A Book of the Seasons: The Northern Shrike

 

I would make a chart of our life,

know why just this circle of creatures

completes the world.

Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

I see a shrike perched on the tip-top 

of the topmost upright twig of an English cherry tree, 

standing square on the topmost bud, 

balancing himself by a slight motion 

of his tail from time to time.

Bluish-slate above down 

to middle of wings;

dirty-white breast,

and a broad black mark 

through eyes on side of head;

primaries black,

and some white appears when it flies.

I heard this bird sing once before,

but that was also in early spring,

or about this time.

March 7, 1859

March 1.  Saw a butcher-bird, as usual on top of a tree, and distinguished from a jay by black wings and tail and streak side of head. March 1, 1855

March 7.  I then see a bird alight on the dead top of the highest white oak on the hilltop, on the topmost point.  It is a shrike. 

While I am watching him eight or ten rods off, I hear robins down below, west of the hill. Then, to my surprise, the shrike begins to sing. It is at first a wholly ineffectual and inarticulate sound without any solid tone to it, a mere hoarse breathing, as if he were clearing his throat, unlike any bird that I know, — a shrill hissing. Then he uttered a kind of mew, a very decided mewing, clear and wiry, between that of a catbird and the note of the nuthatch, as if to lure a nuthatch within his reach; then rose into the sharpest, shrillest vibratory or tremulous whistling or chirruping on the very highest key. Tins high gurgling jingle was like some of the notes of a robin singing in summer. But they were very short spurts in all these directions, though there was all this variety. Unless you saw the shrike it would be hard to tell what bird it was. 

This variety of notes covered considerable time, but were sparingly uttered with intervals. It was a decided chinking sound — the clearest strain — suggesting much ice in the stream. I heard this bird sing once before, but that was also in early spring, or about this time. It is said that they imitate the notes of the birds in order to attract them within their reach. Why, then, have I never heard them sing in the winter? (I have seen seven or eight of them the past winter quite near.) 

The birds which it imitated — if it imitated any this morning — were the catbird and the robin, neither of which probably would it catch, — and the first is not here to be caught. Hearing a peep, I looked up and saw three or four birds passing . . . which suddenly descended and settled on this oak-top. They were robins, but the shrike instantly hid himself behind a bough and in half a minute flew off to a walnut and alighted, as usual, on its very topmost twig, apparently afraid of its visitors. The robins kept their ground, one alighting on the very point which the shrike vacated. Is not this, then, probably the spring note or pairing note or notes of the shrike?  March 7, 1859

March 22.  About twenty-nine migratory birds arrive [ in March] and two or three more utter their spring notes and sounds, as nuthatch and chickadee, turkeys, and woodpecker tapping, while apparently the snow bunting, lesser redpoll, shrike, and doubtless several more — as owls, crossbills (?) — leave us, and woodcocks and hawks begin to lay. March 22, 1860

April 4. [Abel Hosner] has also noticed the butcher-bird catching other birds. Calls him the "mock-bird.”  April 4, 1854

November 4.  Saw a shrike in an apple tree, with apparently a worm in its mouth.  November 4, 1854

 

November 29.  I see a living shrike caught to-day in the barn of the Middlesex House. November 29, 1858 

December. 12.  See a shrike on a dead pine at the Cliffs.  December 12, 1858 

December 18. I see three shrikes in different places to-day, — two on the top of apple trees, sitting still in the storm, on the lookout. They fly low to another tree when disturbed, much like a bluebird, and jerk their tails once or twice when they alight. December 18, 1859

December 23. See a shrike on the top of an oak. It sits still, pluming itself. At first, when it was flying, I thought it a hairy woodpecker.  December 23, 1858

December 24. Saw a shrike pecking to pieces a small bird, apparently a snowbird. At length he took him up in his bill, almost half as big as himself, and flew slowly off with his prey dangling from his beak. I find that I had not associated such actions with my idea of birds. It was not birdlike. December 24, 1850 

December 24.  See another shrike this afternoon, — the fourth this winter! It looks much smaller than a jay. December 24, 1858 

