The night side of the woods

June 11.

A beautiful summer night, not too warm, moon not quite full, after two or three rainy days. Walk to Fair Haven by railroad, returning by Potter's pasture and Sudbury road. 

When I get away from the town and deeper into the night, I hear whip-poor-wills, and see fireflies in the meadow.

The whip-poor-will suggests how wide asunder the woods and the town. Its note is very rarely heard by those who live on the street, and then it is thought  to be of ill omen.  But go into the woods in a warm night at this season, and it is the prevailing sound. 

I hear some whip-poor-wills on hills, others in thick wooded vales that ring hollow and cavernous with their note. I hear now five or six at once.

It is a bird not only of the woods, but of the night side of the woods. It is no more of ill omen here than the night and the moonlight are. 

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

See July 16, 1850  ("Many men walk by day; few walk by night. It is a very different season. Instead of the sun, there are the moon and stars; instead of the wood thrush, there is the whip-poor-will; instead of butterflies, fireflies, winged sparks of fire!")

Signs of Fall

September 4.

It is cooler these days and nights, and I move into an eastern chamber in the morning, that I may sit in the sun.

The water, too, is cooler when I bathe in it, and I am reminded that this recreation has its period. I feel like a melon or other fruit laid in the sun to ripen. I grow, not gray, but yellow.

Saw flocks of pigeons the 2d and 3d. On Conantum an upland plover. The goldfinch is very busy pulling the thistle to pieces.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 4, 1860

I move into an eastern chamber in the morning, that I may sit in the sun. See August 29, 1859 ("It is so cool a morning that for the first time I move into the entry to sit in the sun"); September 17, 1858 (“Cooler weather now for two or three days, so that I am glad to sit in the sun on the east side of the house mornings.”); September 18, 1852 ("In the forenoons I move into a chamber on the east side of the house, and so follow the sun round.”)

The goldfinch is very busy pulling the thistle to pieces. See August 9, 1856 (“These are already feeding on the thistle seeds.”); September 4, 1859 ("Three kinds of thistles are commonly out now, — the pasture, lanceolate, and swamp") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Thistles
and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau the Goldfinch

Cooler nights.

August 17. 

We have cooler nights of late.

See at Pout’s Nest two solitary tattlers. They seem to like a muddier shore than the peetweet.

Hear a whip-poor-will sing to-night.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 17, 1860

Pout’s Nest:  HDT's name for Wyman's Meadow near Walden. See note to July 26, 1860 (I see a bream swimming about in that smaller pool by Walden in Hubbard's Wood. . . So they may be well off in the Wyman meadow or Pout's Nest.")