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")

The duck most common and most identified with the stream at this season.

March 24. 

Cold and rather blustering again, with flurries of snow. 

March 24, 2020

The boatman, when the chain of his boat has been broken with a stone by some scamp, and he cannot easily transport his boat to the blacksmith's to have it mended, gets the latter to bend him a very stout iron wire in the form of an S, then, hooking this to the two broken ends and setting it upright on a rock, he hammers it down till it rests on itself in the form of an 8, which is very difficult to pry open. 

2 P. M. — About 39. To Copan. 

I see a male frog hawk beating a hedge, scarcely rising more than two feet from the ground for half a mile, quite below the level of the wall within it. How unlike the hen-hawk in this! 

They are real wind-clouds this afternoon; have an electric, fibry look. Sometimes it is a flurry of snow falling, no doubt. Peculiar cold and windy cumuli are mixed with them, not black like a thunder cloud, but cold dark slate with very bright white crowns and prominences. 

I find on Indian ground, as to-day on the Great Fields, very regular oval stones like large pebbles, sometimes five or six inches long, water-worn, of course, and brought hither by the Indians. They commonly show marks of having been used as hammers. Often in fields where there is not a stone of that kind in place for a mile or more. 

From Holbrook's clearing I see five large dark-colored ducks, probably black ducks, far away on the meadow, with heads erect, necks stretched, on the alert, only one in water. Indeed, there is very little water on the meadows. For length of neck those most wary look much like geese. They appear quite large and heavy. They probably find some sweet grass, etc., where the water has just receded. 

There are half a dozen gulls on the water near. They are the large white birds of the meadow, the whitest we have. As they so commonly stand above water on a piece of meadow, they are so much the more conspicuous. They are very conspicuous to my naked eye a mile off, or as soon as I come in sight of the meadow, but I do not detect the sheldrakes around them till I use my glass, for the latter are not only less conspicuously white, but, as they are fishing, sink very low in the water. Three of the gulls stand together on a piece of meadow, and two or three more are standing solitary half immersed, and now and then one or two circle slowly about their companions. 

The sheldrakes appear to be the most native to the river, briskly moving along up and down the side of the stream or the meadow, three-fourths immersed and with heads under water, like cutters collecting the revenue of the river bays, or like pirate crafts peculiar the stream. They come the earliest and seem to be most at home. The water is so low that all these birds are collected near the Holt. 

The inhabitants of the village, poultry fanciers, perchance, though they be, [know not] these active and vigorous wild fowl (the sheldrakes) pursuing their finny prey ceaselessly within a mile of them, in March and April. Probably from the hen-yard fence with a good glass you can see them at it. 

They are as much at home on the water as the pickerel is within it. Their serrated bill reminds me of a pickerel's snout. You see a long row of these schooners, black above with a white stripe beneath, rapidly gliding along, and occasionally one rises erect on the surface and flaps its wings, showing its white lower parts  They are the duck most common and most identified with the stream at this season. They appear to get their food wholly within the water. Less like our domestic ducks. 

I saw two red squirrels in an apple tree, which were rather small, had simply the tops of their backs red and the sides and beneath gray! 

Fox-colored sparrows go flitting past with a faint, sharp chip, amid some oaks. 

According to a table in the "American Almanac" for ’49, page 84, made at Cambridge, from May, '47, to May, '48, the monthly mean force of the wind . . . March, April, and May were equal, and were inferior to July and June; for quantity of clouds March and May were equal, and were preceded by December, November, September, January, June, and August. 

For depth of rain, September stood first, and March ninth, succeeded only by May, October, and April. 

The wind's force was observed at sunrise, 9 A. M., 3 P. M., and 9 P. M., and in March the greatest force was at 3 P. M., the least at 9 P. M. So, for the whole year the greatest force was at 3 P. M., but the least at sunrise and 9 P. M. both alike. 

The clouds were observed at the same time, and in March there was the greatest quantity at 9 P. M. and the least at sunrise, but for the year the greatest quantity at 3 P. M. and the least at sunrise and 9 A. M. alike. 

At Mendon, Mass., for the whole year 1847 alone (i. e. a different January, February, March, and April from the last) it stood, for force of wind,. . . March , July , September , November , and December were equal, and were inferior to April , June , August , and October; and for clouds March was sixth . 

The wind's force for March was greatest at 9 A. M. and 3 P. M., which were equal; but for the year greatest at 9 A. M. and least at sunrise. 

For March there was the greatest quantity of clouds at 9 A. M., but for the year at both sunrise and 9 A. M. 

In the last table eight points of the wind were noticed viz. northwest, north, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west. During the year the wind was southwest 130 days, northwest 87, northeast 59, south 33, west 29, east 14, southeast 10, north 3 days.

In March it was northwest 9 days, southwest 8, northeast 5, south 4, west 3, north 2.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 24, 1860

They are real wind-clouds this afternoon; have an electric, fibry look. Peculiar cold and windy cumuli are mixed with them. See March 4, 1860 ("Very strong and gusty northwest wind, with electric-looking wind-clouds");   March 22, 1858 ("I see those peculiar spring clouds, scattered cumuli with dark level bases. No doubt the season is to be detected by the aspect of the clouds no less than by that of the earth."); March 23, 1860 ("Small dark-based cumuli spring clouds, mostly in rows parallel with the horizon.").

