rocks speak and tell the tales inscribed on them.Their inscriptions are brought out. I pause to study their geography.

At Conantum End I saw a red-tailed hawk launch, a heavy flier, flapping even like the great bittern at first,-heavy forward.

After turning Lee's Cliff I heard, methinks, more birds singing even than in fair weather, --

• tree sparrows, whose song has the character of the canary's,
• F. hyemalis's, chill-lill,
• the sweet strain of the fox-colored sparrow,
• song sparrows,
• a nuthatch,
• jays,
• crows,
• bluebirds,
• robins, and
• a large congregation of blackbirds. 

They suddenly alight with great din in a stubble-field just over the wall, not perceiving me and my umbrella behind the pitch pines, and there feed silently; then, getting uneasy or anxious, they fly up on to an apple tree, where being reassured, commences a rich but deafening concert, o-gurgle-ee-e, o-gurgle-ee-e, some of the most liquid notes ever heard, as if produced by some of the water of the Pierian spring, flowing through some kind of musical water-pipe and at the same time setting in motion a multitude of fine vibrating metallic springs. Like a shepherd merely meditating most enrapturing glees on such a water-pipe. A more liquid bagpipe or clarionet, immersed like bubbles in a thousand sprayey notes, the bubbles half lost in the spray.

When I show myself, away they go with a loud harsh charr-r, charr-r. At first I had heard an inundation of blackbirds approaching, some beating time with a loud chuck, chuck, while the rest played a hurried, gurgling fugue.

Saw a sucker washed to the shore at Lee's Bridge, its tail gone, large fins standing out, purplish on top of head and snout. Reminds me of spring, spearing, and gulls.

A rainy day is to the walker in solitude and retirement like the night.
Few travellers are about, and they half hidden under umbrellas and confined to the highways. One's thoughts run in a different channel from usual. It is somewhat like the dark day; it is a light night. How cheerful the roar of a brook swollen by the rain, especially if there is no sound of a mill in it! 

A woodcock went off from the shore of Clematis or Nightshade Pond with a few slight rapid sounds like a watchman's rattle half revolved.

A clustering of small narrow leaves somewhat cone-like on the shrub oak.

Some late, low, remarkably upright alders (serrulata), short thick catkins, at Clematis Brook.

The hazel bloom is about one tenth of an inch long (the stigmas) now.

A little willow (Salix Muhlenbergiana?) nearly ready to bloom, not larger than a sage willow. All our early willows with catkins appearing before the leaves must belong to the group of “The Sallows. Cinereæ. Borrer," and that of the "Two-colored Willows. Discolores. Borrer," as adopted by Barratt; or, in other words, to the first § of Carey in Gray.

The other day, when I had been standing perfectly still some ten minutes, looking at a willow which had just blossomed, some rods in the rear of Martial Miles's house, I felt eyes on my back and, turning round suddenly, saw the heads of two men who had stolen out of the house and were watching me over a rising ground as fixedly as I the willow. They were study the cheapest of the two.

I hear the twitter of tree sparrows from fences and shrubs in the yard and from alders by meadows and the riverside every day.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 4, 1853

The steam-cloud from the engine rises but slowly. . . and makes a small angle with the earth. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Steam of the Engine

We never feel so comfortable as when we are abroad in a storm with satisfaction. We are all compact, and our thoughts collected. We walk under the clouds and mists as under a roof. One's thoughts run in a different channel from usual. See April 2, 1852 (" The rain was soothing, so still and sober, gently beating against and amusing our thoughts, swelling the brooks. . . . The hour is favorable to thought"); April 19, 1852 (" To see wild life you must go forth at a wild season. When it rains and blows, keeping men indoors, then the lover of Nature must forth."); May 13, 1852("They who do not walk in the woods in the rain never behold them in their freshest, most radiant and blooming beauty."); August 4, 1852("The singular thought-inducing stillness after a gentle rain like this"); . August 7, 1853 (" It is worth the while to walk in wet weather;. . .The stillness and the shade enable you to collect and concentrate your thoughts"); November 7, 1855 ("I find it good to be out this still, dark, mizzling afternoon . . . The view is contracted by the misty rain, the water is perfectly smooth, and the stillness is favorable to reflection. I am more open to impressions, . . . My thoughts are concentrated; I am all compact. . . . This mist is like a roof and walls over and around, and I walk with a domestic feeling."); See also January 27, 1858("It is so mild and moist as I saunter along by the wall east of the Hill that I remember, or anticipate, one of those warm rain-storms in the spring,")