December 29.  Down railroad to Andromeda Ponds . . . Just before reaching the Cut I see a shrike flying low beneath the level of the railroad, which rises and alights on the topmost twig of an elm within four or five rods. All ash or bluish-slate above down to middle of wings; dirty-white breast, and a broad black mark through eyes on side of head; primaries(?) black, and some white appears when it flies. Most distinctive its small hooked bill (upper mandible).  It makes no sound, but flits to the top of an oak further off. Probably a male.  December 29, 1855

December 30.  P. M. — Going by Dodd's, I see a shrike perched on the tip-top of the topmost upright twig of an English cherry tree before his house, standing square on the topmost bud, balancing himself by a slight motion of his tail from time to time. I have noticed this habit of the bird before. You would suppose it inconvenient for so large a bird to maintain its footing there. Scared by my passing [?] in the road, it flew off, and I thought I would see if it alighted on a similar place. It flew toward a young elm, whose higher twigs were much more slender, though not quite so upright as those of the cherry, and I thought he might be excused if he alighted on the side of one; but no, to my surprise, he alighted without any trouble upon the very top of one of the highest of all, and looked around as before.  December 30, 1859 

December 31.  See where probably a shrike (do I ever see a small hawk in winter ?) has torn a small bird in pieces and its slate-colored down and its feathers have been blown far and wide over the snow.  December 31, 1859

January 24.   Scare a shrike from an apple tree. He flies low over the meadow, somewhat like a woodpecker, and alights near the top twig of another apple tree. January 24, 1860

January 25.   Saw A. Hosmer approaching . . . He says that he has seen that little bird (evidently the shrike) with mice in its claws.  January 25, 1860

February 3.  Returning, see near the Island a shrike glide by, cold and blustering as it was, with a remarkably even and steady sail or gliding motion like a hawk, eight or ten feet above the ground, and alight in a tree, from which at the same instant a small bird, perhaps a. creeper or nuthatch, flitted timidly away. The shrike was apparently in pursuit. February 3, 1856 

February 5.  I see another butcher-bird on the top of a young tree by the pond.   February 5, 1859

February 17.  I hear that some say they saw a bluebird and heard it sing last week!! It was probably a shrike. February 17, 1860

March 1.  As for the birds of the past winter . . . One dead shrike, and perhaps one or two live ones.  March 1, 1854

See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Birds

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The  Northern Shrike

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-shrike

A Book of the Seasons: December 24 (Fresh snow, blowing snow, Walden ice, night sky)

 

The year is but a succession of days,

and I see that I could assign some office to each day

which, summed up, would be the history of the year.

Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852

December 24

So white and arctic

a flock of snowbirds – it is

beginning to snow.

December 24, 1851

Snow collects like down

in little columns about

every twig and stem.

Seen in perfection

complete to the last flake now

while it is snowing.

December 24, 1856

It always melts

and freezes at the same time

when icicles form.

December 24, 1850

My spruce tree 

one of the small ones in the swamp 

hardly a quarter the size of the largest 

looked double its size 

in the town hall this evening 

and its top had been cut off. 

It was lit with candles -- 

But the starlit sky

is far more splendid to-night

than any saloon. 

December 24, 1853

   

Now and long since the birds' nests have been full of snow. December 24, 1851

I observe that there are many dead pine-needles sprinkled over the snow, which had not fallen before. December 24, 1850

It is very pleasant walking thus before the storm is over, in the soft, subdued light. . . .Do not see a track of any animal till returning near the Well Meadow Field, where many foxes, one of whom I have a glimpse of, had been coursing back and forth in the path and near it for three quarters of a mile. They had made quite a path.  December 24, 1856

Saw a shrike pecking to pieces a small bird, apparently a snowbird. At length he took him up in his bill, almost half as big as himself, and flew slowly off with his prey dangling from his beak. I find that I had not associated such actions with my idea of birds It was not birdlike. December 24, 1850

See another shrike this afternoon, — the fourth this winter! It looks much smaller than a jay. December 24, 1858

I see the tracks of a partridge more than half an inch deep in the ice, extending from this island to the shore, she having walked there in the slosh. They are quite perfect and remind me of bird-tracks in stone. She may have come to bud these blueberry trees. I see where she spent the night at the bottom of the largest clump, in the snow. December 24, 1859