I see a male frog hawk beating a hedge, scarcely rising more than two feet from the ground for half a mile. See March 27, 1855 ("See my frog hawk. (C. saw it about a week ago.) It is the hen-harrier, i.e. marsh hawk, male. Slate-colored; beating the bush; black tips to wings and white rump") See Also Henry Thoreau, A Book of the Seasons, The Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier)

They are the duck most common and most identified with the stream at this season. See  February 27, 1860 ("This is the first bird of the spring that I have seen or heard of."); and note to March 16, 1860  ("Saw a flock of sheldrakes a hundred rods off, on the Great Meadows, mostly males with a few females, all intent on fishing. ") See also Henry Thoreau, A Book of the Seasons, The Sheldrake (Merganser, Goosander)

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

Cold and blustering

again with flurries of snow--

cold dark slate wind-clouds.

March 24, 1860

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Cold and rather blustering again

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 fish hawk sails down the river.

April 6. 

April 6,2012

Another remarkably windy day; cold northwest wind and a little snow spitting from time to time, yet so little that even the traveller might not perceive it. 

For nineteen days, from the 19th of March to the 6th of April, both inclusive, we have had remarkably windy weather. For ten days of the nineteen the wind has been remarkably strong and violent, so that each of those days the wind was the subject of general remark. The first one of these ten days was the warmest, the wind being southwest, but the others, especially of late, were very cold, the wind being northwest, and for the most part icy cold. There have also been five days that would be called windy and only four which were moderate. The last seven, including to-day, have all been windy, five of them remarkably so; wind from northwest.

The sparrows love to flit along any thick hedge, like that of Mrs. Gourgas's. Tree sparrows, F. hyemalis, and fox-colored sparrows in company. 

A fish hawk sails down the river, from time to time almost stationary one hundred feet above the water, notwithstanding the very strong wind. 

I see where moles have rooted in a meadow and cast up those little piles of the black earth.

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

For nineteen days, from the 19th of March to the 6th of April, both inclusive, we have had remarkably windy weather. See March 21, 1859 ("From the evening of March 18th to this, the evening of the 21st, we have had uninterrupted strong wind, — till the evening of the 19th very strong south west wind, then and since northwest, — three days of strong wind.”);  April 4, 1852 (" I feel the northwest air cooled by the snow on my cheek.”); April 15, 1854 ("Snow and snowing; four inches deep.”); April 12, 1855 ("the mountains are again thickly clad with snow, and, the wind being northwest, this coldness is accounted for.”); April 15, 1860 ("Strong northwest wind and cold.. . .We are continually expecting warmer weather than we have”)

Tree sparrows, F. hyemalis, and fox-colored sparrows in company. See March 23, 1853 (“The birds which are merely migrating or tarrying here for a season are especially gregarious now, — the redpoll, Fringilla hyemalis, fox-colored sparrow, etc.”); April 8, 1855 ("Also song sparrows and tree sparrows and F. hyemalis are heard in the yard. The fox-colored sparrow is also there”); April 17, 1855 ("A sudden warm day, like yesterday and this, takes off some birds and adds others. It is a crisis in their career. The fox-colored sparrows seem to be gone, and I suspect that most of the tree sparrows and F. hyemalis, at least, went yesterday.”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Tree Sparrow;  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Fox-colored Sparrow;  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Dark-eyed Junco.

A fish hawk sails down the river. See April 7, 1859 ("The fish hawk which you see soaring and sailing so leisurely about over the land . . . may have a fish in his talons all the while and only be waiting till you are gone for an opportunity to eat it on his accustomed perch");  April 14, 1852 ("The streams break up ; the ice goes to the sea. Then sails the fish hawk overhead, looking for his prey.”); April 25, 1858 (“He sails along some eighty feet above the water’s edge, looking for fish, and alights again quite near. ”)  See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau The Osprey (Fish Hawk)

"What do you get for lecturing now?"

April 3. 

An easterly wind and rain. 

P. M. — To White Pond. 

C. says he saw a striped snake on the 30th. 

We go by Clamshell. The water on the meadows is now visibly lowered considerably, and the tops of bushes begin to appear. The high water has stood over and washed down the base of that avalanche of sand from my new ravine, leaving an upright edge a foot high, and as it subsided gradually, it has left various parallel shore lines, with stones arranged more or less in rows along them, thus forming a regular beach of four or five rods' length. 

The baeomyces is in its perfection this rainy day.

 I have for some weeks been insisting on the beauty and richness of the moist and saturated crust of the earth. It has seemed to me more attractive and living than ever, — a very sensitive cuticle, teeming with life, especially in the rainy days. I have looked on it as the skin of a pard. And on a more close examination I am borne out by discovering, in this now so bright baeomyces and in other earthy lichens and in cladonias, and also in the very interesting and pretty red and yellow stemmed mosses, a manifest sympathy with, and an expression of, the general life of the crust. This early and hardy cryptogamous vegetation is, as it were, a flowering of the crust of the earth. Lichens and these mosses, which depend on moisture, are now most rampant. If you examine it, this brown earth-crust is not dead. 

We need a popular name for the baeomyces. C. suggests " pink mould." Perhaps " pink shot " or "eggs " would do. 

A great many oak leaves have been blown off in the late windy weather. When I disturb a leaf in the woods I find it quite dry within this rainy day. I saw the other day a long winrow of oak leaves, a foot high, washed up on the meadow-edge a quarter of a mile off, opposite Ball's Hill, whence they partly came. 

