These fall rains are a peculiarity of the season.

September 11. 

September 11, 2022

Genius is like the snapping-turtle born with a great developed head. 

They say our brain at birth is one sixth the weight of the body. 

Cranberries are being raked for fear of frosts. 

These fall rains are a peculiarity of the season. 

How much fresher some flowers look in rainy weather! When I thought they were about done, they appear to revive, and moreover 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.

The purple gerardia and blue-curls are interesting for their petals strewn about, beaten down by the rain.

Many a brook I look into is strewn with the purple petals of the gerardia, whose stalk is not obvious in the bank. 

Again the Potentilla Canadensis var. pumila, and dandelions occasionally.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 11, 1852

Genius is like the snapping-turtle born with a great developed head. See September 11, 1854 ("It does not so much impress me as an infantile beginning of life as an epitome of all the past of turtledom and of the earth. I think of it as the result of all the turtles that have been. ")

These fall rains are a peculiarity of the season. See August 25, 1852 ("One of those serious and normal storms ~ not a shower which you can see through, not a transient cloud that drops rain ~ something regular, a fall rain, coincident with a different mood or season of the mind."); August 26, 1859 ("The first fall rain is a memorable occasion, when the river is raised and cooled, and the first crop of sere and yellow leaves falls. The air is cleared; the dog-days are over; sun-sparkles are seen on water; crickets sound more distinctt"); September 20, 1856 ("Rain in afternoon. Rain again in the night, hard."); September 20, 1857 ("This is our first fall rain, and makes a dividing line between the summer and fall."); September 20, 1860 ("Rainy in forenoon.");

The Bidens cernua. See September 11, 1851 ("Bidens cernua, or nodding burr marigold, like a small sunflower (with rays) in Heywood Brook, i. e. beggar- tick."); 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

Red-wings do not fly in flocks for ten days past

May 11. 

May 11, 2019

The river no lower than yesterday. 

Warbling vireo. 

2 P. M. — 77º. Very warm. To factory village. 

Redstart. 

Red-wings do not fly in flocks for ten days past, I think. 

I see at Damon’s Spring some dandelion seeds all blown away, and other perfectly ripe spheres much more at Clamshell the 13th). It is ripe, then, several days, or say just before elm seed, but the mouse-ear not on the 13th anywhere. 

The senecio shows its yellow. 

The warmth makes us notice the shade of houses and trees (even before the last have leafed) falling on the greened banks, as Harrington’s elm and house. June-like. 

See some large black birch stumps all covered with pink scum from the sap. 

The Ranunculus abortivus well out; say five days? 

Red cherry in bloom, how long? 

Yellow violet, almost; say to-morrow. 

William Brown’s nursery is now white (fine white) with the shepherd’s-purse, some twelve to eighteen inches high, covering it under his small trees, like buck wheat, though not nearly so white as that. I never saw so much. It also has green pods. Say it is in prime. 

E. Hosmer, as a proof that the river has been lower than now, says that his father, who was born about the middle of the last century, used to tell of a time, when he was a boy, when the river just below Derby’s Bridge did not run, and he could cross it dry-shod on the rocks, the water standing in pools when Conant’s mill (where the factory now is) was not running. 

I noticed the place to-day, and, low as the river is for the season, it must be at least a foot and a half deep there.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 11, 1860

 Red-wings do not fly in flocks for ten days past, I think. See April 30, 1855 ("Red-wing blackbirds now fly in large flocks, covering the tops of trees—willows, maples, apples, or oaks—like a black fruit , and keep up an incessant gurgling and whistling");  May 5, 1859 ("Red-wings fly in flocks yet."). May 13, 1860 ("Red wings are evidently busy building their nests.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Red-wing in  Early Spring

Dandelion seeds all blown away, and other perfectly ripe spheres. See May 9, 1858 ("A dandelion perfectly gone to seed, a complete globe, a system in itself.")

The senecio shows its yellow. See May 23, 1853 ("I am surprised by the dark orange-yellow of the senecio. At first we had the lighter, paler spring yellows of willows, dandelion, cinquefoil, then the darker and deeper yellow of the buttercup; and then this broad distinction between the buttercup and the senecio, as the seasons revolve toward July.")

