It is time now to bring our philosophy out of doors.

June 4. 

P. M. — To Bare Hill. 

The early potentilla is now erect in the June grass. 

Salix tristis is going to seed, showing some cotton; also some S. rostrate. 

I am surprised to see some kind of fish dart away in Collier's veronica ditch, for it about dries up and has no outlet. 

I observed yesterday, the first time this year, the lint on the smooth surface of the Assabet at the Hemlocks, giving the water a stagnant look. It is an agreeable phenomenon to me, as connected with the season and suggesting warm weather. I suppose it to be the down from the new leaves which so rapidly become smooth. There may be a little pitch pine pollen with it now. The current is hardly enough to make a clear streak in it here and there. The stagnant-looking surface, where the water slowly circles round in that great eddy, has the appearance of having been dusted over. This lint now covers my clothes as I go through the sprout- lands, but it gets off remarkably before long. Each under side of a leaf you strike leaves the mark of its lint on your clothes, but it is clean dirt and soon wears off. 

One thing that chiefly distinguishes this season from three weeks ago is that fine serene undertone or earth-song as we go by sunny banks and hillsides, the creak of crickets, which affects our thoughts so favorably, imparting its own serenity. It is time now to bring our philosophy out of doors. Our thoughts pillow themselves unconsciously in the troughs of this serene, rippling sea of sound. Now first we begin to be peripatetics. No longer our ears come in contact with the bold echoing earth, but everywhere recline on the spring cushion of a cricket's chirp. These rills that ripple from every hillside become at length a universal sea of sound, nourishing our ears when we are most unconscious. 

In that first apple tree at Wyman's an apparent hairy woodpecker's nest (from the size of the bird), about ten feet from ground. The bird darts away with a shrill, loud chirping of alarm, incessantly repeated, long before I get there, and keeps it up as long as I stay in the neighborhood. The young keep up an in cessant fine, breathing peep which can be heard across the road and is much increased when they hear you approach the hole, they evidently expecting the old bird. 

I perceive no offensive odor. I saw the bird fly out of this hole, May 1st, and probably the eggs were laid about that time. Vide it next year. 

In the high pasture behind Jacob Baker's, soon after coming out of the wood, I scare up a bay-wing. She runs several rods close to the ground through the thin grass, and then lurks behind tussocks, etc. The nest has four eggs, dull pinkish-white with brown spots; nest low in ground, of stubble lined with white horse hair. 

Carya glabra [Carya glabra – pignut hickory], apparently a day at least. 

Oldenlandia on Bare Hill, along above wall opposite the oak, a rod or more off and westerly. Apparently several days at least, but it appears not to do well. It has a dry, tufted look, somewhat like young savory- leaved aster, on the bare rocky hill and in the clear spaces between the huckleberry bushes. Reminds me of a heath. Does not blossom so full as once I saw it. 

Arethusa. 

Crimson fungus (?) on black birch leaves, as if bespattered with blood.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 4, 1857

The early potentilla is now erect in the June grass. See June 4, 1855 (“There are now many potentillas ascendant.”)

Each under side of a leaf you strike leaves the mark of its lint on your clothes, but it is clean dirt and soon wears off. See June 4, 1855 (“Lint comes off on to clothes from the tender leaves, but it is clean dirt and all gone when you get home. . .”); June 4, 1854 (“ The surface of the still water nowadays looking like dust at a little distance. Is it the down of the leaves blown off? . . .”)

That fine serene undertone or earth-song . . . imparting its own serenity. See June 4, 1854 (“These warm and dry days, which put spring far behind, the sound of the cricket at noon has a new value and significance, so serene and cool . . ..”) ;May 12, 1857 (“The spirit of its earth-song, of its serene and true philosophy, was breathed into me, and I saw the world as through a glass, as it lies eternally”);; May 22, 1854 (“The song suggests lateness, but only as we come to a knowledge of eternity after some acquaintance with time. . . . . Only in their saner moments do men hear the crickets. . . .A quire has begun which pauses not for any news, for it knows only the eternal.”); June 1, 1856 (“Was soothed and cheered by I knew not what at first, but soon detected the now more general creak of crickets”); June 13, 1851 ("I listen to the ancient, familiar, immortal, dear cricket sound under all others, and as these cease I become aware of the general earth-song.”)  June 17, 1852 (“The earth-song of the cricket! Before Christianity was, it is. Health! health! health! is the burden of its song. ”); July 14, 1851 (“It is a sound from within, not without.You cannot dispose of it by listening to it. In proportion as I am stilled I hear it. It reminds me that I am a denizen of the earth.”);