It does not rain hard to-day, but mizzles, with considerable wind, and your clothes are finely bedewed with it even under an umbrella. The rain-drops hanging regularly under each twig of the birches, so full of light, are a very pretty sight as you look forth through the mizzle from under your umbrella. In a hard rain they do not lodge and collect thus. 

I hear that Peter Hutchinson hooked a monstrous pickerel at the Holt last winter. It was so large that he could not get his head through the hole, and so they cut another hole close by, and then a narrow channel from that to the first to pass the line through, but then, when they came to pull on the line, the pickerel gave a violent jerk and escaped. Peter thinks that he must have weighed ten pounds. 

Men's minds run so much on work and money that the mass instantly associate all literary labor with a pecuniary reward. 

They are mainly curious to know how much money the lecturer or author gets for his work. They think that the naturalist takes so much pains to collect plants or animals because he is paid for it. An Irishman who saw me in the fields making a minute in my note-book took it for granted that I was casting up my wages and actually inquired what they came to, as if he had never dreamed of any other use for writing. I might have quoted to him that the wages of sin is death, as the most pertinent answer. 

"What do you get for lecturing now?" I am occasionally asked. 

It is the more amusing since I only lecture about once a year out of my native town, often not at all; so that I might as well, if my objects were merely pecuniary, give up the business. 

Once, when I was walking on Staten Island, looking about me as usual, a man who saw me would not believe me when I told him that I was indeed from New England but was not looking at that region with a pecuniary view, — a view to speculation; and he offered me a handsome bonus if I would sell his farm for him. 

I see by the White Pond path many fox-colored sparrows apparently lurking close under the lee side of a wall out of the way of the storm. Their tails near the base are the brightest things of that color — a rich cinnamon -brown — that I know. Their note to-day is the chip much like a tree sparrow's. We get quite near them. 

Near to the pond I see a small hawk, larger than a pigeon hawk, fly past, — a deep brown with a light spot on the side. I think it probable it was a sharp- shinned hawk. 

The pond is quite high (like Walden, which, as I noticed the 30th ult., had risen about two feet since January, and perhaps within a shorter period), and the white sand beach is covered. 

The water being quite shallow on it, it is very handsomely and freshly ripple-marked for a rod or more in width, the ripples only two or three inches apart and very regular and parallel, but occasionally there is a sort of cell a foot long (a split closed at each end) in one. 

In some parts, indeed, it reminded me of a cellular tissue, but the last foot next the shore had no ripple-marks; apparently they were constantly levelled there. These were most conspicuous where a dark sediment, the dead wood or crumbled leaves, perchance, from the forest, lay in the furrows and contrasted with the white sand. The cells were much more numerous and smaller in proportion than I represent them. 

I find in drawing these ripple-marks that I have drawn precisely such lines as are used to represent a shore on maps, and perchance the sight of these parallel ripple-marks may have suggested that method of drawing a shore-line. I do not believe it, but if we were to draw such a lake-shore accurately it would be very similar.

H. D Thoreau, Journal, April 3, 1859


I see by the White Pond path many fox-colored sparrows apparently lurking close under the lee side of a wall out of the way of the storm.Their note to-day is the chip much like a tree sparrow's. See March 23, 1858 ("A large flock of fox-colored sparrows flits by along an alder-row, uttering a faint chip like that of the tree sparrow."); March 23, 1853 ("The birds which are merely migrating or tarrying here for a season are especially gregarious now”); April 17, 1855 ("A sudden warm day, like yesterday and this, takes off some birds and adds others. It is a crisis in their career. The fox-colored sparrows seem to be gone, and I suspect that most of the tree sparrows and F. hyemalis, at least, went yesterday.") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Fox-colored Sparrow.

I see a small hawk, larger than a pigeon hawk, fly past, — a deep brown with a light spot on the side. I think it probable it was a sharp- shinned hawk. See March 28, 1854 (“See a small slate-colored hawk, with wings transversely mottled beneath, — probably the sharp-shinned hawk.”);April 26, 1854 (“Saw probably a pigeon hawk skim straight and low over field and wood, and another the next day apparently dark slate-color.”); April 16, 1855 ( "What I call a pigeon hawk, probably sharp-shinned.”); May 8, 1854 (“Saw a small hawk flying low, about size of a robin — tail with black bars”); May 4, 1855 (“ See a small hawk go over high in the air, with a long tail and distinct from wings. . . .Was it not the sharp-shinned, or Falco fuscus? I think that what I have called the sparrow hawk falsely, and latterly pigeon hawk, is also the sharp-shinned (vide April 26th and May 8th, 1854, and April 16th, 1855), for the pigeon hawk’s tail is white-barred.”). See also  amd note to July 21, 1858 ("It was the Falco fuscus, the American brown or slate-colored hawk.")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sharp-shinned Hawk

April 3. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April 3

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

The first drops of rain begin to be heard on the dry leaves around me.

March 22. 

P. M. — The wind changes to easterly and is more raw, i. e. cool and moist, and the air thickens as if it would rain. 

Returning from Poplar Hill through the west end of Sleepy Hollow, it is very still, the air thick, just ready to rain, and I hear there, on the apple trees and small oaks, the tree sparrows and hyemalis singing very pleasantly. 

I hear the lively jingle of the hyemalis and the sweet notes of the tree sparrow, canary-like, — svar svar, svit vit vit vit vit, the last part with increasing rapidity. Both species in considerable numbers, singing together as they flit along, make a very lively concert. They sing as loud and full as ever now. There has been no sweeter warble than this of the tree sparrow as yet. 