Large black birch stumps all covered with pink scum from the sap. See April 26, 1856 ("The white birch at Clamshell, which I tapped long ago, still runs and is partly covered with a pink froth. Is not this the only birch which shows this colored froth?")

The Ranunculus abortivus [Kidneyleaf Crowfoot] well out; say five days? See May 16, 1859 ("Ranunculus abortivus well out (when?), southwest angle of Damon's farm.");May 25, 1858 ("See an abundance of Ranunculus abortivus in the wood-path behind Mr. E.'s house, going to seed and in bloom. The branches are fine and spreading, about eight or ten inches high.")

Yellow violet, almost; say to-morrow. See May 16, 1853 ("Yellow violets  yesterday at least. "); May 18, 1856 ("E. Emerson finds half a dozen yellow violets."); May 25, 1852 ("The large yellow woods violet (V. pubescens) by this brook now out"); 

The peculiar flight of a hawk thus fetches the year about.

April 22. 

April 22, 2019

Row to Fair Haven. Thermometer 56° or 54º. 

See shad-flies. 

Scare up woodcock on the shore by my boat's place, — the first I had seen. It was feeding within a couple of rods, but I had not seen or thought of it. When I made a loud and sharp sound driving in my rowlocks, it suddenly flew up. It is evident that we very often come quite near woodcocks and snipe thus concealed on the ground, without starting them and so without suspecting that they are near. These marsh birds, like the bittern, have this habit of keeping still and trusting to their resemblance to the ground. 

See now hen-hawks, a pair, soaring high as for pleasure, circling ever further and further away, as if it were midsummer. The peculiar flight of a hawk thus fetches the year about. I do not see it soar in this serene and leisurely manner very early in the season, methinks. 

The early luzula is almost in bloom; makes a show, with its budded head and its purplish and downy, silky leaves, on the warm margin of Clamshell Bank.

Two or three dandelions in bloom spot the ground there. 

Land at Lee's Cliff. 

The cassandra (water-brush) is well out, — how long? — and in one place we disturb great clouds of the little fuzzy gnats that were resting on the bushes, as we push up the shallow ditch there. 

The Ranunculus fascicularis is now in prime, rather than before. 

The columbine is hardly yet out. 

I hear that the Viola ovata was found the 17th and the 20th, and the bloodroot in E. Emerson's garden the 20th. 

J. B. Moore gave me some mineral which he found being thrown out of [a] drain that was dug between Knight's factory and his house. It appears to me to be red lead and quartz, and the lead is quite pure and marks very well, or freely, but is pretty dark.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 22, 1860

See shad-flies. See April 24, 1857 (“Sail to Ball's Hill. The water is at its height, higher than before this year. I see a few shad-flies on its surface.”); April 25, 1854  ("Many shad-flies in the air and alighting on my clothes."); April 28, 1859 ("See a shad-fly, one only, on water.,”); May 1, 1854 ("The water is strewn with myriads of wrecked shad-flies, erect on the surface, with their wings up like so many schooners all headed one way.”); May 1, 1858 (“Ephemerae quite common over the water.”); May 4, 1856 ("Shad-flies on the water, schooner-like.”); see also June 9, 1854 ("The air is now full of shad-flies, and there is an incessant sound made by the fishes leaping for their evening meal");June 8, 1856 (“my boat being by chance at the same place where it was in ’54, I noticed a great flight of ephemera”);  June 9, 1856 ("Again, about seven, the ephemera came out, in numbers as many as last night, now many of them coupled, even tripled; and the fishes leap as before.")

    

These marsh birds, like the bittern, have this habit of keeping still and trusting to their resemblance to the ground. See November 21, 1857 ("Just above the grape-hung birches, my attention was drawn to a singular-looking dry leaf or parcel of leaves on the shore about a rod off. Then I thought it might be the dry and yellowed skeleton of a bird with all its ribs; then the shell of a turtle, or possibly some large dry oak leaves peculiarly curved and cut; and then, all at once, I saw that it was a woodcock, perfectly still, with its head drawn in, standing on its great pink feet."); See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The American Woodcock