The [peep of the young] is much increased when they hear you approach the hole, they evidently expecting the old bird. I perceive no offensive odor. See June 10, 1856 ("They utter their squeaking hiss whenever I cover the hole with my hand, apparently taking it for the approach of the mother. A strong, rank fetid smell issues from the hole.?”)  

A bay-wing . . .  The nest has four eggs, dull pinkish-white with brown spots. . . .See May 18, 1855 ("At Clamshell a bay-wing sparrow’s nest, four eggs (young half hatched) -- some black-spotted, others not.”); May 27, 1856 ("Fringilla melodia’s nest in midst of swamp, with four eggs . . . with very dark blotches"); May 31, 1856 (“A ground-bird’s nest (melodia or graminea.), with six of those oblong narrow gray eggs speckled with much brown at end. . . .The bird would steal out through the grass when I came within a rod, and then, after running a rod or two, take to wing.”)

Oldenlandia on Bare Hill . . . See July 8, 1857 ("Edith Emerson shows me Oldenlandia purpurea var. longifolia, which she saw very abundantly in bloom on the Blue Hills . . .”)

One with the rocks and with me – I saw the world as through a glass, eternally.

May 12

May 12. 

How rarely I meet with a man who can be free, even in thought! We live according to rule. Some men are bedridden; all, world-ridden. 

I take my neighbor, an intellectual man, out into the woods and invite him to take a new and absolute view of things, to empty clean out of his thoughts all institutions of men and start again; but he can't do it, he sticks to his traditions and his crotchets. He thinks that governments, colleges, newspapers, etc., are from everlasting to everlasting. 

The Salix cordata var. Torreyana is distinguished by its naked ovaries more or less red-brown, with flesh- colored stigmas, with a distinct slender woolly rachis and conspicuous stalks, giving the ament a loose and open appearance. 

When I consider how many species of willow have been planted along the railroad causeway within ten years, of which no one knows the history, and not one in Concord beside myself can tell the name of one, so that it is quite a discovery to identify a single one in a year, and yet within this period the seeds of all these kinds have been conveyed from some other locality to this, I am reminded how much is going on that man wots not of. 

May 12, 2017

*****

While dropping beans in the garden at Texas just after sundown (May 13th), I hear from across the fields the note of the bay-wing, Come here here there there quick quick quick or I'm gone (which I have no doubt sits on some fence-post or rail there), and it instantly translates me from the sphere of my work and repairs all the world that we jointly inhabit. 

It reminds me of so many country afternoons and evenings when this bird's strain was heard far over the fields, as I pursued it from field to field. 

The spirit of its earth-song, of its serene and true philosophy, was breathed into me, and I saw the world as through a glass, as it lies eternally. 

Some of its aboriginal contentment, even of its domestic felicity, possessed me. What he suggests is permanently true. 

As the bay-wing sang many a thousand years ago, so sang he to-night. In the beginning God heard his song and pronounced it good, and hence it has endured. 

It reminded me of many a summer sunset, of many miles of gray rails, of many a rambling pasture, of the farmhouse far in the fields, its milk-pans and well-sweep, and the cows coming home from pasture. 

I would thus from time to time take advice of the birds, correct my human views by listening to their volucral (?). 

He is a brother poet, this small gray bird (or bard), whose muse inspires mine. His lay is an idyl or pastoral, older and sweeter than any that is classic. He sits on some gray perch like himself, on a stake, perchance, in the midst of the field, and you can hardly see him against the plowed ground. You advance step by step as the twilight deepens, and lo! he is gone, and in vain you strain your eyes to see whither, but anon his tinkling strain is heard from some other quarter. 

One with the rocks and with us. 

Methinks I hear these sounds, have these reminiscences, only when well employed, at any rate only when I have no reason to be ashamed of my employment. I am often aware of a certain compensation of this kind for doing something from a sense of duty, even unconsciously. 

Our past experience is a never-failing capital which can never be alienated, of which each kindred future event reminds us. 