It is a peculiarly still hour now, when the first drops of rain begin to be heard on the dry leaves around me, and, looking up, I see very high in the air two large birds, which, at that height, with their narrow wings, flying southeast, looked, i. e. were shaped, like night-hawks. I think they were gulls. 

The great scarlet oak has now lost almost every leaf, while the white oak near it still retains them. 

C. says he saw fox-colored sparrows this afternoon.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 22, 1859

I hear the lively jingle of the hyemalis and the sweet notes of the tree sparrow,. . . There has been no sweeter warble than this of the tree sparrow as yet. See March 15, 1854 ("Hear on the alders by the river the lill lill lill lill of the first F. hyemalis, mingled with song sparrows and tree sparrows."); March 20, 1855 ("At my landing I hear the F. hyemalis, in company with a few tree sparrows."); March 20, 1858 ("The tree sparrow is perhaps the sweetest and most melodious warbler at present and for some days."); April 8, 1855 ("Also song sparrows and tree sparrows and F. hyemalis are heard in the yard. The fox-colored sparrow is also there. The tree sparrows have been very musical for several mornings, somewhat canary-like"); April 23, 1854 ("A rain is sure to bring the tree sparrow and hyemalis to the gardens"). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Dark-eyed Junco; A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Tree Sparrow; A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, the note of the dark-eyed junco going northward

The air thickens as if it would rain . . It is a peculiarly still hour now, when the first drops of rain begin to be heard on the dry leaves around me. See July 16, 1852 ("This is a still thoughtful day, the air full of vapors which shade the earth, preparing rain for the morrow.")

The great scarlet oak has now lost almost every leaf, while the white oak near it still retains them. See October 26, 1858 ("The largest scarlet oak that I remember hereabouts stands by the penthorum pool in the Sleepy Hollow cemetery, and is now in its prime."); December 11, 1858 ("The large scarlet oak in the cemetery has leaves on the lower limbs near the trunk just like the large white oaks now.");  January 19, 1859 {"Our largest scarlet oak (by the Hollow), some three feet diameter at three feet from ground, has more leaves than the large white oak close by.")

The first drops of rain 

begin to be heard on the 

dry leaves around me.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The first drops of rain 

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/hdt590322

Those that were here two days ago have left us.

March 29 

Monday. 

Hear a phoebe early in the morning over the street.

Considerable frost this morning, and some ice formed on the river. 

The white maple stamens are very apparent now on one tree, though they do not project beyond the buds. 

P. M. – To Ball’s Hill. 

Nearly as warm and pleasant as yesterday.

I see what I suppose is the female rusty grackle; black body with green reflections and purplish-brown head and neck, but I notice no light iris. 

By a pool southeast of Nathan Barrett's, see five or six painted turtles in the sun, – probably some were out yesterday, — and afterward, along a ditch just east of the pine hill near the river, a great many more, as many as twenty within a rod. I must have disturbed this afternoon one hundred at least. They have crawled out on to the grass on the sunny side of the ditches where there is a sheltering bank. I notice the scales of one all turning up on the edges. It is evident that great numbers lie buried in the mud of such ditches and mud-holes in the winter, for they have not yet been crawling over the meadows. Some have very broad yellow lines on the back; others are almost uniformly dark above. They hurry and tumble into the water at your approach, but several soon rise to the surface and just put their heads out to reconnoitre. Each trifling weed or clod is a serious impediment in their path, catching their flippers and causing them to tumble back. They never lightly skip over it. But then they have patience and perseverance, and plenty of time. The narrow edges of the ditches are almost paved in some places with their black and muddy backs. 

They seem to come out into the sun about the time the phoebe is heard over the water. 

At the first pool I also scared up a snipe. It rises with a single cra-a-ck and goes off with its zigzag flight, with its bill presented to the earth, ready to charge bayonets against the inhabitants of the mud. 

As I sit two thirds the way up the sunny side of the pine hill, looking over the meadows, which are now almost completely bare, the crows, by their swift flight and scolding, reveal to me some large bird of prey hovering over the river.

I perceive by its markings and size that it cannot be a hen-hawk, and now it settles on the topmost branch of a white maple, bending it down. Its great armed and feathered legs dangle helplessly in the air for a moment, as if feeling for the perch, while its body is tipping this way and that. It sits there facing me some forty or fifty rods off, pluming itself but keeping a good lookout. At this distance and in this light, it appears to have a rusty-brown head and breast and is white beneath, with rusty leg feathers and a tail black beneath. When it flies again it is principally black varied with white, regular light spots on its tail and wings beneath, but chiefly a conspicuous white space on the forward part of the back; also some of the upper side of the tail or tail coverts is white. It has broad, ragged, buzzard-like wings, and from the white of its back, as well as the shape and shortness of its wings and its not having a gull-like body, 

I think it must be an eagle. It lets itself down with its legs somewhat helplessly dangling, as if feeling for something on the bare meadow, and then gradually flies away, soaring and circling higher and higher until lost in the downy clouds. This lofty soaring is at least a grand recreation, as if it were nourishing sublime ideas. I should like to know why it soars higher and higher so, whether its thoughts are really turned to earth, for it seems to be more nobly as well as highly employed than the laborers ditching in the meadow beneath or any others of my fellow townsmen.