A warm, dripping rain, heard on one's umbrella as on a snug roof, and on the leaves without, suggests comfort.  See  March 21, 1858 ("This first spring rain is very agreeable. I love to hear the pattering of the drops on my umbrella, and I love also the wet scent of the umbrella. ")

I hear the hollow sound of drops falling into the water under Hubbard's Bridge, and each one makes a conspicuous bubble which is floated down-stream. See June 14, 1855 ("  It is very pleasant to  . . .see and hear the great drops patter on the river, each making a great bubble; the rain seemed much heavier for it")

I heard, methinks, more birds singing even than in fair weather. See April 4, 1855 ("A fine morning, still and bright, with smooth water and singing of song and tree sparrows and some blackbirds. "). and note to April 4, 1860("The birds sing quite numerously at sunrise about the villages")

A woodcock went off from the shore of Clematis or Nightshade Pond with a few slight rapid sounds like a watchman's rattle half revolved. See June 15, 1851 ("A solitary woodcock in the shade goes off with a startled, rattling, hurried note.")

The hazel bloom is about one tenth of an inch long (the stigmas) now.  See   March 27, 1853 ("It is in some respects the most interesting flower yet, though so minute that only an observer of nature, or one who looked for them, would notice it.. . .The high color of this minute, unobserved flower, at this cold, leafless, and almost flowerless season! It is a beautiful greeting of the spring,"):.  March 31, 1853 ("The catkins of the hazel are now trembling in the wind and much lengthened, showing yellowish and beginning to shed pollen"):  April 1, 1853 ("The hazel stigmas now more fully out , curving over and a third of an inch long , that the catkins begin to shed pollen.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: the Hazel

I hear the twitter of tree sparrows from fences and shrubs in the yard and from alders by meadows and the riverside every day. See April 8, 1854 ("Methinks I do not see such great and lively flocks of hyemalis and tree sparrows in the morning. . .Perchance after the warmer days, which bring out the frogs and butterflies, the alders and maples, the greater part of them leave for the north and give place to newcomers.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Tree Sparrow

The red maple buds already redden the swamps and the riverside.

March 25.

I forgot to say yesterday that several little groves of alders on which I had set my eye had been cut down the past winter. One in Trillium Woods was a favorite because it was so dense and regular, its outline rounded as if it were a moss bed; and another more than two miles from this, at Dugan's, which I went to see yesterday, was then being cut, like the former, to supply charcoal for powder. Dugan does most of this work about the town. The willow hedges by causeways are regularly trimmed and peeled. The small wood brings eight dollars a cord. Alders, also, and poplars are extensively used.

6 A. M. To Brister's Hill.

The Fringilla hyemalis sing most in concert of any bird nowadays that I hear. Sitting near together on an oak or pine in the woods or an elm in the village, they keep up a very pleasant, enlivening, and incessant jingling and twittering chill-lill-lill, so that it is difficult to distinguish a single bird's note, – parts of it much like a canary.

This sound advances me furthest toward summer, unless it be the note of the lark, who, by the way, is the most steady singer at present. Notwithstanding the raw and windy mornings, it will sit on a low twig or tussock or pile of manure in the meadow and sing for hours, as sweetly and plaintively as in summer.

I see the white-breasted nuthatch, head downward, on the oaks. First heard his rapid and, as it were, angry gnah gnah gna, and a faint, wiry creaking note about grubs as he moved round the tree.

I thought I heard the note of a robin and of a bluebird from an oak. It proceeded from a small bird about as big as a bluebird] which did not perch like a woodpecker, uttering first some notes robin-like or like the golden robin, then perfect bluebird warbles, and then it flew off with a flight like neither. [Was it not the fox-colored sparrow?] From what I saw and heard afterward I suspected it might be a downy woodpecker.

I see fine little green beds of moss peeping up at Brister's Spring above the water.

When I saw the fungi in my lamp, I was startled and awed, as if I were stooping too low, and should next be found classifying carbuncles and ulcers. Is there not sense in the mass of men who ignore and confound these things, and never see the cryptogamia on the one side any more than the stars on the other? Underfoot they catch a transient glimpse of what they call toad stools, mosses, and frog-spittle, and overhead of the heavens, but they can all read the pillars on a Mexican quarter.

