A spring sheen on the snow – signs of the morrow

March 8

10 A. M. Rode to Saxonville with F. Brown to look at a small place for sale, via Wayland. Return by Sudbury. On wheels in snow.

A spring sheen on the snow. The melting snow, running and sparkling down-hill in the ruts, was quite springlike. The snow pure white, but full of water and dissolving through the heat of the sun.

Saw a mink run across the road in Sudbury, a large black weasel, to appearance, worming its supple way over the snow. Where it ran, its tracks were thus: 

the intervals between the fore and hind feet sixteen or eighteen inches by two and a half. 

The distant view of the open flooded Sudbury meadows, all dark blue, surrounded by a landscape of white snow, gave an impulse to the dormant sap in my veins. Dark-blue and angry waves, contrasting with the white but melting winter landscape. Ponds, of course, do not yet afford this water prospect; only the flooded meadows.

There is no ice over or near the stream, and the flood has covered or broken up much of the ice on the meadows. The aspect of these waters at sunset, when the air is still, begins to be unspeakably soothing and promising. Waters are at length, and begin to reflect, and, instead of looking into the sky, I look into the placid reflecting water for the signs and promise of the morrow.

These meadows are the most of ocean that I have fairly learned.

Now, when the sap of the trees is probably beginning to flow, the sap of the earth, the river, overflows and bursts its icy fetters. This is the sap of which I make my sugar after the frosty nights, boiling it down and crystallizing it.

I must be on the lookout now for the gulls and the ducks.

That dark-blue meadowy revelation.

It is as when the sap of the maple bursts forth early and runs down the trunk to the snow.

Saw two or three hawks sailing.

Saw the remains of four cows and a horse that were burned in a barn a month ago. Where the paunch was, a large bag of coarse hay and stalks was seen in the midst of an indistinct circumference of ribs.

Saw some very large willow buds expanded (their silk) to thrice the length of their scales, indistinctly carved or waved with darker lines around them. They look more like, are more of, spring than anything I have seen.

Heard the phebe, or spring note of the chickadee, now, before any spring bird has arrived.

I know of no more pleasing employment than to ride about the country with a companion very early in the spring, looking at farms with a view to purchasing if not paying for them.

Heard the first flies buzz in the sun on the south side of the house.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 8, 1853

The heat of the sun. See March 8, 1860 (" Nowadays we separate the warmth of the sun from the cold of the wind and observe that the cold does not pervade all places. "); see also February 23, 1856 ("t is inspiriting to feel the increased heat of the sun reflected from the snow. "); March 4, 1852 (" The sun has got a new power in his rays after all, cold as the weather is. He could not have warmed me so much a month ago.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Signs of the Spring: the new warmth of the sun 

The melting snow, running and sparkling down-hill in the ruts, was quite springlike. See February 16, 1856 ("The melting snow shines in the ruts."); February 21, 1860 ("When you see the sparkling stream from melting snow in the ruts, know that then is to be seen this braid of the spring"); March 9, 1859 (" The earth shines, its icy armor reflecting the sun, and the rills of melting snow in the ruts shine, too.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Signs of the Spring: Braided ripples of melting snow

Saw a mink run across the road in Sudbury, a large black weasel, to appearance, worming its supple way over the snow.  See  December 2, 1852 ("Above the bridge . . . we see a mink, slender, black, very like a weasel in form");  November 9, 1853 ("We saw a mink swimming in the agitated water close to the shore, east side, above Nut Meadow Brook. It showed the whole top of the back and part of the tail, unlike the muskrat, and did not dive. Stopped a moment when we headed toward it, and held up its head at the end of its long neck toward us, reminding me of pictures of the otter, then turned and swam and ran the other way; dark-brown."); March 26, 1855 ("At the Hubbard Bath, a mink comes teetering along the ice by the side of the river. I am between him and the sun, and he does not notice me. He runs daintily, lifting his feet with a jerk as if his toes were sore. They seem to go a-hunting at night along the edge of the river r; perhaps I notice them more at this season, when the shallow water freezes at night and there is no vegetation along the shore to conceal them."); November 13, 1855 (“Going over Swamp Bridge Brook at 3 P. M., I saw in the pond by the roadside, a few rods before me, the sun shining bright, a mink swimming . . . It was a rich brown fur . . . not black as it sometimes appears, especially on ice.”); April 28, 1857 (“It crossed to my side about twenty-five feet off, apparently not observing me, and disappeared in the woods. It was perfectly black, for aught I could see (not brown), some eighteen or twenty inches or more in length from tip to tip, and I first thought of a large black weasel, then of a large black squirrel, then wondered if it could be a pine marten. I now try to think it a mink”); April 15, 1858 ("Having stood quite still on the edge of the ditch close to the north edge of the maple swamp some time, and heard a slight rustling near me from time to time, I looked round and saw a mink under the bushes within a few feet. It was pure reddish-brown above, with a blackish and somewhat bushy tail, a blunt nose, and somewhat innocent-looking head. It crept along toward me and around me, within two feet, in a semicircle, snuffing the air, and pausing to look at me several times.");  April 29, 1860 ("I now actually see one small-looking rusty or brown black mink scramble along the muddy shore and enter a hole in the bank.") See also March 13, 1859 ("Garfield . . . asked if I had seen any mink. I said that I commonly saw two or three in a year. He said that he had not seen one alive for eight or ten years. [but] catch thirty or forty dollars' worth every winter.")