Hearing a quivering note of alarm from some bird, I look up and see a male hen-harrier, the neatly built hawk, sweeping over the hill.

While I was looking at the eagle (?), I saw, on the hillside far across the meadow by Holbrook's clearing, what I at first took for a red flag or handkerchief carried along on a pole, just above the woods. It was a fire in the woods, and I saw the top of the flashing flames above the tree-tops. The woods are in a state of tinder, and the smoker and sportsman and the burner must be careful now. 

I do not see a duck on the Great Meadows to-day, as I did not up-stream, yesterday. It is remarkable how suddenly and completely those that were here two days ago have left us. It is true the water has gone down still more on the meadows. I infer that water fowl travel in pleasant weather. 

With many men their fine manners are a lie all over, a skim-coat or finish of falsehood. They are not brave enough to do without this sort of armor, which they wear night and day.

The trees in swamps are streaming with gossamer at least thirty feet up, and probably were yesterday.

I see at Gourgas's hedge many tree sparrows and fox-colored sparrows. The latter are singing very loud and sweetly. Somewhat like ar, tea, – twe’-twe, twe’-twe, or arte, ter twe’-twe, twe’-twe, variously. They are quite tame.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 29, 1858

Hear a phoebe early in the morning over the street. See April 1, 1859 ("I see my first phoebe, the mild bird. It flirts its tail and sings pre vit, pre vit, pre vit, pre vit incessantly, as it sits over the water, and then at last, rising on the last syllable, says pre-VEE, as if insisting on that with peculiar emphasis.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Phoebe.

The white maple stamens are very apparent now on one tree, though they do not project beyond the buds. See  March 29, 1853 ("The female flowers of the white maple, crimson stigmas from the same rounded masses of buds with the male, are now quite abundant. . . . The two sorts of flowers are not only on the same tree and the same twig and sometimes in the same bud, but also sometimes in the same little cup.").  See also March 14, 1857 ("White maple buds . . .have now a minute orifice at the apex, through which you can even see the anthers.");   March 17, 1855 ("White maple blossom-buds look as if bursting . . .”); March 27, 1857 ("The white maple is well out with its pale [?] stamens on the southward boughs, and probably began about the 24th. That would be about fifteen days earlier than last year."); ; April 11, 1856 ("See how the tree is covered with great globular clusters of buds. Are there no anthers nor stigmas to be seen? Look upward to the sunniest side. . . .do you not see two or three stamens glisten like spears advanced on the sunny side of a cluster? Depend on it, the bees will find it out before noon") Also see A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,,White maple buds and flowers.

They seem to come out into the sun about the time the phoebe is heard over the water. See March 28, 1857 ("The Emys picta, now pretty numerous . . .He who painted the tortoise thus, what were his designs?")  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

I scared up a snipe. It rises with a single cra-a-ck and goes off with its zigzag flight. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Snipe.

I think it must be an eagle. See April 6, 1856 ("Looking with my glass, I saw that it was a great bird."); April 8, 1854 (“. . . a perfectly white head and tail and broad or blackish wings. It sailed and circled along over the low cliff, and the crows dived at it in the field of my glass, and I saw it well,. . .”); April 23, 1854 ("We who live this plodding life here below never know how many eagles fly over us”)

I look up and see a male hen-harrier, the neatly built hawk, sweeping over the hill. See  March 29, 1853 ("I believe I saw the slate-colored marsh hawk to-day."); March 29, 1854 (See two marsh hawks, white on rump."); see also March 27, 1855 (“See my frog hawk. . . .It is the hen-barrier, i.e. marsh hawk, male. Slate-colored; beating the bush; black tips to wings and white rump.");  March 30, 1856 ("May have been a marsh hawk or harrier.") ~~ What HDT calls the "marsh hawk / frog hawk / hen harrier" is the northern harrier. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier)

Fox-colored sparrows singing very loud and sweetly.. See March 25, 1858 ("I hear a very clear and sweet whistling strain, commonly half finished, from one every two or three minutes. It is too irregular to be readily caught, but methinks begins like ar tohe tohe tchear, te tche tchear, etc., etc"); April 4, 1855 ("Now the hedges and apple trees are alive with fox colored sparrows, all over the town, and their imperfect strains are occasionally heard. . . . I get quite near to them. "); April 17, 1855 ("A sudden warm day, like yesterday and this, takes off some birds and adds others. It is a crisis in their career. The fox-colored sparrows seem to be gone").  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Fox-colored Sparrow.

March 29. See  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, March 29

How suddenly and

completely those that

were here have left us

A poet away from home.

March 25. 

P. M. – To bank of Great Meadows by Peter’s. 

Cold northwest wind as yesterday and day before. Large skaters (Hydrometra) on a ditch. 

Going across A. Clark's field behind Garfield’s, I see many fox-colored sparrows flitting past in a straggling manner into the birch and pitch pine woods on the left, and hear a sweet warble there from time to time. They are busily scratching like hens amid the dry leaves of that wood (not swampy), from time to time the rearmost moving forward, one or two at a time, while a few are perched here and there on the lower branches of a birch or other tree; and I hear a very clear and sweet whistling strain, commonly half finished, from one every two or three minutes. It is too irregular to be readily caught, but methinks begins like ar tohe tohe tchear, te tche tchear, etc., etc., but is more clear than these words would indicate. The whole flock is moving along pretty steadily. 