The peculiar flight of a hawk thus fetches the year about. See . April 22, 1852 ("See four hawks soaring high in the heavens over the Swamp Bridge Brook. At first saw three; said to myself there must be four, and found the fourth. Glad are they, no doubt, to be out after being confined by the storm"); February 16, 1859 ("The hen-hawk . . . loves to soar above the clouds. It has its own way and is beautiful.);  March 15, 1860 ("I get a very fair sight of it sailing overhead. What a perfectly regular and neat outline it presents! an easily recognized figure anywhere."); March 23, 1856 ("I spend a considerable portion of my time observing the habits of the wild animals, my brute neighbors. By their various movements and migrations they fetch the year about to me.")  See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Hen-Hawk

The early luzula is almost in bloom; makes a show, with its budded head and its purplish and downy, silky leaves. See April 30, 1859 ("Luzula campestris is almost out at Clamshell. Its now low purplish and silky-haired leaves are the blooming of moist ground and early meadow-edges.")

Two or three dandelions in bloom spot the ground there. See April 22, 1855 ("The grass is now become rapidly green by the sides of the road, promising dandelions and butter cups. "); April 29, 1857 ("I commonly meet with the earliest dandelion set in the midst of some liquid green patch. It seems a sudden and decided progress in the season.")

We disturb great clouds of the little fuzzy gnats that were resting on the bushes.  

See April 22, 1852 ("I see swarms of gnats in the air."); See also April 21, 1855 ("All the button-bushes, etc., etc., in and about the water are now swarming with those minute fuzzy gnats about an eighth of an inch long. The insect youth are on the wing. The whole shore resounds with their hum wherever we approach it, and they cover our boat and persons. They are in countless myriads the whole length of the river.") See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Fuzzy Gnats (tipulidæ)

The Ranunculus fascicularis is now in prime, rather than before. See April 11, 1858 ("Crowfoot (Ranunculus fascicularis) at Lee's since the 6th, apparently a day or two before this.")

The columbine is hardly yet out. See April 18, 1856 (“Columbine, and already eaten by bees. Some with a hole in the side.”); April 30, 1855 (" Columbine just out; one anther sheds."); May 1, 1854 ("I think that the columbine cannot be said to have blossomed there [Lee's Cliff] before to-day, — the very earliest.”)

I hear that the Viola ovata was found the 17th and the 20th. See April 19, 1858 ("Viola ovata on bank above Lee's Cliff. Edith Emerson found them there yesterday.") See also May 20, 1852 ) ("The Viola ovata is of a deep purple blue, is darkest and has most of the red in it; the V. pedata is smooth and pale-blue, delicately tinged with purple reflections; the cucullata is more decidedly blue, slaty-blue, and darkly striated.”). and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Violets

Interrupted fern scrolls there, four to five inches high

April 29. 

Black and white creeper

7 a. m. — To Walden, and set one hundred larch trees from England, all two years from seed, about nine inches high, just begun to leaf. 

See and hear a black and white creeper. 

First observe the dandelion well out in R. W. E.'s yard; also anemone at Sassafras Shore. 

Interrupted fern scrolls there, four to five inches high. 

Those red maples are reddest in which the fertile flowers prevail. 

Haynes was fishing for pickerel with a pole yesterday, and said that he caught several the day before, i. e. 27th.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 29, 1859

 See and hear a black and white creeper. See April 28, 1856 ("I hear to-day frequently the seezer seezer seezer of the black and white creeper, or what I have referred to that . . . It is not a note, nor a bird, to attract attention; only suggesting still warmer weather, —that the season has revolved so much further."); May 11, 1856("The black and white creeper also is descending the oaks, etc., and uttering from time to time his seeser seeser seeser. What a rich, strong striped blue-black (?) and white bird"); May 30, 1857 ("In the midst of the shower, though it was not raining very hard, a black and white creeper came and inspected the limbs of a tree before my rock, in his usual zigzag, prying way, head downward often, and when it thundered loudest, heeded it not.") See also A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, The Black and White Creeper

Interrupted fern scrolls there, four to five inches high. See April 29, 1855 ("The scrolls of the interrupted fern are already four or five inches high"); April 30, 1858 ( I noticed one of the large scroll ferns, with its rusty wool, up eight inches on the 28th."); also May 12, 1858 ("The cinnamon and interrupted ferns are both about two feet high in some places.")