Now, when the sap of the trees is probably beginning to flow, the sap of the earth, the river, overflows and bursts its icy fetters . . . That dark-blue meadowy revelation. See  February 12, 1860 ("That dark-eyed water . . .  is it not the first sign of spring?"; )February 27, 1852 (" If rivers come out of their icy prison thus bright and immortal, shall not I too resume my spring life with joy and hope ?") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Signs of the Spring: Red Maple Sap Flows and  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Bright Blue Water

Saw two or three hawks sailing. See March 8, 1857 ("Get a glimpse of a hawk, the first of the season.") See also March 6, 1858 (" I see the first hen-hawk, or hawk of any kind, methinks, since the beginning of winter, Its scream, even, is inspiring as the voice of a spring bird.") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Signs of the Spring: the Hawks of March

 Saw some very large willow buds expanded . . . look more like, are more of, spring than anything I have seen. See  March 7, 1855 ("Methinks the buds of the early willows, the willows of the railroad bank, show more of the silvery down than ten days ago.");  March 8, 1860 ("Willow catkins expanding and peeping out a little further every warm day from the very beginning of winter.");  March 10, 1853 ("Methinks the first obvious evidence of spring is the pushing out of the swamp willow catkins.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding

Heard the phebe, or spring note of the chickadee, now, before any spring bird has arrived. See Walden ("On the 13th of March, after I had heard the bluebird, song-sparrow, and red-wing, the ice was still nearly a foot thick. "); February 24, 1857 ("A chickadee with its winter lisp flits over, and I think it is time to hear its phebe note, and that instant it pipes it forth. "); March 1, 1854 ("I hear the phoebe or spring note of the chickadee"); March 1, 1856 ("I hear several times the fine-drawn phe-be note of the chickadee, which I heard only once during the winter. Singular that I should hear this on the first spring day."); March 10, 1852 ("Hear the phoebe note of the chickadee to-day for the first time.."): March 22, 1855 ("My first distinct spring note (phe-be) of the chickadee.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  Signs of the Spring: The Spring Note of the Chickadee

Heard the first flies buzz in the sun on the south side of the house.  See March 4, 1855 (" It is very warm in the sun. . . The rustle of the dry leaves . . . reminds me of fires in the woods . . . I see a fly on the rock."); See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Buzzing flies

The distant view of

now dark blue open meadows –

sign of the morrow.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  A spring sheen on the 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 ©  2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-530308

To paddle now at evening when the water is smooth and the air begins to be warm.

May 9. 

May 9, 2020

Since I returned from Haverhill not only I find the ducks are gone but I no longer hear the chill lill of the blue snowbird or the sweet strains of the fox-colored sparrow and the tree sparrow. The robin's strain is less remarkable. 

I have devoted most of my day to Mr. Alcott. He is broad and genial but indefinite; some would say feeble; forever feeling about vainly in his speech and touching nothing. But this is a very negative account of him for he thus suggests far more than the sharp and definite practical mind. The feelers of his thought diverge — such is the breadth of their grasp — not converge; and in his society almost alone I can express at my leisure with more or less success my vaguest but most cherished fancy or thought. There are never any obstacles in the way of our meeting. He has no creed. He is not pledged to any institution. The sanest man I ever knew; the fewest crotchets after all has he? 