If you would have the song of the sparrow inspire you a thousand years hence, let your life be in harmony with its strain to-day. 

I ordinarily plod along a sort of whitewashed prison entry, subject to some indifferent or even grovelling mood. I do not distinctly realize my destiny. I have turned down my light to the merest glimmer and am doing some task which I have set myself. I take incredibly narrow views, live on the limits, and have no recollection of absolute truth. Mushroom institutions hedge me in. 

But suddenly, in some fortunate moment, the voice of eternal wisdom reaches me even, in the strain of the sparrow, and liberates me, whets and clarifies my senses, makes me a competent witness. 

*****

The second amelanchier out, in garden. Some fir balsams, as Cheney's. Is not ours in the grove, with the chip-bird's nest in it, the Abies Fraseri? Its cones are short. I hear of, and also find, a ground-bird's (song sparrow's) nest with five eggs. 

P. M. — To Miles Swamp, Conantum. 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. 

A night-warbler, plainly light beneath. It always flies to a new perch immediately after its song. 

Hear the screep of the parti-colored warbler. 

Veronica serpyllifolia is abundantly out at Corner Spring. 

As I go along the hillside toward Miles Swamp, I mistake the very light gray cliff-sides east of the river at Bittern Cliff for amelanchier in bloom. 

The brother of Edward Garfield (after dandelions!) tells me that two years ago, when he was cutting wood at Bittern Cliff in the winter, he saw something dark squatting on the ice, which he took to be a mink, and taking a stake he went to inspect it. It turned out to be a bird, a new kind of duck, with a long, slender, pointed bill (he thought red). It moved off backwards, hissing at him, and he threw his stake about a rod and partly broke its neck, then killed it. It was very lean and the river was nowhere open. He sent it to Waltham and sold it for twenty-five cents.

Black ash, maybe a day. Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum.

I see a whitish cocoon on a small carpinus. It is artfully made where there is a short crook in the main stem, so as to just fill the hollow and make an even surface, the stick forming one side.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 12, 1857

When I consider how many species of willow have been planted along the railroad causeway within ten years, of which no one knows the history. See April 9, 1853 ("The more I study willows, the more I am confused. ") See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau. Salix cordata (heartleaf willow); A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau. Willows on the Causeway.

Methinks I hear these sounds, have these reminiscences, only when well employed. . . See November 18 1851 ("The man who is bent upon his work is frequently in the best attitude to observe what is irrelevant to his work."); April 12, 1854 ("I observe that it is when I have been intently, and it may be laboriously, at work . . . that the muse visits me, and I see or hear beauty. It is from out the shadow of my toil that I look into the light.”); April 30, 1856 (“Surveying seemed a noble employment which brought me within hearing of this bird. I was trying to get the exact course of a wall thickly beset with shrub oaks and birches, making an opening through them with axe and knife, while the hillside seemed to quiver or pulsate with the sudden melody. Again, it is with the side of the ear that you hear. The music or the beauty belong not to your work itself but some of its accompaniments. You would fain devote yourself to the melody, but you will hear more of it if you devote yourself to your work.”); See also December 8, 1859 ("Only the poet has the faculty to see present things as if also past and future, as if universally significant.”)

As the bay-wing sang many a thousand years ago, so sang he to-night. If you would have the song of the sparrow inspire you a thousand years hence, let your life be in harmony with its strain to-day. Compare Walden (“I heard a robin in the distance, the first I had heard for many a thousand years, methought, whose note I shall not forget for many a thousand more”);

See  June 23, 1856. ("Bay-wings sang morning and evening . . . Its note somewhat like Come, here here, there there, —— quick quick quick (fast), — or I m gone. "); May 14, 1858 ("As I go down the railroad at evening, I hear the incessant evening song of the bay-wing from far over the fields. It suggests pleasant associations. Are they not heard chiefly at this season?")

If you would have the song of the sparrow inspire you a thousand years hence, let your life be in harmony with its strain to-day. See Wordsworth;s Tintern Abbey:

, , , While here I stand, not only with the sense

Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts

That in this moment there is life and food

For future years.,

and  February 13, 1859 ("A transient acquaintance with any phenomenon is not sufficient to make it completely the subject of your muse. You must be so conversant with it as to remember it and be reminded of it long afterward, while it lies remotely fair and elysian in the horizon, approachable only by the imagination.")