They ignore the worlds above and below, keep straight along, and do not run their boots down at the heel as I do. 

How to keep the heels up I have been obliged to study carefully, turning the nigh foot painfully on side-hills.

I find that the shoemakers, to save a few iron heel-pegs, do not complete the rows on the inside by three or four, — the very place in the whole boot where they are most needed, — which has fatal consequences to the buyer. I often see the tracks of them in the paths. It is as if you were to put no underpinning under one corner of your house.

I have managed to cross very wet and miry places dry-shod by moving rapidly on my heels. I always use leather strings tied in a hard knot; they untie but too easily even then.

The various lights in which you may regard the earth, e.g. the dry land as sea bottom, or the sea bottom as a dry down.

Those willow cones appear to be galls, for, cutting open one of the leafy ones, I found a hard core such as are often seen bare, the nucleus of the cone, and in it a grub. This gall had completely checked the extension of the twig, and the leaves had collected and over flowed it as the water at a dam. Perchance when the twig is vigorous and full of sap the cone is leafy; other wise a hard cone.


11 A. M. – To Framingham.

A Lincoln man heard a flock of geese, he thinks it was day before yesterday.

Measured a white oak in front of Mr. Billings's new house, about one mile beyond Saxonville,-twelve and one twelfth feet in circumference at four feet from the ground (the smallest place within ten feet from the ground), fourteen feet circumference at ground, and a great spread.

Frank's place is on the Concord River within less than ten miles of Whitehall Pond in Hopkinton, one of [the sources], perhaps the principal source, of the river. I thought that a month hence the stream would not be twenty feet wide there.

Mr. Wheeler, auctioneer, of Framingham, told me that the timber of the factory at Saxonville was brought by water to within about one mile of where the mill stands. There is a slight rapid.

Brown says that he saw the north end of Long Pond covered with ice the 22d, and that R. W. E. saw the south end entirely open.

March 25, 2024

The red maple buds already redden the swamps and riverside.

The winter rye greens the ground.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 25, 1853

The Fringilla hyemalis sing most in concert of any bird nowadays that I hear. See March 22, 1859 (" I hear the lively jingle of the hyemalis and the sweet notes of the tree sparrow. . .. Both species in considerable numbers, singing together as they flit along, make a very lively concert. They sing as loud and full as ever now. "); March 23, 1852 ("I heard, this forenoon, a pleasant jingling note from the slate-colored snowbird on the oaks in the sun on Minott's hillside. Apparently they sing with us in the pleasantest days before they go northward"); March 28, 1854 ("A flock of hyemalis drifting from a wood over a field incessantly for four or five minutes, — thousands of them, notwithstanding the cold.");  April 8, 1854 ("Methinks I do not see such great and lively flocks of hyemalis and tree sparrows in the morning since the warm days, the 4th, 5th, and 6th. Perchance after the warmer days, which bring out the frogs and butterflies, the alders and maples, the greater part of them leave for the north and give place to newcomers")  See also A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, the Dark-eyed Junco (Fringilla hyemalis) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, the note of the dark-eyed junco going northward

I see the white-breasted nuthatch, head downward . . . his rapid and, as it were, angry gnah gnah gna, and a faint, wiry creaking note See March 25, 1859 ("I heard the what what what what of the nuthatch this forenoon. It is much like the cackle of the pigeon woodpecker."); March 25, 1856 (“There have been few if any small migratory birds the past winter. I have not seen a tree sparrow, nuthatch, creeper, nor more than one redpoll since Christmas. ”) See also note to 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!. . . It is the spring note of the nuthatch”) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Nuthatch and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring :The Spring Note of the Nuthatch

Several little groves of alders on which I had set my eye had been cut down the past winter. See March 22, 1853 ("The very earliest alder is in bloom and sheds its pollen. I detect a few catkins at a distance by their distinct yellowish color. This the first native flower"); March 23, 1853 ("The alder catkins, just burst open, are prettily marked spirally by streaks of yellow, contrasting with alternate rows of rich reddish-brown scales, which make one revolution in the length of the catkin."); March 26, 1853 ("There is a large specimen of what I take to be the common alder by the poplar at Egg Rock, five inches in diameter. It may be considered as beginning to bloom to-day."); March 26, 1857 ("The first croaking frogs, the hyla, the white maple blossoms, the skunk-cabbage, and the alder’s catkins are observed about the same time.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Alders and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding

I see fine little green beds of moss peeping up at Brister's Spring above the water. See March 2, 1860 ("At Brister Spring the dense bedded green moss is very fresh and handsome."):  March 7 , 1855 ("At Brister’s Spring there are beautiful dense green beds of moss, which apparently has just risen above the surface of the water, tender and compact."); March 4, 1859 ("I find near Hosmer Spring in the wettest ground, which has melted the snow as it fell, little flat beds of light-green moss, soft as velvet, which have recently pushed up, and lie just above the surface of the water.  . . (And there are still more and larger at Brister's Spring.) They are like little rugs or mats and are very obviously of fresh growth, such a green as has not been dulled by winter, a very fresh and living.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Mosses Bright Green and  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, At Brister's Spring

I always use leather strings tied in a hard knot; they untie but too easily even then. See July 25, 1853 ("I have for years had a great deal of trouble with my shoe-strings, because they get untied continually . . . One shoemaker sold us shoe strings made of the hide of a South American jack ass, which he recommended; or rather he gave them to us and added their price to that of the shoes we bought of him. But I could not see that these were any better than the old."); August 5, 1855 ("It seems that I used to tie a regular granny’s knot in my shoe-strings, and I learned of myself —rediscovered—to tie a true square knot, or what sailors sometimes call a reef-knot. It needed to be as secure as a reef-knot in any gale, to withstand the wringing and twisting I gave it in my walks.")

A Lincoln man heard a flock of geese, he thinks it was day before yesterday. See March 24, 1859 ("C. sees geese go over again this afternoon. How commonly they are seen in still rainy weather like this!"); March 27 and 28, 1860 ("Louis Minor tells me he saw some geese about the 23d."); March 27, 1857 ("Farmer says that he heard geese go over two or three nights ago.");  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring; Geese Overhead

The red maple buds already redden the swamps and riverside. See March 28, 1852 ("The smoky maple swamps have now got a reddish tinge from their expanding buds."); April 1, 1860 ("The red maple buds are considerably expanded, and no doubt make a greater impression of redness."); April 10, 1853 (''The male red maple buds now show eight or ten (ten counting everything) scales, alternately crosswise, and the pairs successively brighter red or scarlet, which will account for the gradual reddening of their tops."); April 13, 1854 ('I begin to see the anthers in some buds. So much more of the scales of the buds is now uncovered that the tops of the swamps at a distance are reddened."); April 24, 1857 ("I see the now red crescents of the red maples in their prime . . . above the gray stems."); April 26, 1855 ("The blossoms of the red maple (some a yellowish green) are now most generally conspicuous and handsome scarlet crescents over the swamps. “); April 26, 1860 ("I have noticed their handsome crescents over distant swamps commonly for some ten days.."); April 29, 1856 ("Sat on the knoll in the swamp, now laid bare. How pretty a red maple in bloom (they are now in prime), seen in the sun against a pine wood, like these little ones in the swamp against the neighboring wood, they are so light and ethereal, . . .and they are of so cheerful and lively a color.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Maple

The red maple buds 

already redden the swamps 

and the riverside.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The red maple buds redden the swamps

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

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

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

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-530325

  

The bark of the striped squirrel is a first sure sign of decided spring weather.

March 9. 

Wednesday. Rain, dissolving the snow and raising the river.

I do not perceive that the early elm or the white maple buds have swollen yet.

So the relaxed and loosened (?) alder catkins and the extended willow catkins and poplar catkins are the first signs of reviving vegetation which I have witnessed.