Saw a flock of snowbirds on the Walden road. I see them so commonly when it is beginning to snow that I am inclined to regard them as a sign of a snow-storm. The snow bunting (Emberiza nivalis) methinks it is, so white and arctic, not the slate-colored. December 24, 1851

Saw also some pine grosbeaks, magnificent winter birds, among the weeds and on the apple trees; like large catbirds at a distance, but, nearer at hand, some of them, when they flit by, are seen to have gorgeous heads, breasts, and rumps (?), with red or crimson reflections, more beautiful than a steady bright red would be. The note I heard, a rather faint and innocent whistle of two bars. December 24, 1851

Walking to-day across the Great Meadows on the snow-crust looking toward the sun, I notice that the fine, dry snow blown over the surface of the frozen fields looks like steam curling up, as from a wet roof when the sun comes out after a rain. December 24, 1850

. . .like steam when seen in the sun December 24, 1851

A whitening of snow last evening, the third thus far. December 24, 1853

Some three inches of snow fell last night and this morning, concluding with a fine rain, which produces a slight glaze, the first of the winter. December 24, 1854

This gives the woods a hoary aspect and increases the stillness by making the leaves immovable even in considerable wind December 24, 1854

 More snow in the night and to-day, making nine or ten inches 

December 24, 1856 

The snow collects and is piled up in little columns like down about every twig and stem, and this is only seen in perfection, complete to the last flake, while it is snowing, as now. December 24, 1856

A strong and very cold northwest wind. I think that the cold winds are oftenest not northwest, but northwest by west. December 24, 1859

It is never so cold but it melts somewhere. . . .  It is always melting and freezing at the same time when icicles form. December 24, 1850

I measure the blueberry bushes on Flint's Pond Island. December 24, 1859

Judging from those whose rings I have counted, the largest of those stems must be about sixty years old. December 24, 1859

Skated across Flint's Pond; for the most part smooth but with rough spots where the rain had not melted the snow. December 24, 1853

From the hill beyond I get an arctic view northwest. December 24, 1853

The mountains are of a cold slate-color. December 24, 1853

Walden almost entirely open again. December 24, 1853

Am surprised to find Walden still open in the middle. When I push aside the snow with my feet, the ice appears quite black by contrast. December 24, 1856

Those two places in middle of Walden not frozen over yet, though it was quite cold last night! December 24, 1858

There is, in all, an acre or two in Walden not yet frozen, though half of it has been frozen more than a week. December 24, 1859

I had looked in vain into the west for nearly half an hour to see a red cloud blushing in the sky. December 24, 1851

The few clouds were dark, and I had given up all to night, but when I had got home and chanced to look out the window from supper, I perceived that all the west horizon was glowing with a rosy border. December 24, 1851

In the town hall this evening, my spruce tree, one of the small ones in the swamp, hardly a quarter the size of the largest, looked double its size, and its top had been cut off for want of room. December 24, 1853

It was lit with candles, but the starlit sky is far more splendid to-night than any saloon. December 24, 1853

December 24, 2015


A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, First Ice
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Fox
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Birds
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Northern Shrike

*****

September 12, 1851 ("To the Three Friends' Hill beyond Flint's Pond. . . I go to Flint's Pond for the sake of the mountain view from the hill beyond, looking over Concord. I have thought it the best, especially in the winter, which I can get in this neighborhood. It is worth the while to see the mountains in the horizon once a day. ")

October 22, 1857 ("Look from the high hill, just before sundown, over the pond. The mountains are a mere cold slate-color. But what a perfect crescent of mountains we have in our northwest horizon!")

November 4, 1854 (“Saw a shrike in an apple tree, with apparently a worm in its mouth. ”)

November 29, 1858 ("I see a living shrike caught to-day in the barn of the Middlesex House.”)

December 4, 1853 ("Flint's Pond only skimmed a little at the shore, like the river.") 

December 11, 1854 ("I find Flint’s frozen to-day,and how long?")

December 9, 1856 ("Yesterday I met Goodwin bringing a fine lot of pickerel from Flint's, which was frozen at least four inches thick. This is, no doubt, owing solely to the greater depth of Walden.")

December 12, 1858 (“See a shrike on a dead pine”);December 23, 1858 ("See a shrike on the top of an oak.”)

