What a perfectly New England sound is this voice of the crow!

March 4. 

Began to snow last evening, and it is now (early in the morning) about a foot deep, and raining. 

P. M. — To E. Hosmer Spring. 

Down Turnpike and back by E. Hubbard's Close. We stood still a few moments on the Turnpike below Wright's (the Turnpike, which had no wheel-track beyond Turtle's and no track at all beyond Wright's), and listened to hear a spring bird. 

We heard only the jay screaming in the distance and the cawing of a crow. What a perfectly New England sound is this voice of the crow! If you stand perfectly still anywhere in the outskirts of the town and listen, stilling the almost incessant hum of your own personal factory, this is perhaps the sound which you will be most sure to hear rising above all sounds of human industry and leading your thoughts to some far bay in the woods where the crow is venting his disgust. This bird sees the white man come and the Indian withdraw, but it withdraws not. Its untamed voice is still heard above the tinkling of the forge. It sees a race pass away, but it passes not away. It remains to remind us of aboriginal nature. 

I find near Hosmer Spring in the wettest ground, which has melted the snow as it fell, little flat beds of light-green moss, soft as velvet, which have recently pushed up, and lie just above the surface of the water. They are scattered about in the old decayed trough. (And there are still more and larger at Brister's Spring.) They are like little rugs or mats and are very obviously of fresh growth, such a green as has not been dulled by winter, a very fresh and living, perhaps slightly glaucous, green. 

The myosotis and bitter cress are hardly clean and fresh enough for a new growth. 

The radical leaves of the Ranunculus repens are conspicuous, but the worse for the wear; but the golden saxifrage has in one or two places decidedly and conspicuously grown, like the cowslip at Well Meadow and still more, rising in dense beds a half to three quarters of an inch above the water, the leaves, like those of the cowslip, only partly concealed and flatted out. This distinguishes the fresh-springing leaves of these two. 

Probably there is more of the chrysosplenium thus advanced in Concord than of the caltha. I see none of the last here. 

The surface of the snow thus rapidly melting and sinking (there are commonly some inches of water under it, the rain having soaked through), though still very fresh and pure white, is all cracked, as it were, like that of some old toadstools. It has sunk so much that every inequality in the surface of the ground be neath is more distinctly shown than when bare. 

The ruts of old wood-paths are represented in the surface a foot above, and the track of the man and of the dog that ran by the side of the team (in the old snow), — the thread, in short, of every valley. 

The surface of the snow, though so recent, is therefore, on account of the rain, very diversified. On steep slopes it is regularly furrowed, apparently by water that has flowed down it. 

In the brook in Hubbard's Close I see the grass pushing up from the bottom four or five inches long and waving in the current, which has not yet reached the surface. 

C. thinks this is called a sap snow, because it comes after the sap begins to flow. 

The story goes that at the Social Club the other night Cyrus Stow, hearing that the lecture before the Lyceum by Alger was to be on "The Sophistry of Ennui " and not knowing what that was, asked in good faith if it went by wind or water.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 4, 1859

We listened to hear a spring bird. We heard only the jay screaming in the distance and the cawing of a crow. See February 18, 1855 ("I listen ever for something springlike in the notes of birds, some peculiar tinkling notes."); February 18, 1857 ("The snow is nearly all gone, and it is so warm and springlike that I walk over to the hill, listening for spring birds.");  March 1, 1855 ( "We go listening for bluebirds, but only hear crows and chickadees."); December 11, 1854 ("I hear rarely a bird except the chickadee, or perchance a jay or crow.") . See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring:  The crowing of cocks, the cawing of crows

The golden saxifrage has in one or two places decidedly and conspicuously grown. See March 4, 1852 ("The snow is melting on the rocks; the water trickles down in shining streams; the mosses look bright; the first awakening of vegetation at the root of the saxifrage.”); March 15. 1857 ("As usual at this date and earlier, there are a few square rods of green grass tufts at Brister’s springs, like a green fire under the pines and alders, and in one place an apparent growth of golden saxifrage"); March 18, 1853 ("At Conantum Cliff the columbines have started and the saxifrage even,. . .These plants waste not a day, not a moment, suitable to their development.")
.
I find near Hosmer Spring in the wettest ground, which has melted the snow as it fell, little flat beds of light-green moss, soft as velvet, which have recently pushed up. See  February 18, 1852 ("The mosses on the rocks look green where the snow has melted. This must be one of the spring signs, when spring comes.");  March 3, 1859 ("The mossy bank along the south side of Hosmer's second spring ditch is very interesting. There are many coarse, hair-like masses of that green and brown moss on its edge, hanging over the ditch, alternating with withered-looking cream-colored sphagnum tinged with rose-color, in protuberances, or mammae, a foot across on the perpendicular side of the ditch"); March 7 , 1855 ("At Brister’s Spring there are beautiful dense green beds of moss, which apparently has just risen above the surface of the water, tender and compact."); April 2, 1853 (" See the fine moss in the pastures with beautiful red stems even crimsoning the ground. This is its season."); April 2, 1856 (" There are beds of fresh green moss in the midst of the shallow water."):; April 18, 1856 ("That pretty, now brown-stemmed moss with green oval fruit"); April 25, 1857 ("The dense, green, rounded beds of mosses in springs and old water-troughs are very handsome now, — intensely cold green cushions.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Mosses Bright Green and  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, At Brister's Spring