It has occurred to me while I am thinking with pleasure of our day's intercourse, “Why should I not think aloud to you?” Having each some shingles of thought well dried we walk and whittle them trying our knives and admiring the clear yellowish grain of the pumpkin pine. We wade so gently and reverently or we pull together so smoothly that the fishes of thought are not scared from the stream but come and go grandly like yonder clouds that float peacefully through the western sky. When we walk it seems as if the heavens — whose mother-oʻ-pearl and rainbow tints come and go form and dissolve — and the earth had met together and righteousness and peace had kissed each other. I have an ally against the arch-enemy. A blue robed man dwells under the blue concave. The blue sky is a distant reflection of the azure serenity that looks out from under a human brow. We walk together like the most innocent children going after wild pinks with case-knives. Most with whom I endeavor to talk soon fetch up against some institution or particular way of viewing things theirs not being a universal view. They will continually bring their own roofs or — what is not much better — their own narrow skylights between us and the sky when it is the unobstructed heavens I would view. Get out of the way with your old Jewish cobwebs. Wash your windows. 

Saw on Mr. Emerson's firs several parti-colored warblers or finch creepers (Sylvia Americana) a small blue and yellow bird somewhat like but smaller than the indigo-bird; quite tame about the buds of the firs now showing red; often head downward. Heard no note. He says it has been here a day or two. 

At sundown paddled up the river. The pump-like note of a stake-driver from the fenny place across the Lee meadow. 

The greenest and rankest grass as yet is that in the water along the sides of the river. The hylodes are peeping. 

I love to paddle now at evening when the water is smooth and the air begins to be warm. 

The rich warble of blackbirds about retiring is loud and incessant not to mention the notes of numerous other birds. The black willow has started but not yet the button-bush. Again I think I heard the night-warbler. 

Now at starlight that same nighthawk or snipe squeak is heard but no hovering. 

The first bat goes suddenly zigzag overhead through the dusky air; comes out of the dusk and disappears into it. 

That slumbrous snoring croak far less ringing and musical than the toad' s (which is occasionally heard) now comes up from the meadows edge. 

I save a floating plank which exhales and imparts to my hands the rank scent of the muskrats which have squatted on it. I often see their fresh green excrement on rocks and wood. 

Already men are fishing for pouts. 

This has been almost the first warm day; none yet quite so warm. Walking to the Cliffs this afternoon I noticed on Fair Haven Hill a season stillness as I looked over the distant budding forest and heard the buzzing of a fly.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 9, 1853

I no longer hear the chill lill of the blue snowbird or the sweet strains of the fox-colored sparrow and the tree sparrow. See April 17, 1855 ("The fox-colored sparrows seem to be gone, and I suspect that most of the tree sparrows and F. hyemalis, at least, went yesterday.")

I have devoted most of my day to Mr. Alcott. See July 4, 1855 ("So we have to spend the day in Boston, —at Athenaeum gallery, Alcott’s, and at the regatta. Lodge at Alcott’s, who is about moving to Walpole."); September 11, 1856  ("Walked over what Alcott calls Farm Hill, east of his house."); January 17, 1860 ("Alcott said well the other day that this was his definition of heaven, 'A place where you can have a little conversation.'")

Several parti-colored warblers or finch creepers (Sylvia Americana) a small blue and yellow bird quite tame about the buds of the firs now showing red; often head downward. Heard no note. See 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."). See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the parti-colored warbler (Sylvia Americana)

 The pump-like note of a stake-driver from the fenny place across the Lee meadow. See  May 9, 1857 ("Hear stake-driver"), See also  April 24, 1854 (" As I stand still listening . . . I hear the loud and distinct pump-a-gor of a stake-driver. Thus he announces himself.”)..

That slumbrous snoring croak far less ringing and musical than the toad's now comes up from the meadows edge. See May 8. 1857 ("The full moon rises, and I paddle by its light, It is an evening for the soft-snoring, purring frogs (which I suspect to be Rana palustris).. . . Their croak is very fine or rapid, and has a soft, purring sound at a little distance")

Fair and springlike, Pleasant in sun.

March 6. 

3 P. M. 44º. Fair and springlike, i.e. rather still for March, with some raw wind. Pleasant in sun. 

Going by Messer's, I hear the well-known note and see a flock of F. hyemalis flitting in a lively manner about trees, weeds, walls, and ground, by the roadside, showing their two white tail-feathers. They are more fearless than the song sparrow. These attract notice by their numbers and incessant twittering in a social manner. 

The linarias have been the most numerous birds the past winter. 

Mr. Stacy tells me that the flies buzzed about him as he was splitting wood in his yard to-day. 