There are so many sportsmen out that the ducks have no rest on the Great Meadows, which are not half covered with water. They sit uneasy on the water, looking about, without feeding, and I see one man endeavor to approach a flock crouchingly through the meadow for half a mile, with india-rubber boots on, where the water is often a foot deep. This has been going on, on these meadows, ever since the town was settled, and will go on as long as ducks settle here. 

You might frequently say of a poet away from home that he was as mute as a bird of passage, uttering a mere chip from time to time, but follow him to his true habitat, and you shall not know him, he will sing so melodiously.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 25, 1858

Large skaters (Hydrometra) on a ditch. See March 22, 1853 ("At Nut Meadow Brook, water-bugs and skaters are now plenty."); March 22, 1860 ("The phenomena of an average March . . . Many insects and worms come forth and are active , -and the perla insects still about ice and water , — as tipula , grubs , and fuzzy caterpillars , minute hoppers on grass at springs ; gnats , large and small , dance in air ; the common and the green fly buzz outdoors ; the gyrinus , large and small , on brooks , etc. , and skaters") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Water-bug (Gyrinus) and Skaters (Hydrometridae)

I hear a very clear and sweet whistling strain. See March 28, 1854 ("The fox-colored sparrow sings sweetly also.”)

The whole flock is moving along pretty steadily. See April 9, 1856 (“A flock of them - rapidly advancing, flying before one another, through the swamp.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Fox-colored Sparrow.

Cold northwest wind as yesterday and day before . . .There are so many sportsmen out that the ducks have no rest.  See March 25, 1854 ("Too cold and windy almost for ducks. They are in the smoother open water (free from ice) under the lee of hills.") Compare  March 25, 1860 ("See no ducks on Fair Haven Pond .") and see . March 28, 1858 ("There is not a duck nor a gull to be seen on it. I can hardly believe that it was so alive with them yesterday. Apparently they improve this warm and pleasant day, with little or no wind, to continue their journey northward.. . . No doubt there are some left, and many more will soon come with the April rains. It is a wildlife that is associated with stormy and blustering weather"); .March 29, 1858 ("I infer that waterfowl travel in pleasant weather") See also   A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Black Duck

A yellow-spotted turtle.

March 23.

Surveying Mr. Gordon’s farm. 

See something stirring amid the dead leaves in the water at the bottom of a ditch, in two or three places, and presently see the back of a yellow-spotted turtle. 

Afterward a large flock of fox-colored sparrows flits by along an alder-row, uttering a faint chip like that of the tree sparrow.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 23, 1858

Something stirring amid the dead leaves in the water at the bottom of a ditch. See March 26, 1860 (“The yellow-spotted tortoise may be seen February 23, as in '57, or not till March 28, as in '55, — thirty-three days.”); See February 23, 1857 (“See two yellow-spotted tortoises in the ditch south of Trillium Wood. . . .I have seen signs of the spring.”);  March 10, 1853 ("I find a yellow-spotted tortoise (Emys guttata) in the brook.”); March 18, 1854 (" C. has already seen a yellow-spotted tortoise in a ditch.”);   ; March 28, 1852 (“ a yellow-spotted tortoise by the causeway side in the meadow near Hubbard's Bridge.”); March 28, 1855 (“A yellow-spotted tortoise in a still ditch, which has a little ice also. It at first glance reminds me of a bright freckled leaf, skunk-cabbage scape, perhaps. They are generally quite still at this season, or only slowly put their heads out (of their shells).”) See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau The Yellow-Spotted Turtle

A large flock of fox-colored sparrows. See March 23, 1853 ("The birds which are merely migrating or tarrying here for a season are especially gregarious now”); See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Fox-colored Sparrow.

See something stirring

amid the dead leaves at the 

bottom of a ditch.

At the eleventh hour, late in the year, we have visions of the life we might have lived.

October 28. 

October 28, 2017

P. M. — To Conantum. 

To-day it does not rain, but is cloudy all the day. 

Large oak leaves have been falling for a week at least, but the oaks are not yet reduced to their winter state. 

On the causeway I see fox-colored sparrows flitting along in the willows and alders, uttering a faint cheep, and tree sparrows with them. 

On a black willow, a single grackle with the bright irls. (I doubt if some of the brown-headed blackbirds I have seen within three weeks were grackles.) 

As I sat at the wall-corner, high on Conantum, the sky generally covered with continuous cheerless-looking slate-colored clouds, except in the west, I saw, through the hollows of the clouds, here and there the blue appearing. 

All at once a low-slanted glade of sunlight from one of heaven’s west windows behind me fell on the bare gray maples, lighting them up with an incredibly intense and pure white light; then, going out there, it lit up some white birch stems south of the pond, then the gray rocks and the pale reddish young oaks of the lower cliffs, and then the very pale brown meadow-grass, and at last the brilliant white breasts of two ducks, tossing on the agitated surface far off on the pond, which I had not detected before. 

It was but a transient ray, and there was no sunshine afterward, but the intensity of the light was surprising and impressive, like a halo, a glory in which only the just deserved to live. 

It was as if the air, purified by the long storm, reflected these few rays from side to side with a complete illumination, like a perfectly polished mirror, while the effect was greatly enhanced by the contrast with the dull dark clouds and sombre earth. As if Nature did not dare at once to let in the full blaze of the sun to this combustible atmosphere. 

It was a serene, elysian light, in which the deeds I have dreamed of but not realized might have been performed. 

At the eleventh hour, late in the year, we have visions of the life we might have lived. 