Those red maples are reddest in which the fertile flowers prevail. See April 29, 1856 (" 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, not a heavy mass of color impeding the passage of the light, and they are of so cheerful and lively a color. "); April 28, 1855 ("The red maples, now in bloom, are quite handsome at a distance over the flooded meadow . . .. The abundant wholesome gray of the trunks and stems beneath surmounted by the red or scarlet crescents"). See also 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. They are about ready to open."); April 13, 1854 ('The red maple in a day or two. 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 26, 1859 ('The blossoms of the red maple . . . are now most generally conspicuous and handsome scarlet crescents over the swamps.")  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Red Maple

This makes the fifth kind of frog or toad spawn that I have detected this year..

May 9. 

P. M. – To Holden and to Ledum Swamp. 

See two Rana halecina. They have the green halo, but are plain brown between the spots on the back and not vivid light-green like the one of May 4th. 

See in Ludwigia palustris ditch on Hubbard’s land evidently toad-spawn already hatched, or flatted out. I distinguish the long strings, now straighter than usual and floating thin on the surface. It is less obvious than frog-spawn, and might easily be overlooked on a slimy surface. I can distinguish the little pollywog while yet in the ova by their being quite small and very black. 

This makes the fifth kind of frog or toad spawn that I have detected this year.

See, in the Holden Swamp wood, the bird of May 3d. It has sly and inquisitive ways, holding down its head and looking at me at some distance off. It has a distinct white line along the bill and about the eyes, and no yellow there, as is said of the white-eyed vireo, and I am now inclined to think it the solitary vireo (?), whose song is not described, and which is considered rare. I should say it had a blue-slate head, and, I note, a distinct yellowish vent, which none of the vireos are allowed to have!! The sides of the body are distinctly yellow, but there is none at all on the throat or breast. 

Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum, – how long? — by owl nest tree. 

Sylvia Americana

The parti-colored warbler is very common and musical there, — my tweezer-bird, – making the screep screep screep note. It is an almost incessant singer and a very handsomely marked bird. It frequents the spruce trees, at regular intervals pausing as it flits, hops, and creeps about from limb to limb or up the main stem, and holding up its head, utters its humble notes, like ah twze twze twze, or ah twze twze twze twze.

I notice very large clams, apparently the Unio complanatus (vide two specimens in drawer), or common, in West Meadow Brook near the road, one more than four and a half inches long. I have before seen them very large in brooks. 

A dandelion perfectly gone to seed, a complete globe, a system in itself. 

My Rana palustris spawn, laid in house May 5th, in the sun this afternoon swells and rises to the surface in the jar, so that the uppermost ova project slightly above it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 9, 1858

The fifth kind of frog or toad spawn. See note to May 6, 1858 (Frogs of Massachusetts)

The parti-colored warbler — my tweezer-bird. See May 18, 1856 ("A Sylvia Americana, — parti-colored warbler, — in the Holden Wood, sings a, tshrea tshrea tshrea, tshre’ tshritty tshrit’." and note to May 13, 1856 ("The tweezer-bird or Sylvia Americana. . . . the parti-colored warbler, and was that switter switter switter switter swit also by it?.”) See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Parti-Colored (Parula) Warbler (Sylvia Americana)

The bird of May 3d. . . . I am now inclined to think it the solitary vireo. See May 3, 1858.("See and hear a new bird to me. At first it was silent, and I took it for the common pewee, but, bringing my glass to bear on it, found it to be pure white throat and beneath, yellow on sides of body or wings, greenish-yellow back and shoulders, a white or whitish ring about eyes, and a light mark along side of head,
two white bars on wings, apparently black bill and dark or perhaps slate-colored (?) wings and above tail. It surprised me by singing in a novel and powerful and rich strain.")

Frogs are strange creatures.

April 18.

April 18, 2018

P. M. – To Hubbard's Grove. 

A dandelion open; will shed pollen to-morrow. 

The Rana sylvatica tadpoles have mostly wiggled away from the ova. 

Put some R. halecina spawn which has flatted out in a ditch on Hubbard’s land. 

I saw in those ditches many small pickerel, landlocked, which appeared to be transversely barred! They bury themselves in the mud at my approach.

Examined the pools and ditches in that neighborhood, i.e. of Skull-Cap Ditch, for frogs. All that I saw distinctly, except two R. fontinalis, were what I have considered young bullfrogs, middling-sized frogs with a greenish-brown back and a throat commonly white or whitish. 