I can scarcely see a heel of a snow-drift from my window. 

Jonas Melvin says he saw hundreds of “speckled” turtles out on the banks to-day in a voyage to Billerica for musquash. Also saw gulls. 

Sheldrakes and black ducks are the only ones he has seen this year.

They are fishing on Flint’s Pond to-day, but find it hard to get on and off. 

C. hears the nuthatch. 

Jonas Melvin says that he shot a sheldrake in the river late last December.

A still and mild moonlight night and people walking about the streets.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 6, 1860


I hear the well-known note and see a flock of F. hyemalis flitting in a lively manner showing their two white tail-feathers  See February 16, 1854 ("I have not seen F . hyemalis since last fall"); March 7, 1853 ("The only birds I see to-day are the lesser redpolls. I have not seen a fox-colored sparrow or a Fringilla hyemalis"); March 14, 1858 (" I see a Fringilla hyemalis, the first bird, perchance, — unless one hawk, – which is an evidence of spring,. . .They are now getting back earlier than our permanent summer residents. It flits past with a rattling or grating chip, showing its two white tail-feathers"). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: the note of the dark-eyed junco going northward

The linarias have been the most numerous birds the past winter.. See January 8, 1860 (" When I heard their note, I looked to find them on a birch, and lo, it was a black birch! [Were they not linarias? Vide Jan. 24, 27, 29.] "); February 12, 1860 ("On the east side of the pond, under the steep bank, I see a single lesser redpoll picking the seeds out of the alder catkins, and uttering a faint mewing note from time to time on account of me, only ten feet off. It has a crimson or purple front and breast."); February 20, 1860 ("on the only piece of bare ground I see hereabouts, a large flock of lesser redpolls feeding."); February 28, 1860 ("I suppose they are linarias which I still see flying about") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Lesser Redpoll

The flies buzzed about.  See March 17, 1858 ("Even the shade is agreeable to-day. You hear the buzzing of a fly from time to time, and see the black speck zigzag by.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Buzzing Flies

Sheldrakes and black ducks are the only ones he has seen this year. See February 27, 1860 ("This is the first bird of the spring that I have seen or heard of."); March 5, 1857 ("I scare up six male sheldrakes, with their black heads, in the Assabet,—the first ducks I have seen”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Merganser, Goosander) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Ducks Afar, Sailing on the Meadow

C. hears the nuthatch. See March 5, 1859 ("It was something like to-what what what what what, rapidly repeated, and not the usual gnah gnah; and this instant it occurs to me that this may be that earliest spring note which I hear . . .  It is the spring note of the nuthatch.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: The Spring Note of the Nuthatch

Pestered by flies about my head.

July 23.

P. M. — To Walden. 

July 23, 2019

Going through Thrush Alley and beyond, I am pestered by flies about my head, — not till now (though I may have said so before). They are perfect imps, for they gain nothing for their pains and only pester me. They do not for the most part attempt to settle on me,  never sting me. Yet they seriously interfere with walking in the wood. Though I may keep a leafy twig constantly revolving about my head, they too constantly revolve, nevertheless, and appear to avoid it successfully. They leave you only when you have got fairly out of the wood. They seem to do it for deviltry and sport. 

The second and fourth, or lake-like, reaches of the river are those in which there is the least fall, if indeed there can be said to be any much of the year. A slight northerly wind, or a shower at the lower end, will make it easier to row up stream than down. 

Low blackberries have begun. 

I notice the scarlet leaves of the sand cherry, which grows in dry places, and skunk-cabbage leaves have now begun to decay, turning black, and the angelica fall has commenced along the brooks. 

Rhexia in bloom, how long? 

What I call Juncus scirpoides is common at Hubbard's Close, and also what I call Juncus marginatus (somewhat like the luzula). 

Prenanthes alba, how long? 

See an early kind of wool-grass, done, of various sizes, and another with larger reflexed sheaths, not begun. 

Aster Radula, how long?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 23, 1859



The lake-like, reaches of the river are those in which a slight northerly wind, or a shower at the lower end, will make it easier to row upstream than down. See April 16, 1852 ("A succession of bays it is, a chain of lakes, . . .There is just stream enough for a flow of thought; that is all. Many a foreigner who has come to this town has worked for years on its banks without discovering which way the river runs. ")

Low blackberries have begun. See July 17, 1856 ("Going up the hillside, between J. P. Brown's and rough-cast house, am surprised to see great plump ripe low blackberries."); July 21, 1856 ("Low blackberries thick enough to pick in some places, three or four days."); July 26, 1854(" low blackberries of two or more varieties.").