December 20, 1858 (“Walden is frozen over, except two small spots, less than half an acre in all, in middle.”)
December 22, 1853 ("Got a white spruce for a Christmas-tree for the town out of the spruce swamp,")

December 22, 1859 ("On what I will call Sassafras Island, in this pond, I notice the largest and handsomest high blueberry at the ground into four stems, all very large and the largest three inches in diameter (one way) at three feet high, and at the ground, where they seem to form one trunk (at least grown together), nine inches in diameter. ")

December 26, 1853 ("It has fallen so gently that it forms an upright wall on the slenderest twig. And every twig thus laden is as still as the hillside itself.”)
December 23, 1851 ("Now all the clouds grow black, and I give up to-night; but unexpectedly, half an hour later when I look out, having got home, I find that the evening star is shining brightly, and, beneath all, the west horizon is glowing red.")

December 26, 1855 ("We have this morning quite a glaze, there being at last an inch or two of crusted snow on the ground, the most we have had.")

December 27, 1852 (" Not a particle of ice in Walden to-day. Paddled across it. I took my new boat out. A black and white duck on it, Flint's and Fair Haven being frozen up..")
 December 29, 1855 (“Just before reaching the Cut I see a shrike flying low beneath the level of the railroad, which rises and alights on the topmost twig of an elm within four or five rods. All ash or bluish-slate above down to middle of wings; dirty-white breast, and a broad black mark through eyes on side of head; primaries(?) black, and some white appears when it flies. Most distinctive its small hooked bill (upper mandible).It makes no sound, but flits to the top of an oak further off. Probably a male.”)

December 29, 1855 (“I find in the andromeda bushes in the Andromeda Ponds a great many nests apparently of the red-wing suspended after their fashion amid the twigs of the andromeda, each now filled with ice.”)

December 30, 1855 (“He who would study birds’ nests must look for them in November and in winter as well as in midsummer, for then the trees are bare and he can see them, and the swamps and streams are frozen and he can approach new kinds”)

December 30, 1859 ("I see a shrike perched on the tip-top of the topmost upright twig of an English cherry tree before his house, standing square on the topmost bud, balancing himself by a slight motion of his tail from time to time.")

January 14, 1853 ("White walls of snow rest on the boughs of trees, in height two or three times their thickness.”)

January 24, 1856 (“The snow is so deep along the sides of the river that I can now look into nests which I could hardly reach in the summer. . . .They have only an ice egg in them now. ”)

February 3, 1856 (“see near the Island a shrike glide by, cold and blustering as it was, with a remarkably even and steady sail or gliding motion like a hawk, eight or ten feet above the ground, and alight in a tree”)

February 5, 1855(“like the steam curling along the surface of a river.”).

February 5, 1859 ("I see another butcher-bird on the top of a young tree by the pond.")

February 10, 1856 ("I saw a fox on the railroad. . . He coursed, or glided, along easily, appearing not to lift his feet high, leaping over obstacles, with his tail extended straight behind. He leaped over the ridge of snow . . . between the tracks, very easily and gracefully.”)

February 16, 1852 ("like the spray on a beach before the northwest wind”)

January 19, 1852 ("like the mist that rises from rivers in the morning”)

February 21, 1854 ("You cannot walk too early in new-fallen snow to get the sense of purity, novelty, and unexploredness.")

February 23, 1854 (“like steam curling from a roof”)

If you make the least correct

observation of nature this year,

 you will have occasion to repeat it

 with illustrations the next, 

and the season and life itself is prolonged.

  April 7, 1853 

December 23 <<<<<<<< December 24  >>>>>>>> December 25

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, December 24

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

A conversation with Therien, the woodchopper.

December 24

The rain of yesterday concluded with a whitening of snow last evening, the third thus far. To day is cold and quite windy. 

P. M. — To the field in Lincoln which I surveyed for Weston the 17th. 

Walden almost entirely open again. 

Skated across Flint's Pond; for the most part smooth but with rough spots where the rain had not melted the snow. 

From the hill beyond I get an arctic view northwest. The mountains are of a cold slate-color. It is as if they bounded the continent toward Behring's Straits. 