No perfectly fair weather ever offered such an arena for noble acts. It was such a light as we behold but dwell not in! In each case, every recess was filled and lit up with this pure white light. The maples were Potter’s, far down stream, but I dreamed I walked like a liberated spirit in their maze. The withered meadow-grass was as soft and glorious as paradise. And then it was remarkable that the light-giver should have revealed to me, for all life, the heaving white breasts of those two ducks within this glade of light. It was extinguished and relit as it travelled. 

Tell me precisely the value and significance of these transient gleams which come sometimes at the end of the day, before the close of the storm, final dispersion of the clouds, too late to be of any service to the works of man for the day, and notwithstanding the whole night after may be overcast! Is not this a language to be heard and understood? 

There is, in the brown and gray earth and rocks, and the withered leaves and bare twigs at this season, a purity more correspondent to the light itself than summer offers. 

These two ducks, as near as I could see with my glass, were all dark above, back and wings, but had bright white breasts and necks. They were swimming and tacking about in the midst of the pond, with their heads half the time plunged beneath the surface. Were they grebes? or young sheldrakes? Even at this distance they warily withdraw still further off till I am gone. 

Both aspleniums and the small botrychium are still fresh, as if they were evergreen. The latter sheds pollen. The former are most fresh under the shelter of rocks. 

I look up and see a male marsh hawk with his clean cut wings, that has just skimmed past above my head, – not at all disturbed, only tilting his body a little, now twenty rods off, with demi-semi-quaver of his wings. He is a very neat flyer. 

Again, I hear the scream of a hen-hawk, soaring and circling onward. I do not often see the marsh hawk thus. What a regular figure this fellow makes on high, with his broad tail and broad wings! Does he perceive me, that he rises higher and circles to one side? He goes round now one full circle without a flap, tilting his wing a little; then flaps three or four times and rises higher. Now he comes on like a billow, screaming. 

Steady as a planet in its orbit, with his head bent down, but on second thought that small sprout-land seems worthy of a longer scrutiny, and he gives one circle backward over it. His scream is somewhat like the whinnering of a horse, if it is not rather a split squeal. It is a hoarse, tremulous breathing forth of his winged energy. But why is it so regularly repeated at that height? Is it to scare his prey, that he may see by its motion where it is, or to inform its mate or companion of its where about? 

Now he crosses the at present broad river steadily, deserving to have one or two rabbits at least to swing about him. What majesty there is in this small bird's flight! The hawks are large-souled. 

Those late grapes on Blackberry Steep are now as ripe as ever they will be. They are sweet and shrivelled but on the whole poor. They ripen there the latter part of October. 

The white pine needles on the ground are already turned considerably redder. The pitch pines, which are yellower than the white when they fall, are three quarters fallen. I see some which look exactly like bamboo, very prettily barred with brown every tenth of an inch or so. 

Going up the cliffy hillside, just north of the witch hazel, I see a vigorous young apple tree, which, planted by birds or cows, has shot up amid the rocks and woods, and has much fruit on it and more beneath it, unin jured by the frosts, now when all other fruits are gathered. It is of a rank, wild growth, with many green leaves on it still, and makes an impression, at least, of thorni ness. The fruit is hard and green, but looks like palatable winter fruit; some dangling on the twigs, but more half buried in the wet leaves, or rolled far down the hill amid the rocks. The owner, Lee, knows no thing of it. There is no hand to pluck its fruit; it is only gnawed by squirrels, I perceive. It has done double duty, – not only borne this crop, but each twig has grown a foot into the air. And this is such a fruit! Bigger than many berries, and carried home will be sound and palatable, perchance, next spring. Who knows but this chance wild fruit may be equal to those kinds which the Romans and the English have so prized, – may yet become the favorite of the nations? When I go by this shrub, thus late and hardy, and its dangling fruit strikes me, I respect the tree and am grateful for Nature's bounty. 

Even the sourest and crabbedest apple, growing in the most unfavorable position, suggests such thoughts as these, it [is] so noble a fruit. Planted by a bird on a wild and rocky hillside, it bears a fruit, perchance, which foreign potentates shall hear of and send for, though the virtues of the owner of the soil may never be heard of beyond the limits of his village. It may be the choicest fruit of its kind. Every wild apple shrub excites our expectation thus. It is a prince in disguise, perhaps.” 

There is, apparently, limestone just above this apple tree.

I see pignuts which squirrels have industriously gnawed, the thick rind closely adhering, so that at last they are left brown and very rough; but in no case is the shell cut quite through, for, as I find, they con tain no meat, but, under a shell of double thickness, a mere dry brown skin, and it seems the squirrels knew this!

Is that small fern (still partly green) Aspidium cristatum, at Lee's Cliff, northwest of the witch hazel? 

Suppose I see a single green apple, brought to perfection on some thorny shrub, far in a wild pasture where no cow has plucked it. It is an agreeable surprise. What chemistry has been at work there? It affects me somewhat like a work of art. 

I see some shrubs which cattle have browsed for twenty years, keeping them down and compelling them to spread, until at last they are so broad they become their own fence and some interior shoot darts upward and bears its fruit! 

What a lesson to man! So are human beings, referred to the highest standard, the celestial fruit which they suggest and aspire to bear, browsed on by fate, and only the most persistent and strongest genius prevails, defends itself, sends a tender scion upward at last, and drops its perfect fruit on the ungrateful earth; and that fruit, though somewhat smaller, perchance, is essentially the same in flavor and quality as if it had grown in a garden. 