March 4. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, March 4

The distant cawing –

aboriginal nature

this voice of the crow.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, a perfectly New England sound 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2025

The female flowers of the alder are now very pretty when seen against the sun.

April 17.

P. M. – Via Assabet to Coral Rock. 

See several kingfishers. Red-wings still in flocks, and crow blackbirds feeding amid leaves by Assabet side, half a dozen together. 

The female flowers of the alder are now very pretty when seen against the sun, bright-crimson. 

I take up a wood turtle on the shore, whose sternum is covered with small ants. 

The sedge is shooting up in the meadows, erect, rigid, and sharp, a glaucous green unlike that of the grass on banks. 

The linnaea-like plant turns out to be golden saxifrage. Its leaf is the same form, but smooth and not shrubby. 

The Rana halecina spawn in tumbler begins to struggle free of the ova, but it is not so much developed as the R. sylvatica. Some of the first may be a little more forward in the meadows. I see some to-day, probably this kind, flatted out, though I do not see the frog. It made the same sound, however. The R. sylvatica is probably generally the earliest.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 17, 1858

The female flowers of the alder are now very pretty when seen against the sun, bright-crimson. See April 8, 1859 ("The fertile flowers are an interesting bright crimson in the sun.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Alders

I take up a wood turtle on the shore, whose sternum is covered with small ants.  See. April 17, 1859 ("A wood tortoise on bank; first seen."); see also. April 6, 1855 (" I see a large wood tortoise just crawled out upon the bank, with three oval, low, bug-like leeches on its sternum."); May 7, 1858 ("I see a wood tortoise by the river there, half covered with the old withered leaves. Taking it up, I find that it must have lain perfectly still there for some weeks,") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wood Turtlw (Emys insculpta)

I cross one of the bays of Walden, and might the middle.

March 15. 

P. M. — To Hubbard’s Close and Walden. 

I see in the ditches in Hubbard’s Close the fine green tips of spires of grass just rising above the surface of the water in one place, as if unwilling to trust itself to the frosty air. Favored by the warmth of the water and sheltered by the banks of the ditch, it has advanced thus far. 

But generally I see only the flaccid and floating frost-bitten tops of grass which apparently started that warm spell in February. The surface of the ditches is spotted with these pale and withered frost-bitten bladelets. 

It was the first green blush, as it were, — nay, it is purple or lake often, and a true blush, —of spring, of that Indian spring we had in February. An early dawn and premature blush of spring, at which I was not present. 

To be present at the instant when the springing grass at the bottoms of ditches lifts its spear above the surface and bathes in the spring air! Many a first faint crop mantling the pools thus early is mown down by the frost before the village suspects that vegetation has reawakened. 

The trout darts away in the puny brook there so swiftly in a zigzag course that commonly I only see the ripple that he makes, in proportion, in this brook only a foot wide, like that made by a steamer in a canal. Or if I catch a glimpse of him before he buries himself in the mud, it is only a dark film without distinct outline. By his zigzag course he bewilders the eye, and avoids capture perhaps. 

As usual at this date and earlier, there are a few square rods of green grass tufts at Brister’s springs, like a green fire under the pines and alders, and in one place an apparent growth of golden saxifrage. 

At Heywood’s Peak, I start partridges from the perfectly bare hillside. Such the spots they frequent at this season. 

I cross one of the bays of Walden, and might the middle. 

By Thrush Alley, where they have been cutting more wood this winter, I see one of those beetles made of an oak excrescence, such as I have heard of, left by the chopper. 

The whole is a little over four feet long. The head nine or ten inches and the handle about three and a half feet, but all one piece. It was apparently of a young tree, or perhaps a limb, about four inches in diameter with a regular excrescence about it still, eight or nine inches in diameter. This head had been smoothed or trimmed and made more regular by the axe, cut off rather square at the end, and the lower part cut down to a handle of convenient size. And thus the chopper had made in a few moments in the woods a really efficient implement, with his axe only, out of some of the very wood he wished to split. 

A natural beetle. There was no danger that the handle would come off or the head crack. It needed no ringing. And thus he saved the head of his axe.