I saw in a deep and cold pool some spawn placed just like that of the R. sylvatica and the R. halecina, – it was in the open field, – and the only frog I could distinguish near it was a middling sized one, or larger, with a yellow throat, not distinctly green, but brown or greenish-brown above, but green along each upper jaw. A small portion of bright golden ring about the eye was to be seen in front. 

In the spring near by, I see two unquestionable R. fontinalis, one much the largest and with brighter mottlings, probably on account of the season. The upper and forward part of their bodies distinct green, but their throats, white or whitish, not yellow. 

There were also two small and dark-colored frogs, yet with a little green tinge about the snouts, in the same spring.

I suspect that all these frogs may be the R. fontinalis, and none of them bullfrogs. Certainly those two unquestionable R. fontinalis had no yellow to throats, and probably they vary very much in the greenness of the back. Those two were not so much barred on the legs as mottled, and in one the mottlings had quite bright halos. They had the yellow segment in front part of eye, as also had the two smallest. Have the bullfrogs this? I doubt if I have seen a bullfrog yet.

I should say, with regard to that spawn, that I heard in the neighboring pool the stertorous tut tut tut like the R. halecina, and also one dump sound.

Frogs are strange creatures. One would describe them as peculiarly wary and timid, another as equally bold and imperturbable. 

All that is required in studying them is patience. You will sometimes walk a long way along a ditch and hear twenty or more leap in one after another before you, and see where they rippled the water, without getting sight of one of them. 

Sometimes, as this afternoon the two R. fontinalis, when you approach a pool or spring a frog hops in and buries itself at the bottom. You sit down on the brink and wait patiently for his reappearance. After a quarter of an hour or more he is sure to rise to the surface and put out his nose quietly without making a ripple, eying you steadily. At length he becomes as curious about you as you can be about him. He suddenly hops straight toward [you], pausing within a foot, and takes a near and leisurely view of you.

Perchance you may now scratch its nose with your finger and examine it to your heart's content, for it is become as imperturbable as it was shy before. You conquer them by superior patience and immovableness; not by quickness, but by slowness; not by heat, but by coldness. 

You see only a pair of heels disappearing in the weedy bottom, and, saving a few insects, the pool becomes as smooth as a mirror and apparently as uninhabited. At length, after half an hour, you detect a frog's snout and a pair of eyes above the green slime, turned toward you, -etc.

It is evident that the frog spawn is not accidentally placed, simply adhering to the stubble that may be nearest, but the frog chooses a convenient place to deposit it; for in the above-named pool there was no stout stubble rising above the surface except at one side, and there the spawn was placed.

It is remarkable how much the musquash cuts up the weeds at the bottom of pools and ditches, – burreed, sweet flags, pontederia, yellow lily, fine, grass like rushes, and now you see it floating on the surface, sometimes apparently where it has merely burrowed along the bottom.

I see where a ditch was cut a few years ago in a winding course, and now a young hedge of alders is springing up from the bottom on one side, winding with the ditch. The seed has evidently been caught in it, as in a trap.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 18, 1858

A dandelion open; will shed pollen to-morrow. See April 18, 1860 ("Melvin has seen a dandelion in bloom. "). See also April 29, 1857 ("I commonly meet with the earliest dandelion set in the midst of some liquid green patch. It seems a sudden and decided progress in the season.")

I suspect that all these frogs may be the R. fontinalis, and none of them bullfrogs. See  April 5, 1858 ("What I call the young bullfrog, about two and a half inches long, — though it has no yellow on throat. It has a bright-golden ring outside of the iris as far as I can see round it. Is this the case with the bullfrog? May it not be a young Rana fontinalis?"); see also Peabody Museum,  Green Frog - Rana clamitans ("often green, however, dorsal coloration can also be brown, black or even grayish. The upper lip is usually bright green, but not always. ... Often confused with the American Bullfrog, which lacks the complete dorsolateral ridge and has a yellow-green belly.") and A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Identifying the Green Frog in Spring (Rana Fontinalis)

You conquer them by superior patience and immovableness; not by quickness, but by slowness. See April 15, 1858 ("The naturalist accomplishes a great deal by patience, more perhaps than by activity. He must take his position, and then wait and watch. It is equally true of quadrupeds and reptiles. Sit still in the midst of their haunts. ")

A sudden and decided progress in the season.