A night-warbler, plainly light beneath. It always flies to a new perch immediately after its song. According to Emerson, the night warbler was "a bird he had never identified, had been in search of twelve years, which always, when he saw it, was in the act of diving down into a tree or bush.” See May 17, 1858 ("Just after hearing my night-warbler I see two birds on a tree. ...[One perhaps golden-crowned thrush. ]”); May 19, 1858 (“Heard the night-warbler begin his strain just like an oven-bird! I have noticed that when it drops down into the woods it darts suddenly one side to a perch when low."); May 28, 1854 ("The night-warbler, after his strain, drops down almost perpendicularly into a tree-top and is lost.”) 

Suddenly, in some fortunate moment, the voice of eternal wisdom reaches me . . . and liberates me, whets and clarifies my senses, makes me a competent witness.") See January 11, 1857("I become a witness with unprejudiced senses to the order of the universe."); See also December 23, 1851 ("I see that there is to be a fine, clear sunset, and make myself a seat in the snow on the Cliff to witness it.")

As the bay-wing sang 

many thousand years ago

so sang he to-night. 

A brother poet 

one with the rocks and with me – 

whose muse inspires mine.

To be inspired  

a thousand years hence – be in 

harmony to-day.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  One with the rocks and with me

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-570517  

Soothed and cheered by I knew not what

June 1. 

Horse-radish in yard, to-morrow. 

Picked up an entire sternothaerus shell yesterday, without scales. In the upper shell there appear to be six small segments of shell wholly dorsal, seventeen wholly lateral (nine in front), and twenty-two marginal, forty five in all. The ribs, in this case spreading out and uniting to form a sharp and tight roof, suggest that ribs were the first rafters. 

So we turn our backs to the storm and shelter ourselves under this roof. The scales upon the shell answer to the shingles on the roof, breaking joints. 

Saw the shell of another turtle, apparently a young painted turtle, one inch long, curiously wrinkled and turned up, like that found in Middleborough. This had been washed up on to meadow some weeks ago, apparently. 

P. M. — To Walden. 

June 1, 2016

Somewhat warmer at last, after several very cold, as Well as windy and rainy, days. 

Was soothed and cheered by I knew not what at first, but soon detected the now more general creak of crickets. 

A striped yellow bug in fields. 

Most of the leaves of the Polygonatum pubescens which I gathered yesterday at Island had been eaten up by some creature. 

A chewink’s nest a rod and a half south of Walden road, opposite Goose Pond path, under a young oak, covered by overarching dry sedge; four eggs, pretty fresh. I am pretty sure the bird uttered the unusual hoarse and distressed note while I was looking at them. 

Linaria Canadensis on Emerson Cliff. Rock-rose, a day or two there. 

Whiteweed by railroad at pond to-morrow. Cotton-grass, several days before the 29th May. 

Heard a quail whistle May 30th. 

The late crataegus on hill, about May 31st.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 1, 1856

The now more general creak of crickets. See May 18, 1860 ("The creak of the cricket has been common on all warm, dry hills, banks, etc., for a week, - inaugurating the summer."); May 30, 1855 ("Is it not summer now when the creak of the crickets begins to be general?"); June 4, 1854 ("These warm and dry days, which put spring far behind, the sound of the cricket at noon has a new value and significance, so serene and cool. It is the iced-cream of song. It is modulated shade."); May 22, 1854 ("At Lee's Cliff. --First observe the creak of crickets. It is quite general amid these rocks. . . ."); May 26, 1852 ("To-night I hear many crickets. They have commenced their song. They bring in the summer."); June 13, 1851 ("I listen to the ancient, familiar, immortal, dear cricket sound under all others, and as these cease I become aware of the general earth-song.”).

A chewink’s nest a rod and a half south of Walden road, opposite Goose Pond path, under a young oak, covered by overarching dry sedge; four eggs, pretty fresh. See June 10, 1856 (“Chewink’s nest with four young in the dry sprout-land of Loring’s thick wood that was, under a completely overarching tuft of dry sedge grass.”); July 8, 1857 (“A chewink's nest with four young just hatched, at the bottom of the pyrola hollow and grove, where it is so dry, about seven feet southwest of a white pine.”)