Minott thinks, and quotes some old worthy as authority for saying, that the bark of the striped squirrel is the, or a, first sure sign of decided spring weather.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 9, 1853

I do not perceive that the early elm or the white maple buds have swollen yet.  See March 23, 1853 (“The white maple may perhaps be said to begin to blossom to-day, — the male, — for the stamens, both anthers and filament, are conspicuous on some buds. It has opened unexpectedly, and a rich sight it is, looking up through the expanded buds to the sky.”); March 29,  1853 ("The female flowers of the white maple , crimson stig mas from the same rounded masses of buds with the male , are now quite abundant. I think they have not come out more than a day or two.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, White Maple Buds and Flowers

The relaxed and loosened (?) alder catkins and the extended willow catkins and poplar catkins are the first signs of reviving vegetation. See March 7, 1853 ("The dark chocolate-colored alder catkins — what I have called A. incana — are not only relaxed, but there is an obvious looseness and space between the scales. ");March 10, 1853 (".Methinks the first obvious evidence of spring is the pushing out of the swamp willow catkins, then the relaxing of the earlier alder catkins, then the pushing up of skunk-cabbage spathes (and pads at the bottom of water). This is the order I am inclined to, though perhaps any of these may take precedence of all the rest in any particular case . . . The early poplars are pushing forward their catkins , though they make not so much display as the willows . . . ");  March 29, 1853 ("The catkins of the Populus tremuloides  are just beginning to open, — to curl over and downward like caterpillars. Yesterday proved too cold, undoubtedly, for the willow to open, and unless I learn better, I shall give the poplar the precedence, dating both, however, from to-day.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Alders

The bark of the striped squirrel is the, or a, first sure sign of decided spring weather. See  March 4, 1855 ("May not this season of springlike weather between the first decidedly springlike day and the first blue bird, already fourteen days long, be called the striped squirrel spring?"); March 7, 1855 ("In a sheltered and warmer place, we heard a rustling amid the dry leaves on the hillside and saw a striped squirrel eying us from its resting-place on the bare ground. It sat still till we were within a rod, then suddenly dived into its hole, which was at its feet, and disappeared. The first pleasant days of spring come out like a squirrel and go in again."); March 17, 1859 ("I hear rustling amid the oak leaves above that new water-line, and, there being no wind, I know it to be a striped squirrel, and soon see its long-unseen striped sides flirting about the instep of an oak. Its lateral stripes, alternate black and yellowish, are a type which I have not seen for a long time, or rather a punctuation-mark, the character to indicate where a new paragraph commences in the revolution of the seasons. ").See also Walden ("I am on the alert for the first signs of spring, to hear the chance note of some arriving bird, or the striped squirrel's chirp, for his stores must be now nearly exhausted, or see the woodchuck venture out of his winter quarters."); A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, the striped squirrel comes out

The autumn twilight, which lasts long and is remarkably light, — clear white light.

November 2


What is Nature unless there is an eventful human life passing within her? Many joys and many sorrows are the lights and shadows in which she shows most beautiful.

P. M. – To Walden and Flint’s.

What are those sparrows in loose flocks which I have seen two or three weeks, — some this afternoon on the railroad causeway, — with small heads and rather long necks in proportion to body, which is longish and slender, yellowish-white or olivaceous breast, striped with dark, ashy sides of neck, whitish over and beneath the eye, and some white observed in tail when they fly ? I think a dark bill and legs.

They utter a peculiar note, not heard here at other seasons, somewhat like the linarias, a sort of shuffling or chuckling iche-tche tche-tche, quickly uttered.

Can they be the grass-bird ? They resemble it in marking. They are much larger than the tree sparrows. Methinks it is a very common fall bird.

C. says he saw succory yesterday, and a loon on the pond the 30th ult.

The prinos berries are almost gone.

I am somewhat surprised to find that the Aster undulatus at Walden is killed by the frost; only one low and obscure one has any flowers left.

Therefore, though it is the latest aster that is abundant, I am not sure that it lasts absolutely longer than the A. puniceus, or even Tradescanti.

I see no other flowers on the Peak.

Poke berries there are still partly green, partly ripe, as usual.

The leaves of the umbelled pyrola are as glossy as in the spring, which proves that they do not owe their glossiness in the spring to the influence of that season.

Two ducks on Walden.

The Canada snap dragon is still fresh and in flower by roadside near pond, and a sprig from root of Solidago nemoralis.

I gather some fine large pignuts by the wall (near the beech trees) on Baker's land. It is just the time to get these, and this seems to be quite early enough for most pignuts.

I find that there have been plenty of beechnuts, and there are still some empty burs on the trees and many nuts on the ground, but I cannot find one with meat in it.