Rhexia in bloom, how long? See July 23, 1853 ("The rhexia is seen afar on the islets, — its brilliant red like a rose. It is fitly called meadow-beauty. Is it not the handsomest and most striking and brilliant flower since roses and lilies began? "); See also July 18, 1852 ("The petals of the rhexia have a beautiful clear purple with a violet tinge."); August 1, 1856 ("Far in the broad wet meadows, on the hummocks and ridges, these bright beds of rhexia turn their faces to the heavens, seen only by the bitterns and other meadow birds that fly over.") and note to August 5, 1858 ("I cannot sufficiently admire the rhexia, one of the highest-colored purple flowers, but difficult to bring home in its perfection, with its fugacious petals.")

Aster Radula, how long? See July 26, 1853 ("I notice to-day the first purplish aster, a pretty sizable one; may have been out a day or two, near the brook beyond Hubbard's Grove, - A.Radula. ")

July 23. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 23

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

A flying squirrel's nest and young.

June 19. 

Sunday. P. M. — To Heywood Meadow and Well Meadow. 

June 19, 2020

In Stow's meadow by railroad, Scirpus Eriophorum, with blackish bracts, not long out. 

A flying squirrel's nest and young on Emerson's hatchet path, south of Walden, on hilltop, in a covered hollow in a small old stump at base of a young oak, covered with fallen leaves and a portion of the stump; nest apparently of dry grass. Saw three young run out after the mother and up a slender oak. The young half-grown, very tender-looking and weak-tailed, yet one climbed quite to the top of an oak twenty-five feet high, though feebly. Claws must be very sharp and early developed. The mother rested quite near, on a small projecting stub big as a pipe-stem, curled cross wise on it. Have a more rounded head and snout than our other squirrels. The young in danger of being picked off by hawks. 

Find by Baker Rock the (apparently) Carex Muhlenbergii gone to seed, dark-green, as Torrey says. Resembles the stipata. 

Blackbirds nest in the small pond there, and generally in similar weedy and bushy pond-holes in woods. 

The prevailing sedge of Heywood Meadow by Bartlett Hill-side, that which showed yellow tops in the spring, is the Carex stricta. On this the musquash there commonly makes its stools. A tall slender sedge with conspicuous brown staminate spikes. Also some C. lanuginosa with it. C. canescens, too, grows there, less conspicuous, like the others gone to seed. 

Scare up young partridges; size of chickens just hatched, yet they fly. The old one in the woods near makes a chuckling sound just like a red squirrel's bark, also mewing. 

Flies rain about my head. 

Notice green berries, — blueberries and huckleberries. 

Is that red-top, nearly out on railroad bank? 

Eriophorum polystachyon of Torrey, Bigelow, and Gray, the apparently broadish-leaved, but Gray makes the wool too long. In Pleasant and Well Meadow; at height. 

Carex polytrichoides in fruit and a little in flower, Heywood Meadow in woods and Spanish Meadow Swamp. 

Trisetum palustre (?), Well Meadow Head, in wet; apparently at height.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 19, 1859

The young half-grown climbed quite to the top of an oak twenty-five feet high, though feebly. See June 23, 1855 ("Hear of flying squirrels now grown."); March 23, 1855 ("It sprang off from the maple at the height of twenty-eight and a half feet, and struck the ground at the foot of a tree fifty and a half feet distant, measured horizontally.")

The prevailing sedge of Heywood Meadow by Bartlett Hill-side, that which showed yellow tops in the spring, is the Carex stricta.  See April 22, 1859 ("Within a few days I pricked my fingers smartly against the sharp, stiff points of some sedge coming up. At Heywood's meadow, by the railroad, this sedge, rising green and dense with yellow tips above the withered clumps, is very striking, suggesting heat, even a blaze, there.")

Scare up young partridges; size of chickens just hatched, yet they fly. See June 23, 1854 (" Disturb three different broods of partridges in my walk this afternoon in different places. One in Deep Cut Woods, big as chickens ten days old, went flying in various directions a rod or two into the hillside. Another by Heywood's meadow, the young two and a half inches long only, not long hatched, making a fine peep. Held one in my hand, where it squatted without winking. A third near Well Meadow Field. We are now, then, in the very midst of them. Now leading forth their young broods. ") See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge.