Linaria Canadensis on Emerson Cliff. See May 22, 1855 ("Linaria Canadensis on Cliffs open.")

• Linaria Canadensis: A native annual or biennial that prefers highly disturbed areas with sandy soils. Its attractive light-blue to blue-violet flowers have a white throat and a nectar spur. (Nuttallanthus canadensisis, Blue Toadflax,, Canada Toadflax. Old-field Toadflax)

To be soothed and cheered 

by I know not what at first . . . 

the creak of crickets.

   

Now the time for washing winds -- when the choke-berry is in bloom, - bright and breezy days blowing off apple blossoms.

May 20

Very low thunder-clouds and showers far in the north at sunset, the wind of which, though not very strong, has cooled the air. See the lightning, but can not hear the thunder. 

I see in the northwest first rise, in the rose-tinted horizon sky, a dark, narrow, craggy cloud, narrow and projecting as no cloud on earth, seen against the rose-tinged sky, — the crest of a thunder-storm, beautiful and grand. 

The steadily increasing sound of toads and frogs along the river with each successive warmer night is one of the most important peculiarities of the season. Their prevalence and loudness is in proportion to the increased temperature of the day. It is the first earth-song, beginning with the croakers, (the cricket's not yet), as if the very meads at last burst into a meadowy song. 

Methinks we always have at this time those washing winds as now, when the choke-berry is in bloom, — bright and breezy days blowing off some apple blossoms.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 20, 1854

The steadily increasing sound of toads . . with each successive warmer night . . . See May 16, 1855 ("We hear these last two or three warm days the loud sound of toads borne on or amid the rippling wind.")

Methinks we always have at this time . . .  bright and breezy days blowing off some apple blossoms. See May 19, 1860 ("There is a stong southwest wind after the rain, rather novel and agreeable, blowing off some apple blossoms.”); May 27 1852 ("The road is white with the apple blossoms fallen off, as with snowflakes.”); June 1, 1855 ("A very windy day, . . . scattering the remaining apple blossoms.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Apple Blossom Time

Now is the time for

bright and breezy days blowing

off apple blossoms.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Bright and breezy days 

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-540520

The first partridge drums.

April 25

Heard and saw my warbler (?) of the 23d and 24th on Mr. Emerson's  pines. It is the smallest bird I have seen this year. Sits still amid the pines not far below the top and sings very sweetly, loud and clear, and seems further off than it is, beginning first with very fine wiry notes and then increasing in volume and melody till it ends with tweeter tweeter tweeter ter twe. Some of it a martin-like warble. Has sometimes a harsh scolding note. 

It is all light, perhaps ashy-white, beneath; has a little narrow forked tail; ashy (?) under wings, which are considerably shorter than tail; and light above and below eye; perhaps a whitish bar on wings; olivaceous(?) above. 

I think it may be the golden-crested wren, though I hardly saw the upper parts, or possibly the small blue-gray flycatcher. 

I do not find the male blossoms of the red cedar open yet. 

P. M. — To Indian Cedar Hill. 

April 25, 2014

Quite warm and the frogs are snoring on the meadow. I swelter under my greatcoat.  

Many shad-flies in the air and alighting on my clothes. 

The summer approaches by almost insensibly increasing lieferungs of heat, each awakening some new bird or quadruped or reptile. 

At first we were compelled to take off our mittens, then to unbutton our greatcoat, and now, perhaps, to take it off occasionally (I have not left it at home yet), and wear thin boots. For some time we have done with little fire, nowadays let it go out in the afternoon. 

Each creature awaits with confidence its proper degree of heat.

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. 

Saw a golden crested wren in the woods near Goose Pond. (This must be my warblers of April 18th, April 23d and 24th.) It sounded far off and like an imitation of a robin, (and of a golden robin, which later I often mistook for him) — a long strain and often repeated. 

I was quite near it before I was aware of it, it sounding still like a faint imitation of a robin. Some chickadees and yellow redpolls were first apparent, then my wren on the pitch pines and young oaks. 

He appeared curious to observe me. A very interesting and active little fellow, darting about amid the tree-tops, and his song quite remarkable and rich and loud for his size. 