In Weston's field, in springy land on the edge of a swamp, I counted thirty-three or four of those large silvery-brown cocoons within a rod or two, and probably there are many more about a foot from the ground, commonly on the main stem — though sometimes on a branch close to the stem — of the alder, sweet-fern, brake, etc., etc. 

The largest are four inches long by two and a half, bag-shaped and wrinkled and partly concealed by dry leaves, — alder, ferns, etc., — attached as if sprinkled over them. This evidence of cunning in so humble a creature is affecting, for I am not ready to refer it to an intelligence which the creature does not share, as much as we do the prerogatives of reason. This radiation of the brain. The bare silvery cocoons would otherwise be too obvious. 

The worm has evidently said to itself: "Man or some other creature may come by and see my casket. I will disguise it, will hang a screen before it." 

Brake and sweet-fern and alder leaves are not only loosely sprinkled over it and dangling from it, but often, as it were, pasted close upon and almost incorporated into it. 

Saw Therien yesterday afternoon chopping for Jacob Baker in the rain. I heard his axe half a mile off, and also saw the smoke of his fire, which I mistook for a part of the mist which was drifting about. 

I asked him where he boarded. At Shannon's.

He asked the price of board and said I was a grass boarder, i. e. not a regular one. 

Asked him what time he started in the morning. The sun was up when he got out of the house that morning. He heard Flint's Pond whooping like cannon the moment he opened the door, but sometimes he could see stars after he got to his chopping-ground. 

He was working with his coat off in the rain. 

He said he often saw gray squirrels running about and jumping from tree to tree. There was a large nest of leaves close by. 

That morning he saw a large bird of some kind. 

He took a French paper to keep himself in practice, — not for news; he said he didn't want news. He had got twenty- three or twenty-four of them, had got them bound and paid a dollar for it, and would like to have me see it. He hadn't read it half; there was a great deal of reading in it, by gorry.

He wanted me to tell him the meaning of some of the hard words. 

How much had he cut? He wasn't a-going to kill himself. He had got money enough. 

He cut enough to earn his board. A man could not do much more in the winter. 

He used the dry twigs on the trees to start his fire with, and some shavings which he brought in his pocket. He frequently found some fire still in the morning. 

He laid his axe by a log and placed another log the other side of it. I said he might have to dig it out of a snow drift, but he thought it would not snow. 

Described a large hawk killed at Smith's (which had eaten some hens); its legs "as yellow as a sovereign;" apparently a goshawk. 

He has also his beetle and wedges and whetstone. 

In the town hall this evening, my spruce tree, one of the small ones in the swamp, hardly a quarter the size of the largest, looked double its size, and its top had been cut off for want of room. It was lit with candles, but the starlit sky is far more splendid to-night than any saloon.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  December 24, 1853

A whitening of snow last evening, the third thus far. See  December 24,1850 ("the fine, dry snow blown over the surface of the frozen fields looks like steam curling up, as from a wet roof when the sun comes out after a rain."); December 24,1851 ("Now and long since the birds' nests have been full of snow."); December 24, 1854 ("Some three inches of snow fell last night and this morning,"); December 24, 1856 ("More snow in the night and to-day, making nine or ten inches")

Walden almost entirely open again. Skated across Flint's Pond. See December 4, 1853 ("Flint's Pond only skimmed a little at the shore, like the river."). Compare  December 27, 1852 (" Not a particle of ice in Walden to-day. Paddled across it. I took my new boat out. A black and white duck on it, Flint's and Fair Haven being frozen up.."); December 11, 1854 ("I find Flint’s frozen to-day,and how long?");  December 9, 1856 ("Yesterday I met Goodwin bringing a fine lot of pickerel from Flint's, which was frozen at least four inches thick. This is, no doubt, owing solely to the greater depth of Walden."); December 24, 1856 ("Am surprised to find Walden still open in the middle. . "); December 24, 1858 ("Those two places in middle of Walden not frozen over yet, ..."); December 24, 1859 (“There is, in all, an acre or two in Walden not yet frozen, though half of it has been frozen more than a week. ”);

From the hill beyond I get an arctic view northwest. The mountains are of a cold slate-color. See September 12, 1851 ("To the Three Friends' Hill beyond Flint's Pond. . . I go to Flint's Pond for the sake of the mountain view from the hill beyond, looking over Concord. I have thought it the best, especially in the winter, which I can get in this neighborhood. It is worth the while to see the mountains in the horizon once a day. "); October 22, 1857 ("Look from the high hill, just before sundown, over the pond. The mountains are a mere cold slate-color. But what a perfect crescent of mountains we have in our northwest horizon!")