April 29. 

Purple finch sings on R. W. E.'s trees. 

P. M. — To Dugan Desert. 

At Tarbell's watering-place, see a dandelion, its conspicuous bright-yellow disk in the midst of a green space on the moist bank. It is thus I commonly meet with the earliest dandelion set in the midst of some liquid green patch. It seems a sudden and decided progress in the season. 

On the pitch pines beyond John Hosmer's, I see old cones within two feet of the ground on the trunk, — sometimes a circle of them around it, — which must have been formed on the young tree some fifteen years ago. 

Sweet-fern at entrance of Ministerial Swamp. 

A partridge there drums incessantly. C. says it makes his heart beat with it, or he feels it in his breast. 

I find that that clayey-looking soil on which the baeomyces grows is a very thin crust on common sand only. 

I have seen that pretty little hair-cap moss (Pogonatum brevicaule?) for a fortnight out at least; like little pine trees; the staminate pretty, cup-shaped and shorter. 

A steel-blue-black flattish beetle, which, handled, imparted a very disagreeable carrion-like scent to fingers. 

Miles's Pond is running off. The sweet-gale, willows, etc., which have been submerged and put back, begin to show themselves and are trying to catch up with their fellows. 

I am surprised to see how some blackberry pastures and other fields are filling up with pines, trees which I thought the cows had almost killed two or three years ago; so that what was then a pasture is now a young wood-lot. 

A little snow still lies in the road in one place, the relic of the snow of the 21st.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 29, 1857

See a dandelion, its conspicuous bright-yellow disk in the midst of a green space on the moist bank. See April 29, 1852 ("F. Wheeler, Jr., saw dandelions in bloom the 20th of April. Garfield's folks used them for greens . They grew in a springy place behind Brigham' s in the Corner.") April 29, 1855 ("Dandelions out yesterday, at least.");April 29, 1859 ("First observe the dandelion well out in R. W. E.'s yard"). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Dandelion in Spring

C. says it makes his heart beat with it, or he feels it in his breast. See April 25, 1854 ("The first partridge drums in one or two places, as if the earth's pulse now beat audibly with the increased flow of life. It slightly flutters all Nature and makes her heart palpitate.”)

Birding at Kalmia glauca Swamp.

May 13. 

May 13, 2016

Hear a warbling vireo. 

Dandelions by road side; probably several days in some places.

P. M. — Up river to Kalmia glauca Swamp. 

In the swallows’ holes behind Dennis’s, I find two more dead bank swallows, and one on the sand beneath, and the feathers of two more which some creature has eaten. This makes at least seven dead bank swallows in consequence of the long, cold northeast rain. 

A male harrier, skimming low, had nearly reached this sand pit before he saw me and wheeled. Could it have been he that devoured the swallows? 

These swallows were 10 3/4+ alar extent, 4 3/4 inches long; a wing 4 3/4+ by 1 3/4+. Above they were a light brown on their backs, wings blackish, beneath white, with a dark-brown band over the breast and, again white throat and side of neck; bill small and black; reddish-brown legs, with long, sharp, slender claws. It chanced that each one of two I tried weighed between five and six sixteenths of an ounce, or between five and six drams avoirdupois. This seems to be the averge weight, or say six drams because they have pined a little. 

A man who weighs one hundred and fifty pounds weighs sixty-four hundred times as much as one. The wing of one contains about seven square inches, the body about five, or whole bird nineteen. If a man were to be provided with wings, etc., in proportion to his weight, they would measure about 844 square feet, and one wing would cover 311 feet, or be about 33 feet long by 14 wide. This is to say nothing of his muscles. 

The Kalmia glauca will not open for some days at least. At the swamp, hear the yorrick of Wilson’s thrush; the tweezer-bird or Sylvia Americana. Also the oven-bird sings.

Sylvia Americana (Northern Parula Warbler)

This species is found throughout the United States, 

and may be considered as one of the most beautiful of the birds of our country. 