Begins with a very fine note, before its pipes are filled, not audible at a little distance, then woriter weter, etc., etc., winding up with teter teter, all clear and round. His song is comical and reminds me of the thrasher. 

This was at 4 p. m., when most birds do not sing. I saw it yesterday, pluming itself and stretching its little wings. Our smallest bird, methinks, except the hummingbird.

As I stand listening for the wren, and sweltering in my greatcoat, I hear the woods filled with the hum of insects, as if my hearing were affected; and thus the summer's quire begins. The silent spaces have begun to be filled with notes of birds and insects and the peep and croak and snore of frogs, even as living green blades are everywhere pushing up amid the sere ones.

I heard that same snoring which I hear on the river meadows, on an inland meadow this afternoon, where I think no bullfrogs are. Are they not then the palustris, or else the shad frog? 

There are now many new insects in the air. 

Black ducks still on Flint's. 

The fertile fruit-stems of the sensitive fern by the side of the Flint's Pond path, more than a foot high, are a rich ornament to the ground, brown, four or five inches long, and turned to one side, contrasting with the lighter rachis (?). 

Saw my thrush of the 18th by the pond. It appears dark-olive, ferruginous on rump and tail, with a dark streak slanting from each cheek and flesh-colored legs. 

The red cedar has fairly begun to-day; maybe the first yesterday. Put the red yesterday and the white to-day. As I approach the red cedars now, I perceive a delicious strawberry-like fragrance in the air, like that from the arbor-vita. 

The creeping juniper apparently open, but not yet open. 

Though I see some amber on the sweet-fern, I am in doubt whether to say to-day or to-morrow. 

The wild red cherry (if that is one near Everett's), privet, and buckthorn are beginning to leaf out. 

The abele will probably blossom to-morrow. 

H. D. Thoreau,  Journal, April 25, 1854

The frogs are snoring on the meadow. See April 11, 1854 ("Hear a slight snoring of frogs on the bared meadows. Is it not the R. palustris?"); May 6, 1858 (“There was a universal snoring of the R. palustris all up and down the river on each side . . . and probably it began in earnest last evening on the river. It is a hard, dry, unmusical, fine watchman’s-rattle-like stertoration, swelling to a speedy conclusion, lasting say some four or five seconds usually . . . Each shore of the river now for its whole length is all alive with this stertorous purring. It is such a sound as I make in my throat when I imitate the growling of wild animals. I have heard a little of it at intervals for a week, in the warmest days, but now at night it [is] universal all along the river. If the note of the R. halecina, April 3d, was the first awakening of the river meadows, this is the second . . .Yet how few distinguished this sound at all, and I know not one who can tell what frog makes it, though it is almost as universal as the breeze itself.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pickerel frog (Rana palustris) and A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The first frogs to begin calling

I swelter under my greatcoat. . . .(I have not left it at home yet) See April 26, 1854 (“It is now so warm that I go back to leave my greatcoat for the first time, and the cooler smell of possible rain is refreshing”; April 26, 1852 (“I begin now to leave off my greatcoat.”)

Many shad-flies in the air and alighting on my clothes. See 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. ”); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Insect Hatches in Spring (millers, perla, shad-flies or ephemera)

Increasing lieferungs of heat, each awakening some new bird or quadruped or reptile. See April 6, 1860 (“Vegetation thus comes forward rather by fits and starts than by a steady progress. Some flowers would blossom tomorrow if it were as warm as to-day, but cold weather intervening may detain them a week or more. The spring thus advances and recedes repeatedly, — its pendulum oscillates, — while it is carried steadily forward. Animal life is to its extent subject to a similar law. It is in warm and calm days that most birds arrive and reptiles and insects and men come forth.”); April 7, 1860 (“This is the Rana halecina day, — awakening of the meadows, — though not very warm.. . .Probably, then, when it is about 50 at this season, the river being low, they are to be heard in calm places.”); April 9, 1856 (“It has probably been 70° or more; and the last two days have been nearly as warm. This degree of heat, then, brings the Fringilla juncorum and pine warbler and awakes the hyla. “) April 13, 1859 (“The hylodes and wood frogs are other degrees on the thermometer of the season, indicating that the weather has attained a higher temperature than before and winter fairly ended, but this note marks what you may call April heat (or spring heat).”);  May 6, 1858 (“I think that the different epochs in the revolution of the seasons may perhaps be best marked by the notes of reptiles. They express, as it were, the very feelings of the earth or nature. They are perfect thermometers, hygrometers, and barometers.”)