Notice green berries, — blueberries and huckleberries. See June 6, 1852 ("The earliest blueberries are now forming as greenberries.”)

Is that red-top, nearly out on railroad bank? See July 13, 1860 ("First we had the June grass reddish-brown, and the sorrel red, of June; now the red-top red of July.")

Young red maples suddenly bursting into leaf are very conspicuous now in the woods,

May 6. 

Surveying for Willis & Damon at the factory. 

Hear the tea-lee of the white-throat sparrow. 

It is suddenly very warm and oppressive, especially in the woods with thick clothing. 

Viola pedata begins to be common about white pine woods there.

While surveying this forenoon behind Willis's house on the shore of the mill-pond, I saw remarkable swarms of that little fuzzy gnat (Tipulidae). Hot as it was, — oppressively so, — they were collected in the hollows in the meadow, apparently to be out of the way of the little breeze that there was, and in many such places in the meadow, within a rod of the water, the ground was perfectly concealed by them. Nay, much more than that. I saw one shallow hollow some three feet across which was completely filled with them, all in motion but resting one upon another, to the depth, as I found by measurement with a stick, of more than an inch, — a living mass of insect life. There were a hundred of these basins full of them, and I then discovered that what I had mistaken for some black dye on the wet shore was the bodies of those that were drowned and washed up, blackening the shore in patches for many feet together like so much mud. We were also troubled by getting them into our mouths and throats and eyes. 

This insect resembles the plate of the Chironomus plumosus ("Library of Entertaining Knowledge, Insect Transformations," page 305), also the Corethra plumicornis (page 287), both of which live at first in the water, like the mosquito. 

Young red maples suddenly bursting into leaf are very conspicuous now in the woods, among the most prominent of all shrubs or trees. The sprouts are reddish. 

Hear yellow-throat vireo, and probably some new warblers. 

See the strong-scented wood ants in a stump. 

Black suckers, so called, are being speared at the factory bridge.

This is about the last of the very dry leaves in the woods, for soon the ground will be shaded by expanded green leaves. It is quite hazy, if not smoky, and I smell smoke in the air, this hot day. 

My assistants, being accustomed to work indoors in the factory, are quite overcome by this sudden heat. The old leaves and earth are driest now, just before the new leaves expand and when the heat is greatest. 

I see the black traces of many a recent fire in the woods, especially in young woods. At evening I hear the first sultry buzz of a fly in my chamber, telling of sultry nights to come.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 6, 1859

Viola pedata begins to be common about white pine woods there. See May 10, 1858 ("How much expression there is in the Viola pedata! I do not know on the whole but it is the handsomest of them all, it is so large and grows in such large masses.") See also  May 5, 1853 ("The Emerson children found blue and white violets May 1st at Hubbard's Close, probably Viola ovata and blanda; but I have not been able to find any yet."); May 5, 1859  ("V. pedata and lanceolata rarer yet, or not seen.")  May 6, 1852 (“The first Viola blanda (sweet-scented white), in the moist ground by this spring.”);  May 6, 1855 ("Viola lanceolata, yesterday at least. . . .Two or three rods this side of John Hosmer’s pitch pines, beyond Clamshell, some white Viola ovata, some with a faint bluish tinge. ")// Also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Violets

I saw remarkable swarms of that little fuzzy gnat (Tipulidae). See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Fuzzy Gnat

Young red maples suddenly bursting into leaf are very conspicuous now in the woods. Compare May 6, 1855 ("The young sugar maples leafing are more conspicuous now than any maples.”) . See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Spring Leaf-Out

Hear yellow-throat vireo, and probably some new warblers. See May 6, 1852 ("Hear the first warbling vireo this morning on the elms. This almost makes a summer.”); May 7, 1852 ("One or more little warblers in the woods this morning are new to the season, . . .The first wave of summer from the south.”)


An evening hike it’s been a perfectly blue sky  and puffy white clouds day we hear the first tree frog of the season somewhere past the junction. I stop and cut a hop hornbeam there, dispose of the top over the bank and leave the trunk along one of the trails. I see there the sedge flowering for the first time. The spring beauties are out in profusion and  I smell them now the sweet smell of spring. They’re everywhere in the woods but seemingly thriving more so in the paths The sun is still a couple of hours high, but quite a bit north right in front of the view. We sit long enough for the sky below the clouds to have an orangey peach tint. There seems to be an oven bird trying to sing. We go down past the middle pond and approaching the top of  middle ridge I hear the first wood thrush. We spend a long time listening. It sings in groups of four  phrases which it repeats. One -- after the throat clearing – starts with  a bursting  high note.  More trail cleaning on a spur trail on the way out and home at dusk to feed the dogs. 20190586: tree frog wood thrush oven bird black-throated green spring beauties

The bay-wing now sings.