It has no song, but merely a soft, greatly prolonged twitter, repeated at short intervals.~ J.J. Audubon

 

WILSON'S THRUSH or VEERY, Turdus Wilson,

The song of this species, although resembling that of the Wood Thrush in a great degree, is less powerful, and is composed of continued trills repeated with different variations, enunciated with great delicacy and mellowness, so as to be extremely pleasing to one listening to them in the dark solitudes where the sylvan songster resides. It now and then tunes its throat in the calm of evening, and is heard sometimes until after the day has closed. J.J. Audubon

Caterpillars’ nests on an apple two inches diameter. 

Downy amelanchier just out at Lupine Bank; elsewhere, maybe, a day or two. 

Where my sap has dried on the white birch bark it has now turned a bright light red. What a variety of colors it assumes! 

Potter has a remarkable field of mullein sown as thickly as if done with a machine (under Bear Garden Hill). I remarked them last year. William Wheeler thinks the seed lies in the ground an indefinite period ready to come up. I thought that it might have been introduced with his grain when it was sown lately. Wheeler says that many a pasture, if you plow it up after it has been lying still ten years, will produce an abundant crop of wormwood, and its seeds must have lain in the ground. Why do not the chemists in their analyses of soils oftener mention the seeds of plants? Would not  a careful analysis of old pasture sod settle the question? 

I suspect that I can throw a little light on the fact that when a dense pine wood is cut down oaks, etc., may take its place. There were only pines, no other tree. They are cut off, and, after two years have elapsed, you see oaks, or perhaps a few other hard woods, springing  up with scarcely a pine amid them, and you wonder how the acorns could have lain in the ground so long without decaying. There is a good example at Loring’s lot. 

But if you look through a thick pine wood, even the exclusively pitch pine ones, you will detect many little oaks, birches, etc., sprung probably from seeds carried into the thicket by squirrels, etc., and blown thither, but which are overshadowed and choked by the pines. This planting under the shelter of the pines may be carried on annually, and the plants annually die, but when the pines are cleared off, the oaks, etc., having got just the start they want, and now secured favorable conditions, immediately spring up to trees. 

Scarcely enough allowance has been made for the agency of squirrels and birds in dispersing seeds.

At the Kalmia Swamp, the parti-colored warbler, and was that switter switter switter switter swit also by it? [Probably by this or the redstart, which last I distinguish on the 17th.] 

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

Hear a warbling vireo. See  May 13, 1855 ("The air is filled with the song of birds, — warbling vireo, gold robin, yellowbirds, and occasionally the bobolink."); May 4, 1855 ("I think I hear a warbling vireo"); May 6, 1852 ("Hear the first warbling vireo this morning on the elms. This almost makes a summer. "):May 9, 1859 ("Hear the warbling vireo and oven-bird.") ;May 10, 1853 (“New days, then, have come, ushered in by the warbling vireo, yellowbird, Maryland yellow-throat, and small pewee"); May 10, 1858 ("The warbling vireo cheers the elms with a strain for which they must have pined."); May 29, 1855("the warbling vireo, with its smooth-flowing, continuous, one-barred, shorter strain, with methinks a dusky side-head )May 29, 1855("the warbling vireo, with its smooth-flowing, continuous, one-barred, shorter strain, with methinks a dusky side-head ) and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Birds of May

I find two more dead bank swallows, and one on the sand beneath, and the feathers of two more. See May 12, 1856 ("I see, in the road beyond Luther Hosmer’s, in different places, two bank swallows which were undoubtedly killed by the four days’ northeast rain we have just had.")

