May 9, 2015
River five and three fourths inches below summer level.
I think I heard a bobolink this forenoon.
A boy brought me what I take to be a very red Rana sylvatica, caught on the leaves the 6th.
Have had no fire for more than a fortnight, and no greatcoat since April 19th.
Fir balsam bloom.
Sugar maple blossoms are now a tender yellow; in prime, say 11th.
Thousands of dandelions along the meadow by the Mill Brook, behind R. W. E.’s, in prime, say 10th.
P. M. – To Flint’s Pond.
It is a still, cloudy, thoughtful day.
Oven-bird, how long?
In Ebby Hubbard’s wood, I climb to a hole in a dead white pine, a dozen feet up, and see by the gray fur about the edge of the hole that it probably has been used by the gray squirrel.
Maryland yellow-throat.
We sit by the shore of Goose Pond. The tapping of a woodpecker sounds distinct and hollow this still cloudy day, as not before for a long time, and so do the notes of birds, as if heard against a background for a relief, e. g. the cackle of the pigeon woodpecker, the note of the jay, the scratching in the dry leaves of three or four chewinks near us (for they are not shy), about the pond, under the blueberry bushes. The water is smooth.
After sitting there a little while, I count the noses of twenty frogs within a couple of rods, which have ventured to come to the surface again, — so quietly that I did not see one come up.
At the fox-hole by Britton’s Hollow there are some three cart-buck-loads of sand cast out.
That large pine-tree moss that makes beds on the ground, now fruiting, when I brush my hand over its fruit is surprisingly stiff and elastic like wires.
Yellow lily pads begun to spread out on some pools, but hardly yet on the river; say 10th on river.
Golden robin.
The wall by the road at the bars north of Cyrus Smith’s chestnut grove is very firmly bound together by the Rhus Toxicodendron which has overrun it, for twenty feet in length. Would it not be worth the while to encourage its growth for this purpose, if you are not afraid of being poisoned? It runs up by small root-like stems, which cling close and flat to the wall, and which intertwine and seem to take a new start from the top of the wall (as from the ground), where the stems are generally larger than below, so that it is in fact a row of this rhus growing on the top of the wall to some three or four feet above it, and by its rooty stems binding the stones very firmly together. How much better this than sods on a wall!
Of that early sedge in Everett’s meadow, the top most spikes are already effete; say a week, then.
I see a second amelanchier with a distinct pink or rosaceous tinge like an apple blossom.
Elm seed has begun.
Cattle going up country for ten days past. You must keep your gate shut.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 9, 1860
The tapping of a woodpecker sounds distinct and hollow this still cloudy day. See
March 11, 1859 (“But methinks the sound of the woodpecker tapping is as much a spring note as any these mornings; it echoes peculiarly in the air of a spring morning.”);
April 27, 1856 ("The tapping of a woodpecker is made a more remarkable and emphatic sound by the hollowness of the trunk, the expanse of water which conducts the sound, and the morning hour at which I commonly hear it.”);
April 14, 1856 ("Hear the flicker’s cackle on the old aspen, and his tapping sounds afar over the water. Their tapping resounds thus far, with this peculiar ring and distinctness, because it is a hollow tree they select to play on, as a drum or tambour. It is a hollow sound which rings distinct to a great distance, especially over water.");
March 13, 1855 ("I hear the rapid tapping of the woodpecker from over the water.");
March 30, 1854 ("At the Island I see and hear this morning the cackle of a pigeon woodpecker at the hollow poplar; had heard him tapping distinctly from my boat's place.");
March 15, 1854 ("I hear that peculiar, interesting loud hollow tapping of a woodpecker from over the water.")'
March 18, 1853 ("The tapping of the woodpecker about this time.”). See also
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,
The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker) and See also
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring,
woodpeckers tapping
I count noses of twenty frogs. See
March 27, 1853 (Half an hour standing perfectly still to hear the frogs croak.)
Maryland yellow-throat. See
May 9, 1853 ("New days, then, have come, ushered in by the warbling vireo, yellowbird, Maryland yellow-throat, and small pewee")
Cattle going up country for ten days past. You must keep your gate shut. See
April 30, 1860 ("Cattle begin to go up-country, and every weekday, especially Mondays, to this time [sic] May 7th, at least, the greatest droves to-day. Methinks they will find slender picking up there for a while."). See also
May 6, 1855 ("Road full of cattle going up country.”);
May 7, 1856 ("For a week the road has been full of cattle going up country. ");
May 8, 1854 ("I hear the voices of farmers driving their cows past to their up-country pastures now.");
May 10, 1852 ("This Monday the streets are full of cattle being driven up-country, — cows and calves and colts.")
The distinct hollow
tapping this still, cloudy day –
the water is smooth.