I hear the woods filled with the hum of insects, as if my hearing were affected; and thus the summer's quire begins. See  April 17, 1859 (“The air which was so lately void and silent begins to resound as it were with the breathing of a myriad fellow-creatures . . . gradually the spaces of the air are filled . . . we hear but little music in the world which charms us more than this sound produced by the vibration of an insect's wing and in some still and sunny nook in spring.”); April 28, 1860 ("I am advertised of the approach of a new season, as yesterday. The air is not only warmer and stiller, but has more of meaning or smothered voice to it, now that the hum of insects begins to be heard. You seem to have a great companion with you, are reassured by the scarcely audible hum, as if it were the noise of your own thinking”)

Even as living green blades are everywhere pushing up amid the sere ones. See April 25, 1859 ("I got to-day and yesterday the first decided impression of greenness beginning to prevail, summer-like . .. I am suddenly advertised that a new season has arrived.") See also April 14, 1854 ("There is a general tinge of green now discernible through the russet on the bared meadows and the hills, the green blades just peeping forth amid the withered ones."); April 23, 1854 ("How thickly the green blades are starting up amid the russet! "); April 24, 1859 (“From the amid the withered blades spring up ranks of green life like a fire . . . the renewal of life.”); April 28, 1854 ("Perhaps the greenness of the landscape may be said to begin fairly now . . . during the last half of April the earth acquires a distinct tinge of green, which finally prevails over the russet.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Brown Season

["Golden"- crested wren] .It is the smallest bird I have seen this year . . . Our smallest bird, methinks, except the hummingbird.  Note. Thoreau first misidentified the ruby-cowned as a warbler and also misidentiifed the ruby-crowned as the golden-crowned. He was put in doubt when he saw a red crest on what he had been calling the golden-crested wren, and did not truly identify a golden-crested wren until Christmas 1859. See note to December 25, 1859. See also See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: the ruby-crowned or crested wren.

This must be my warblers of April 18th, April 23d and 24th . . . I saw it yesterday. See April 18, 1854 ("Saw another warbler about the same size, in the same localities, somewhat creeper-like, very restless, more like the Tennessee warbler than any, methinks. Light-slate or bluish-slate head and shoulders, yellowish backward, all white beneath, and a distinct white spot on the wing; a harsh grating note[?]."); April 23, 1854 ("Had a glimpse of a very small warbler on a pitch pine, and heard a pleasant and unusual whistle from him."); April 24, 1854 ("Hear amid the white cedars the fine, clear singing warbler of yesterday, whose harsh note I may have heard the 18th, very clear and fast.")

 

Black ducks still on Flint's. See April 27, 1860 ("The hurry of the duck migration is, methinks, over"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Black Duck

The fertile fruit-stems of the sensitive fern by the side of the Flint's Pond path, more than a foot high. See  May 13, 1860 ("The sensitive fern is only six inches high. — apparently the latest of all")

Saw my thrush of the 18th by the pond. See April 18, 1854 ("Was surprised to see a wagtail thrush. . . which inquisitively followed me along the shore over the snow, hopping quite near.")

Put the red yesterday and the white to-day. See April 24, 1854 ("The white cedar female blossoms are open."); see also  April 24, 1855  ("The sprigs of red cedar, now full of the buff-colored staminate flowers, like fruit, are very rich. The next day they shed an abundance of pollen in the house. It is a clear buff color, while that of the white cedar is very different, being a faint salmon." )

The abele will probably blossom to-morrow. See April 26, 1855 ("The silvery abele, probably to-day or yesterday, but I do not see pollen.")

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. See April 19, 1860 ("Toward night, hear a partridge drum. You will hear at first a single beat or two far apart and have time to say, "There is a partridge," so distinct and deliberate is it often, before it becomes a rapid roll.");  April 29, 1857 ("A partridge there drums incessantly. C. says it makes his heart beat with it, or he feels it in his breast."); June 22, 1851("My pulse must beat with Nature”). See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge.

April 25, 2014

The first partridge drums –

earth’s pulse now beats audibly

with the flow of life.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The first partridge drums

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-540425

All is moist and dissolving.