At the swamp, hear the yorrick of Wilson’s thrush. See May 13, 1860  ("Hear the yorrick"). See  also  May 8, 1857 (“From amid the alders, etc., I hear the mew of the catbird and the yorrick of Wilson's thrush”);  May 10, 1853 ("In the woods, the veery note."); May 10, 1858 (" Hear in various woods the yorrick note of the veery."); May 12, 1855("The cawing of crows, the peeping of hyla [and] the croaking of a tree-toad, the oven-bird, the yorrick of Wilson’s thrush, a distant stake-driver, the night-warbler and black and white creeper, the lowing of cows, the late supper horn, the voices of boys, the singing of girls”); May 12, 1857 (“I hear a yorrick, apparently anxious, near me, utter from time to time a sharp grating char-r-r, like a fine watchman’s rattle. As usual, I have not heard them sing yet.”);  May 14, 1859 ("Yorrick heard the 12th");  May 17, 1853 ("The sweetest singers among the birds are heard more distinctly now, as the reflections are seen more distinctly in the water, — the veery constantly now."); May 17, 1856 ("Hear the first veery note”); May 18, 1855 ("First veery strain."); May 23, 1857 ("Hear the first veery strain.")
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The tweezer-bird or Sylvia Americana.  . . . the parti-colored warbler, and was that switter switter switter switter swit also by it [or the redstart]?  See May 13, 1860 ("At Holden Swamp, hear plenty of parti-colored warblers (tweezer-birds) and redstarts."); See also May 15, 1856 (" see also, for a moment, in dry woods, a warbler with blue-slate head and apparently all yellow beneath for a minute, nothing else conspicuous; note slightly like tseep, tseep, tseep, tseep, tsit sitter ra-re-ra, the last fast, on maples, etc. Maybe I heard the same yesterday. [No doubt the Sylvia Americana, blue yellow-back or parti-colored warbler; heard before.]”); May 17, 1856 ("The Sylvia Americana (parti-colored warbler, etc.) is very numerous there, darting about amid the hoary buds of the maples and oaks, etc. It seems the most restless of all birds, blue more or less deep above, with yellow dust on the back, yellow breast, and white beneath (the male with bright—orange throat, and some with a rufous crescent on breast); wings and tail, dark, black, with two white bars or marks, dark bill and legs."); May 18, 1856 ("A Sylvia Americana, — parti-colored warbler, — in the Holden Wood, sings a, tshrea tshrea tshrea, tshre’ tshritty tshrit’."); June 30, 1856 [in New Bedford]("my tweezer-bird, which is extremely restless, flitting from bough to bough and apple tree to apple tree. Its note like ah, zre zre zre, zritter zritter zrit’. Sylvia Americana, parti-colored warbler, with golden-green reflections on the back, two white bars on wings, all beneath white, large orange mark on breast, bordered broadly with lemon yellow, and yellow throat.");  May 27, 1855 ("The blue yellow-back or parti-colored warbler still, with the chestnut crescent on breast, near my Kalmia Swamp nest."); May 4, 1858 (“Heard the tweezer note, or screeper note, of the particolored warbler, bluish above, yellow or orange throat and breast, white vent, and white on wings, neck above yellowish, going restlessly over the trees”); May 9, 1858 ("The parti-colored warbler . . .— my tweezer-bird, – making the screep screep screep note. It is an almost incessant singer . . . utters its humble notes, like ah twze twze twze, or ah twze twze twze twze."); May 12, 1857 ("Hear the screep of the parti-colored warbler”):    June 11, 1858 ("Hear the parti-colored warbler. ") June 25, 1860 (" As near as I can make out with my glass, I see and hear the parti-colored warbler at Ledum Swamp on the larches and pines. A bluish back, yellow breast with a reddish crescent above, and white belly, and a continuous screeping note to the end.") and  A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Parti-Colored (Parula) Warbler (Sylvia Americana

Downy amelanchier just out at Lupine Bank. See May 13, 1852 ( The amelanchiers are now the prevailing flowers in the woods and swamps and sprout-lands, a very beautiful flower, with its purplish stipules and delicate drooping white blossoms. The shad-blossom days in the woods.");  May 13, 1855 ("Saw an amelanchier with downy leaf (apparently oblongifolia) on the southeast edge of Yellow Birch Swamp, about eighteen feet high and five or six inches in diameter, —a clump of them about as big as an apple tree.")

I suspect that I can throw a little light on the fact that when a dense pine wood is cut down oaks, etc., may take its place. See May 10, 1856 ("Where the pitch pines were cut some years ago on Thrush Alley, I now see birches, oaks, and pitch and white pines. "); April 29, 1860 ("Henry Shattuck’s is a new pitch pine wood, say thirty years old . . . It is a remarkable proof of my theory, for it contains thousands of little white pines but scarcely one little pitch pine. It is also well stocked with minute oak seedlings.");  The Succession of Forest Trees (“If a pine wood is surrounded by a white-oak one chiefly, white-oaks may be expected to succeed when the pines are cut.”)