April 15. 

Ground white with snow this morning, but it melts in a few hours, and, the sun coming out, I observe, after it is gone, much bluish vapor curling up from plowed ground, looking like a smoke there, but not from ground not recently plowed or from grass ground. 

Is it that the plowed ground is warmer, or merely that it has absorbed more moisture? Perhaps the sun penetrates it and so warms it more, since it lies up lighter. It is a very noticeable phenomenon, at any rate, that only the ground just plowed thus smokes. 

P. M. — To Cliffs and Well Meadow. 

There is quite a shimmer in the air, the day being pretty warm, but methinks it is a little greater over plowed ground than over sod, but I see it in woods as high as the tree-tops. M. [?] Pratt refers it chiefly to heat, as about a stove, and thinks I should [see] the most over the driest sand, and it occurs to me that if it is chiefly owing to evaporation I ought to see considerable over water, but I believe that I do not. 

Carpenter refers it (in part, at least) to the exhalation of plants, but they are not now exhaling, — not leafed or leafing as yet. I am uncertain, therefore, whether to regard [sic] the earliest shimmer in the spring, on pleasant days, to heated air in motion or to vapor raised by heat into the air. (Vide back to April 10th.) 

I see and hear white-bellied swallows as they are zigzagging through the air with their loud and lively notes. I am pretty sure it was these and not the martin I heard on the 13th. 

The bay-wing now sings — the first I have been able to hear — both about the Texas house and the fields this side of Hayden's, both of them similar dry and open pastures. I heard it just before noon, when the sun began to come out, and at 3 p. m., singing loud and clear and incessantly. It sings with a pleasing deliberation, contrasting with the spring vivacity of the song sparrow, whose song many would confound it with. It comes to revive with its song the dry up lands and pastures and grass-fields about the skirts of villages. 

Only think how finely our life is furnished in all its details, — sweet wild birds provided to fill its interstices with song! It is provided that while we are employed in our corporeal, or intellectual, or other, exercises we shall be lulled and amused or cheered by the singing of birds. 

When the laborer rests on his spade to-day, the sun having just come out, he is not left wholly to the mercy of his thoughts, nature is not a mere void to him, but he can hardly fail to hear the pleasing and encouraging notes of some newly arrived bird. The strain of the grass finch is very likely to fall on his ear and convince him, whether he is conscious of it or not, that the world is beautiful and life a fair enterprise to engage in. It will make him calm and contented. 

If you yield for a moment to the impressions of sense, you hear some bird giving expression to its happiness in a pleasant strain. We are provided with singing birds and with ears to hear them. What an institution that! 

Nor are we obliged to catch and cage them, nor to be bird-fanciers in the common sense. Whether a man's work be hard or easy, whether he be happy or unhappy, a bird is appointed to sing to a man while he is at his work. 

Consider how much is annually spent on the farmer's life: the beauty of his abode, which has inspired poets since the world was made; the hundreds of delicate and beautiful flowers scattered profusely under his feet and all around him, as he walks or drives his team afield, — he cannot put his spade into uncultivated, nor into much cultivated, ground without disturbing some of them; a hundred or two of equally beautiful birds to sing to him morning and evening, and some at noonday, a good part of the year; a perfect sky arched over him, a perfect carpet spread under him, etc., etc. ! 

And can the farmer speak or think carelessly of these gifts ? Will he find it in his heart to curse the flowers and shoot the birds? 

Hear a goldfinch, after a loud mewing on an apple tree, sing in a rich and varied way, as if imitating some other bird. 

Observe in the small shallow rills in the sandy road beyond the Smallpox Burying-Ground, made by the snow of the morning, now melted, very interesting ripples over a pebbly or uneven bottom on this side or that. 

The beauty of these little ripples was occasioned by their shadows amid the bright water. They were so arranged with remarkable order as to resemble the bright scales of a portion of a snake's skin with geometrical regularity, seven or eight parallel rows in a triangular form, successively diminishing in size. 

The ripple is occasioned merely by the impetuosity of the water meeting some slight obstacle. Thus you see in the very ripples on a rill a close resemblance in arrangement to the bright scales of a fish, and it [would] greatly help to conceal a fish if it could lie under them. The water was generally less than an inch deep on a sandy bottom. 