The beech leaves have all fallen except some about the lower part of the trees, and they make a fine thick bed on the ground.  They are very beautiful, firm, and perfect leaves, unspotted and not eaten by insects, of a handsome, clear leather color, like a book bound in calf. Crisp and elastic; no wonder they make beds of them.

Of a clear [space left in manuscript ] or leather-color, more or less dark and remarkably free from stains and imperfections.

They cover the ground so perfectly and cleanly as to tempt you to recline on it and admire the beauty of their smooth boles from that position, covered with lichens of various colors-green, etc. — which you think you never see elsewhere.

They impress you as full of health and vigor, so that their bark can hardly contain their spirits but lies in folds or wrinkles about their ankles like a sock, with the embonpoint of infancy, wrinkles of fat.

The pollen [sic] of the Lycopodium dendroideum falls in showers or in clouds when my foot strikes it. How long? 

The witch-hazel appears to be nearly out of bloom, most of the flowers withering or frost-bitten.

The shrub oak cups which I notice to-day have lost their acorns.

I examined a squirrel's nest in a tree which suggested to me(it having a foundation of twigs, coarse basketwork; above, shreds or fibres of bark and a few leaves) that perchance the squirrel, like the mouse, sometimes used a deserted bird's nest,-a crow's or hawk' .

A red-tailed hawk.

Among the buds, etc., etc., to be noticed now, remember the alder and birch catkins, so large and conspicuous, — on the alder, pretty red catkins dangling in bunches of three or four, — the minute red buds of the panicled andromeda, the roundish plump ones of the common hazel, the longish sharp ones of the witch-hazel, etc.

The sun sets.

November 2, 2022, 6 PM

We come home in the autumn twilight, which lasts long and is remarkably light, the air being purer, — clear white light, which penetrates the woods, – is seen through the woods, — the leaves being gone.

When the sun is set, there is no sudden contrast, no deep darkening, but a clear, strong white light still prevails, and the west finally glows with a generally diffused and moderate saffron-golden (?).

Coming home by boat the other evening, I smelled a traveller's pipe very strongly a third of a mile distant. He was crossing Wood ' s Bridge.

The evening star is now very bright; and is that Jupiter near it?

I might put by themselves the November flowers, — flowers which survive severe frosts and the fall of the leaf. I see hedge-mustard very fresh.

Those plants which are earliest in the spring have already made the most conspicuous preparation for that season. The skunk-cabbage spathes have started, the alder catkins, as I have said, hazel, etc.; and is there anything in the double scales of the maples, the prominent scales of willow and other catkins, sometimes burst (?) ? 

A part of the lambkill is turned dull-reddish.

The last two, this and yesterday, fine days, but not gossamer ones. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 2, 1853

Can they be the grass-bird? See October 3, 1860 ("I have seen and heard sparrows in flocks, more as if flitting by, within a week, or since the frosts began.); October 11, 1856 ("Bay-wing sparrows numerous."); October 12, 1859 ("I see scattered flocks of bay-wings amid the weeds and on the fences."); October 16, 1855 ("I look at a grass-bird on a wall in the dry Great Fields. There is a dirty-white or cream-colored line above the eye and another from the angle of the mouth beneath it and a white ring close about the eye. The breast is streaked with this creamy white and dark brown in streams, as on the cover of a book"); October 23, 1853 ("And many birds flit before me along the railroad, with faint notes, too large for linarias . . . Probably the white-in-tail [i. e. vesper sparrow, or grass finch.]") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Bay-Wing Sparrow (Fringilla graminea)

The witch-hazel appears to be nearly out of bloom, most of the flowers withering or frost-bitten. See November 4, 1852 ("Saw witch-hazels out of bloom, some still fresh");  November 6, 1853 ("The witch-hazel spray is peculiar and interesting, with little knubs at short intervals, zig zag, crinkle-crankle"); November 15, 1853 ("Take up a witch-hazel with still some fresh blossoms.") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Witch-Hazel