That fruit seems all the sweeter and more palatable even for the very difficulties it has contended with. 

Here, on this rugged and woody hillside, has grown an apple tree, not planted by man, no relic of a former orchard, but a natural growth like the pines and oaks. Most fruits we prize and use depend entirely on our care. Corn and grain, potatoes, peaches (here), and melons, etc., depend altogether on our planting, but the apple emulates man's independence and enterprise. 

Like him to some extent, it has migrated to this new world and is ever here and there making its way amid the aboriginal trees. It accompanies man like the ox and dog and horse, which also sometimes run wild and maintain themselves. 

Spite of wandering kine and other adverse circumstance, that scorned shrub, valued only by small birds as a covert, a shelter from hawks, has its blossom week, and in course its harvest, sincere, though small. 

’T was thirty years ago,  

In a rocky pasture field  

Sprang an infant apple grove  

Unplanted and concealed.  

I sing the wild apple, theme enough for me.  

I love the racy fruit and I reverence the tree. 

In that small family there was one that loved the sun, which sent its root down deep and took fast hold on life, while the others went to sleep.    

In two years’ time ’t had thus 

Reached the level of the rocks, 

Admired the stretching world, 

Nor feared the wandering flocks.  

But at this tender age  

Its sufferings began:  

There came a browsing ox 

And cut it down a span.  

Its heart did bleed all day, 

And when the birds were hushed, –

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 28, 1857

At the eleventh hour, late in the year, we have visions of the life we might have lived. See August 18, 1853 (“What means this sense of lateness that so comes over one now? — now is the season of fruits; but where is our fruit? The year is full of warnings of its shortness, as is life.”); April 24, 1859 ("There is a season for everything. Let the season rule us. . . .There is no other life but this, or the like of this. Nothing must be postponed. Launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Live in the present. On any other course life is a succession of regrets.”)

All at once a low-slanted glade of sunlight . . .lighting them up with an incredibly intense and pure white light. See October 28, 1852 (“Suddenly the light of the setting sun yellows and warms all the landscape.”) See also August 28, 1860 (" Just before setting, the sun comes out into a clear space in the horizon and a sudden blaze of light falls on east end of the pond and the hillside. At this angle a double amount of bright sunlight reflects from the water up to the underside of the still very fresh green leaves of the bushes and trees on the shore and on Pine Hill, revealing the most vivid and varied shades of green."); November 22, 1851 ("The light of the setting sun, just emerged from a cloud and suddenly falling on and lighting up the needles of the white pine. . . .After a cold gray day this cheering light almost warms us by its resemblance to fire.")

I hear the scream of a hen-hawk, soaring and circling onward.. . It is a hoarse, tremulous breathing forth of his winged energy. But why is it so regularly repeated at that height? See March 2, 1855 ("Hear two hawks scream. There is something truly March-like in it, like a prolonged blast or whistling of the wind  through a crevice in the sky. . .”); 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.") April 30, 1855 (“I hear from far the scream of a hawk circling over the Holden woods and swamp. This accounts for those two men with guns just entering it. What a dry, shrill, angry scream! . . . It must have a nest there.”); May 7, 1855 (“In the meanwhile, the crows are making a great cawing amid and over the pine-tops beyond the swamp, and at intervals I hear the scream of a hawk, . . . whom they were pestering”); June 8, 1853 (“I hear a hawk scream, and, looking up, see, a pretty large one circling not far off and incessantly screaming, as I at first suppose to scare and so discover its prey, but its screaming is so incessant and it circles from time to time so near me, as I move southward, that I begin to think it has a nest near by and is angry at my intrusion into its domains. As I move, the bird still follows and screams, coming sometimes quite near. . . At length I detect the nest . . .”); July 31, 1856 (“Near Well Meadow, hear the distant scream of a hawk, apparently anxious about her young, . . .This a sound of the season when they probably are taking their first (?) flights.”);  September 14, 1855 (“I scare from an oak by the side of the Close a young hen-hawk, which, launching off with a scream and a heavy flight, alights on the topmost plume of a large pitch pine. . .”)

Those late grapes on Blackberry Steep are now as ripe as ever they will be. See October 18, 1857 (“I find an abundance of those small, densely clustered grapes, – not the smallest quite, – still quite fresh . . . These are not yet ripe and may fairly be called frost grapes. Half-way up Blackberry Steep, above the rock.”); November 2, 1852 (“About the 10th of November, I first noticed long bunches of very small dark-purple or black grapes fallen on the dry leaves in the ravine east of Spring's house. . . .they had a very agreeably spicy acid taste, evidently not acquired till after the frosts. I thought them quite a discovery and ate many from day to day, . . . It is a true frost grape, but apparently answers to Vitis aestivates”); September 29, 1856 (“I am late for grapes; most have fallen. The fruit of what I have called Vitis aestivalis has partly fallen. . . . . Should not this be called frost grape,”)

I see some shrubs which cattle have browsed for twenty years, keeping them down and compelling them to spread, until at last they are so broad they become their own fence and some interior shoot darts upward and bears its fruit. See May 22, 1853 ("The pastures on this hill and its spurs are sprinkled profusely with thorny pyramidal apple scrubs, very thick and stubborn, first planted by the cows, then browsed by them and kept down stubborn and thorny for years, till, as they spread, their centre is protected and beyond reach and shoots up into a tree")