The warm pine woods are all alive this afternoon with the jingle of the pine warbler, the for the most part invisible minstrel. That wood, for example, at the Punk Oak, where we sit to hear it. It is surprising how quickly the earth, which was covered half an inch deep this morning, and since so wet, has become comparatively dry, so that we sit on the ground or on the dry leaves in woods at 3 p. m. and smell the pines and see and hear the flies, etc., buzz about, though the sun did not come out till 12 m. 

This morning, the aspect of winter; at mid-forenoon, the ground reeking with moisture; at 3 p. m., sit on dry leaves and hear the flies buzz and smell the pines! 

That wood is now very handsome seen from the westerly side, the sun falling far through it, though some trunks are wholly in shade. This warbler impresses me as if it were calling the trees to life. I think of springing twigs. Its jingle rings through the wood at short intervals, as if, like an electric shock, it imparted a fresh spring life to them. You hear the same bird, now here now there, as it incessantly flits about, commonly invisible and uttering its simple jingle on very different keys, and from time to time a companion is heard farther or nearer. 

This is a peculiarly summer-like sound. Go to a warm pine wood-side on a pleasant day at this season after storm, and hear it ring with the jingle of the pine warbler.

 As I sit on the stump of a large white pine which was sawed off, listening to these warblers, in a warm sun, I see a fair-weather cloud going over rather low, and hear the flies buzz about me, and it reminds me of those long-drawn summer days when you lie out-of-doors and are more related to the clouds travelling over. The summer clouds, the thunder-cloud especially, are nearer to us than the clouds of winter.

When we go huckleberrying, the clouds are our fellow-travellers, to greet or avoid. I might say the clouds have come. I perceive that I am in the same apartment with them. 

Going up a mountain is like travelling half a day through a tan-yard, till you get into a fog, and then, when the fog blows away, you discover yourself and a buzzing fly on the sunny mountain-top. 

The wood thrush! At Well Meadow Head. Not being prepared to hear it, I thought it a boy whistling at first. 

Also a catbird mews? [Could this have been a goldfinch?]

The epigaea opened, apparently, the 13th.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 15, 1859

I see and hear white-bellied swallows as they are zigzagging through the air with their loud and lively notes. See April 15, 1855 ("Many martins (with white—bellied swallows) are skimming and twittering above the water, perhaps catching the small fuzzy gnats"); April 15, 1856 ("The white-bellied swallows are circling about and twittering above the apple trees and walnuts on the hillside.")

The bay-wing now sings. See April 13, 1856 ("I hear a bay-wing on the railroad fence sing, the rhythm somewhat like, char char (orhere here), che che, chip chip chip (fast), chitter chitter chitter chit (very fast and jingling), tchea tchea (jinglingly). It has another strain, considerably different, but a second also sings the above. Two on different posts are steadily singing the same.") ,May 12, 1857(" I hear from across the fields the note of the bay-wing, Come here here there there quick quick quick or I'm gone . . . 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. . .  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.. . . . [S]uddenly, 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."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bay-Wing Sparrow

The beauty of these little ripples was occasioned by their shadows amid the bright water. See March 26, 1860 ("The yellow sands of a lonely brook seen through the rippling water, with the shadows of the ripples like films passing over it.")

The wood thrush!  Probably the hermit thrush. See April 15, 1858 ("Saw flitting silently through the wood, near the yew, two or three thrushes, . . . a light ring about eyes, and whitish side of throat (?); rather fox-colored or cinnamon tail, with ashy reflections from edges of primaries; flesh-colored legs.").  See also  note to April 24, 1856 ("See a brown bird flit, and behold my hermit thrush, with one companion, flitting silently through the birches. I saw the fox-color on his tail-coverts, as well as the brown streaks on the breast.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring: The Arrival of the Hermit Thrush


The warm pine woods are all alive this afternoon with the jingle of the pine warbler, the for the most part invisible minstrel. See April 15, 1855 ( "In the meanwhile, as we steal through the woods, we hear the pleasing note of the pine warbler, bringing back warmer weather"); April 15, 1860 ("At Conantum pitch pines hear the first pine warbler") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Pine Warbler

April 15. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, April 15

Birdsong falling on

our ear convinces us that the

world is beautiful –

Calm and contentment

if you yield for a moment 

to sense impressions.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  The bay-wing now sings.

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 © 2009-2026