In Weston's field I counted thirty-three or four of those large silvery-brown cocoons. See December 17, 1853 ("While surveying for Daniel Weston in Lincoln to-day, see a great many — maybe a hundred — silvery-brown cocoons");  February 19, 1854 (" the light ash-colored cocoons of the A. Promethea, with the withered and faded leaves wrapped around them "); January 6, 1855 ("Saw one of those silver-gray cocoons which are so securely attached by the silk being wound round the leaf-stalk and the twig.")

This evidence of cunning in so humble a creature is affecting, for I am not ready to refer it to an intelligence which the creature does not share.See February 19, 1854 ("Each and all such disguises and other resources remind us that not some poor worm's instinct merely, as we call it, but the mind of the universe rather, which we share, has been intended upon each particular object. All the wit in the world was brought to bear on each case to secure its end.”)

Saw Therien yesterday afternoon chopping for Jacob Baker in the rain. See July 14, 1845 ("Alek Therien, he called himself; a Canadian now, a woodchopper, a post-maker; makes fifty posts—holes them, i. e.—in a day; and who made his last supper on a woodchuck which his dog caught. And he too has heard of Homer, and if it were not for books, would not know what to do rainy days."); February 5, 1855 ("Found Therien cutting down the two largest chestnuts in the wood-lot behind where my house was."); December 29, 1853 ("I asked Therien yesterday if he was satisfied with himself.")

He wasn't a-going to kill himself. He had got money enough. He cut enough to earn his board. See Walden ("He wasn’t a-going to hurt himself. He didn’t care if he only earned his board.")

He took a French paper to keep himself in practice. See Walden ("I know a woodchopper, of middle age, who takes a French paper, not for news as he says, for he is above that, but to “keep himself in practice,” he being a Canadian by birth; and when I ask him what he considers the best thing he can do in this world, he says, beside this, to keep up and add to his English.")

He has also his beetle.  See March 15, 1857 ("An indispensable piece of woodcraft."); December 29, 1853 ("The woodchopper to-day is the same man that Homer refers to, and his work the same. He, no doubt, had his beetle and wedge and whetstone then, carried his dinner in a pail or basket, and his liquor in a bottle, and caught his woodchucks, and cut and corded, the same.")

My spruce tree. See December 22, 1853 ("Got a white spruce for a Christmas-tree for the town out of the spruce swamp,")

A man could not do 

much more in the winter than

to earn his board.

The fourth shrike.

December 24. 

Those two places in middle of Walden not frozen over yet, though it was quite cold last night! 

See another shrike this afternoon, — the fourth this winter! It looks much smaller than a jay.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 24, 1858

Those two places in middle of Walden. See December 20, 1858 (“Walden is frozen over, except two small spots, less than half an acre in all, in middle.”)

Another shrike this afternoon, — the fourth this winter! See December 24, 1850 ("Saw a shrike pecking to pieces a small bird, apparently a snowbird. At length he took him up in his bill, almost half as big as himself, and flew slowly off with his prey dangling from his beak. I find that I had not associated such actions with my idea of birds It was not birdlike ."); See also November 29, 1858 ("I see a living shrike caught to-day in the barn of the Middlesex House.”); December 12, 1858 (“See a shrike on a dead pine”);December 23, 1858 ("See a shrike on the top of an oak.”). and November 4, 1854 (“Saw a shrike in an apple tree, with apparently a worm in its mouth. ”); December 29, 1855 (“Just before reaching the Cut I see a shrike flying low beneath the level of the railroad, which rises and alights on the topmost twig of an elm within four or five rods. All ash or bluish-slate above down to middle of wings; dirty-white breast, and a broad black mark through eyes on side of head; primaries(?) black, and some white appears when it flies. Most distinctive its small hooked bill (upper mandible).It makes no sound, but flits to the top of an oak further off. Probably a male.”);  December 30, 1859 ("I see a shrike perched on the tip-top of the topmost upright twig of an English cherry tree before his house, standing square on the topmost bud, balancing himself by a slight motion of his tail from time to time.") February 3, 1856 (“see near the Island a shrike glide by, cold and blustering as it was, with a remarkably even and steady sail or gliding motion like a hawk, eight or ten feet above the ground, and alight in a tree”); February 5, 1859 ("I see another butcher-bird on the top of a young tree by the pond."):   See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Northern Shrike

Now and long since the birds' nests have been full of snow.