We come home in the autumn twilight, which lasts long and is remarkably light, the air being purer, — clear white light, which penetrates the woods. See October 25, 1858 (“Also I notice, when the sun is low, the light reflected from the parallel twigs of birches recently bare, etc., like the gleam from gossamer lines. This is another Novemberish phenomenon. Call these November Lights. Hers is a cool, silvery light.”); October 27, 1858 (“the cool, white twilights of that season which is itself the twilight of the year.”); November 1, 1858 ("The November twilights just begun!"); November 14, 1853 (" This [October] light fades into the clear, white, leafless twilight of November.")  November 17, 1858 ("The setting sun, too, is reflected from windows more brightly than at any other season. “November Lights" would be a theme for me.");   November 20, 1858 ("The glory of November is in its silvery, sparkling lights”) See also  note to November 10, 1858 ("The warmer colors are now rare. A cool and silvery light is the prevailing one; all the light of November may be called an afterglow.") See also 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, November Sunsets and

Trees stand bare against

the sky again – this the first

month in which they do.

 November 12, 1853

Among the buds, etc., etc., to be noticed now, remember the alder and birch catkins, so large and conspicuous, — on the alder, pretty red catkins dangling in bunches of three or four. See November 6, 1853 ("The plump, roundish, club-shaped, well-protected buds of the alders, and rich purplish or mulberry catkins, three, four, or five together."); December 19, 1850 ("The catkins of the alders are as tender and fresh-looking as ripe mulberries.") See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding

The Canada snap dragon is still fresh and in flower by roadside near pond. See August 21, 1851 ("Canada snap dragon by roadside (not conspicuous).")

The evening star is now very bright; and is that Jupiter near it? See June 18, 1853 ("The evening star has come out, but no other."); November 14, 1853 ("Venus remarkably bright, just ready to set. Not a cloud in the sky, only the moon and a few faint unobtrusive stars here and there, and from time to time a meteor."); December 27, 1853 ("The evening star is seen shining brightly, before the twilight has begun."); January 3, 1854 ("The sun has set . . . The young moon and the evening star are seen."); September 7, 1854 ("It is just after sundown. The moon not yet risen, one star, Jupiter, visible.")

The November flowers, — flowers which survive severe frosts and the fall of the leaf. I see hedge-mustard very fresh. See October 24, 1853 ("Hedge-mustard still fresh and in bloom."); November 1, 1852 ("Stellaria media in Cheney's garden, as last spring, butter-and-eggs, that small white aster (A. dumosus?), the small white fleabane, hedge-mustard."); November 5, 1855 (“I see the shepherd’s-purse, hedge-mustard, and red clover, — November flowers. ”); November 9, 1850 ("I found many fresh violets (Viola pedata) to-day (November 9th) in the woods.”); November 10, 1858 (" Look for these late flowers —November flowers — on hills, above frost."); November 23, 1852 ("Among the flowers which may be put down as lasting thus far, as I remember, in the order of their hardiness: yarrow, tansy (these very fresh and common), cerastium, autumnal dandelion, dandelion, and perhaps tall buttercup, etc., the last four scarce. The following seen within a fortnight: a late three-ribbed goldenrod of some kind, blue-stemmed goldenrod (these two perhaps within a week), Potentilla argentea, Aster undulatus, Ranunculus repens, Bidens connata, shepherd's-purse, etc.")

A part of the lambkill is turned dull-reddish. See November 3, 1858 ("The lower leaves of the water andromeda are now red, and the lambkill leaves are drooping . . . and purplish from the effect of frost in low swamps like this."); November 19, 1858 ("The lambkill and water andromeda are turned quite dark red where much exposed; in shelter are green yet.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Lambkill (Kalmia augustifolia)

The last two, this and yesterday, fine days, but not gossamer ones. See November 1, 1853 ("Plainly the best hour to observe this phenomenon is mid-afternoon or later, when the spiders are full of activity and the sun is in the most favorable position  . . . It must be a perfect day that allows of so fine a display"); November 1, 1860 ("A perfect Indian-summer day, and wonderfully warm . . . Gossamer on the withered grass is shimmering in the fields, and flocks of it are sailing in the air.");  November 11, 1858  ("Gossamer reflecting the light is another November phenomenon (as well as October)."): November 19, 1853 ('This is a very pleasant and warm Indian-summer afternoon. Methinks we have not had one like it since October. This, too, is a gossamer day.") See also note to November 3, 1857 ("It is a phenomenon peculiar to this season, when the twigs are bare and the air is clear.")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days

November 2. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  November 2 

November twilight,

clear white light seen through the woods –

the leaves being gone.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Clear white light seen through the woods

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-531102