January 13.

Still warm and thawing, springlike; no freezing in the night, though high winds. 

I saw yesterday my snowshoe tracks quite distinct, though made January 2d. Though they pressed the snow down four or five inches, they consolidated it, and it now endures and is two or three inches above the general level there, and more white. 

The landscape is now patches of bare ground and snow; much running water with the sun reflected from it. Lately all was clean, dry, and tight. Now, though clear and bright, all is moist and dissolving. 

Walden is covered with puddles, in which you see a dim reflection of the trees and hills on the grayish or light-colored snow-ice.

In the deep hollow this side of Britton's Camp, I hear a singular buzzing sound from the ground, exactly like that of a large fly or bee in a spider's web. I kneel down, and with pains trace it to a small bare spot as big as my hand, amid the snow, and searched there amid the grass stubble for several minutes, putting the grass aside with my fingers, till, when nearest to the spot, not knowing but I might be stung, I use a stick. The sound is incessant, like that of a large fly in agony, but I find neither prey nor oppressor. 

At length I change the tone with my stick, and so trace it to a few spires of dead grass standing in the melted snow water. It is a sound issuing from the earth. 

There is no bubble in the water. Perhaps it is air confined under the frozen ground, now expanded by the thaw, and escaping upward through the water by a hollow grass stem.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 13, 1854

Walden is covered with puddles, in which you see a dim reflection of the trees and hills on the grayish or light-colored snow-ice. See  January 8, 1860 ("The sloshy edges of the puddles are the frames of so many wave-shaped mirrors in which the leather-colored oak leaves, and the dark-green pines and their stems, on the hillside, are reflected. "); February 7, 1857 (“The water on the ice is for the most part several inches deep, and trees reflected in it appear as when seen through a mist or smoke, apparently owing to the color of the ice.”); February 15, 1859 ("We walk through almost invisible puddles on the river and meadows, in which we see the trees, etc., reflected. ")

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, I love you like I love the sky

January 13.  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, January 13

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 © 2009-2022

Visit my nighthawk on her nest

June 7. 

Visit my nighthawk on her nest. Can hardly believe my eyes when I stand within seven feet and behold her sitting on her eggs, her head to me. She looks so Saturnian, so one with the earth, so sphinxlike, a relic of the reign of Saturn which Jupiter did not destroy, a riddle that might well cause a man to go dash his head against a stone. 

It is not an actual living creature, far less a winged creature of the air, but a figure in stone or bronze, a fanciful production of art, like the gryphon or phoenix. In fact, with its breast toward me, and owing to its color or size no bill perceptible, it looks like the end of a brand, such as are common in a clearing, its breast mottled or alternately waved with dark brown and gray, its flat, grayish, weather-beaten crown, its eyes nearly closed, purposely, lest those bright beads should betray it, with the stony cunning of the sphinx. A fanciful work in bronze to ornament a mantel. 

It is enough to fill one with awe. The sight of this creature sitting on its eggs impresses me with the venerableness of the globe. There is nothing novel about it. All the while, this seemingly sleeping bronze sphinx, as motionless as the earth, watches me with intense anxiety through those narrow slits in its eyelids. 

Another step, and it flutters down the hill close to the ground, with a wabbling motion, as if touching the ground now with the tip of one wing, now with the other, so ten rods to the water, skims close over a few rods, then rises and soars in the air above me.

Wonderful creature, which sits motionless on its eggs on the barest, most exposed hills, through pelting storms of rain or hail, as if it were a rock or a part of the earth itself, the outside of the globe, with its eyes shut and its wings folded, and, after the two days' storm, when you think it has become a fit symbol of the rheumatism, it suddenly rises into the air a bird, one of the most aerial, supple, and graceful of creatures, without stiffness in its wings or joints!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 7, 1853


Visit my nighthawk on her nest. See June 1, 1853 ("Walking up this side-hill, I disturb a nighthawk eight or ten feet from me, which goes down the hill, half fluttering, half hopping, as far as I can see. . . .Without moving, I look about and see its two eggs on the bare ground") See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,, the Nighthawk

June 7. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, June 7

Wonderful creature

sitting sphinxlike on its eggs –

so one with the earth.

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 © 2009-2021