December 24. 

It spits snow this afternoon. Now and long since the birds' nests have been full of snow. 

Saw a flock of snowbirds on the Walden road. I see them so commonly when it is beginning to snow that I am inclined to regard them as a sign of a snow-storm. The snow bunting (Emberiza nivalis) methinks it is, so white and arctic, not the slate-colored. 

Saw also some pine grosbeaks, magnificent winter birds, among the weeds and on the apple trees; like large catbirds at a distance, but, nearer at hand, some of them, when they flit by, are seen to have gorgeous heads, breasts, and rumps (?), with red or crimson reflections, more beautiful than a steady bright red would be. The note I heard, a rather faint and innocent whistle of two bars. 

December 24, 2015

I had looked in vain into the west for nearly half an hour to see a red cloud blushing in the sky. The few clouds were dark, and I had given up all to night, but when I had got home and chanced to look out the window from supper, I perceived that all the west horizon was glowing with a rosy border, and that dun atmosphere had been the cloud this time which made the day's adieus. 

But half an hour before, that dun atmosphere hung over all the western woods and hills, precisely as if the fires of the day had just been put out in the west, and the burnt territory was sending out volumes of dun and lurid smoke to heaven, as if Phaeton had again driven the chariot of the sun so near as to set fire to earth.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 24, 1851

Now and long since the birds' nests have been full of snow. See December 30, 1855 (“He who would study birds’ nests must look for them in November and in winter as well as in midsummer, for then the trees are bare and he can see them, and the swamps and streams are frozen and he can approach new kinds”); December 29, 1855  (“I find in the andromeda bushes in the Andromeda Ponds a great many nests apparently of the red-wing suspended after their fashion amid the twigs of the andromeda, each now filled with ice.”); January 24, 1856 (“The snow is so deep along the sides of the river that I can now look into nests which I could hardly reach in the summer . . .They have only an ice egg in them now. ”)

Saw a flock of snowbirds on the Walden road. See March 20, 1852 ("As to the winter birds, — those which came here in the winter, -- I saw . . . in midwinter the snow bunting, the white snowbird, sweeping low like snowflakes from field to field over the walls and fences.”) See also December 10, 1854 (“See a large flock of snow buntings (quite white against woods)"); December 21, 1859. (" A large flock of snow buntings . . .Their whiteness, like the snow, is their most remarkable peculiarity.");December 29, 1853 ("These are the true winter birds for you, these winged snowballs. I could hardly see them, the air is so full of driving snow. What hardy creatures! Where do they spend the night ?"); January 2, 1856 (“They are pretty black, with white wings and a brown crescent on their breasts. They have come with this deeper snow and colder weather.”) See alsoA Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Snow Bunting

Saw also some pine grosbeaks, magnificent winter birds . . . when they flit by, are seen to have gorgeous heads, breasts, and rumps, with red or crimson reflections. See November 25, 1851 ("Saw also quite a flock of the pine grosbeak, a plump and handsome bird as big as a robin. ); March 20, 1852 ("I saw, about Thanksgiving time and later in the winter, the pine grosbeaks, large and carmine, a noble bird") See also December 11, 1855  ("When some rare northern bird like the pine grosbeak is seen thus far south in the Winter, he does not suggest poverty, but dazzles us with his beauty.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Birds

I had looked in vain into the west for nearly half an hour to see a red cloud blushing in the sky. See December 23, 1851 ("Now all the clouds grow black, and I give up to-night; but unexpectedly, half an hour later when I look out, having got home, I find that the evening star is shining brightly, and, beneath all, the west horizon is glowing red.")

December 24.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December 24

A flock of snowbirds

so white and arctic – buntings.

It begins to snow.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, 

Now and long since the birds' nests have been full of snow.

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

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