We are singularly pleased and contented when a mere excrescence is thus converted into a convenient implement. Who was it, what satyr, that invented this rustic beetle? It was shaped:     

An indispensable piece of woodcraft.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 15, 1857

An early dawn and premature blush of spring, at which I was not present. See March 17, 1857 ("No mortal is alert enough to be present at the first dawn of the spring, but he will presently discover some evidence that vegetation had awaked some days at least before. . . .I thus detect the first approach of spring by finding here and there its scouts and vanguard which have been slain by the rear-guard of retreating winter.")

At Heywood’s Peak, I start partridges from the perfectly bare hillside. Such the spots they frequent at this season. See March 23, 1856 (" Almost the whole of the steep hillside on the north of Walden is now bare and dry and warm, though fenced in with ice and snow. It has attracted partridges, four of which whir away on my approach.")

I cross one of the bays of Walden, and might the middle. See March 14, 1860 (" I am surprised to find Walden open. No sooner has the ice of Walden melted than the wind begins to play in dark ripples over the surface of the virgin water. Ice dissolved is the next moment as perfect water as if melted a million years."); April 18, 1856 ("Walden is open entirely to-day for the first time, owing to the rain of yesterday and evening. I have observed its breaking up of different years commencing in ’45, and the average date has been April 4th.")

A moist, misty, rain-threatening April day. Walden is still covered with ice.

April 16

I have not seen a tree sparrow, I think, since December. 

5.30 A. M. — To Pinxter Swamp over Hill. 

A little sunshine at the rising. I, standing by the river, see it first reflected from E. Wood’s windows before I can see the sun. 

Standing there, I hear that same stertorous note of a frog or two as was heard the 13th, apparently from quite across all this flood, and which I have so often observed before. What kind is it? It seems to come from the edge of the meadow, which has been recently left bare. Apparently this low sound can be heard very far over the water. 

The robins sing with a will now. What a burst of melody! It gurgles out of all conduits now; they are choked with it. There is such a tide and rush of song as when a river is straightened between two rocky walls. It seems as if the moming’s throat were not large enough to emit all this sound. 

The robin sings most before 6 o’clock now. I note where some suddenly cease their song, making a quite remarkable vacuum. 

As I walk along the bank of the Assabet, I hear the yeep yeep yeep yeeep yeeep yeep, or perhaps peop, of a fish hawk, repeated quite fast, but not so shrill and whistling as I think I have heard it, and directly I see his long curved wings undulating over Pinxter Swamp, now flooded. 

From the hilltop I see bare ground appearing in ridges here and there in the Assabet meadow.

A grass-bird, with a sort of spot on its breast, sings, here here hé, che che che, chit chit chit, t’ chip chip chip chip chip. The latter part especially fast. 

The F. juncorum says, phe phe phe phe ph-ph-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p, faster and faster; flies as I advance, but is heard distinctly still further off. 

Aprill 16, 2016

A moist, misty, rain-threatening April day. About noon it does mizzle a little. The robin sings throughout it. It is rather raw, tooth-achy weather. 

P. M. —Round Walden. 

The Stellaria media is abundantly out. I did not look for it early, it was so snowy. It evidently blossomed as soon after the 2d of April—when I may say the snow began to go off in earnest—as possible.  

The shepherd’s-purse, too, is well out, three or four inches high, and may have been some days at least.

Cheney’s elm shows stamens on the warm side pretty numerously. Probably that at Lee’s Cliff a little earlier.

Plowing and planting are now going on commonly. As I go down the railroad, I see two or three teams in the fields. Frost appears to be out of most soil. 

I see a pine warbler, much less yellow than the last, searching about the needles of the pitch and white pine. Its note is somewhat shorter, -- a very rapid and continuous trill or jingle which I remind myself of by wetter wetter wetter wetter wet’, emphasizing the last syllable. 

Walden is still covered with ice, which is still darker green and more like water than before. A large tract in the middle is of a darker shade and particularly like water. Mr. Emerson told me yesterday that there was a large tract of water in the middle! This ice trembles like a batter for a rod around when I throw a stone on to it. One as big as my fist, thrown high, goes through. It appears to be three or four inches thick. It extends quite to the shore on the north side - and is there met by snow. 

The needles of the pines still show where they were pressed down by the great burden of snow last winter. I see a maple twig eaten off by a rabbit four and a quarter feet from the ground, showing how high the snow was there. 

Golden saxifrage at Hubbard’s Close. 

Frogs sit round Callitriche Pool, where the tin is cast. We have waste places — pools and brooks, etc., -— where to cast tin, iron, slag, crockery, etc. No doubt the Romans and Ninevites had such places. To what a perfect system this world is reduced! A place for everything and everything in its place!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 16, 1856

I have not seen a tree sparrow, I think, since December. See  March 25, 1856 ("There have been few if any small migratory birds the past winter. I have not seen a tree sparrow, nuthatch, creeper, nor more than one redpoll since Christmas. They probably went further south.") Compare April 1, 1854 ("The tree sparrows, hyemalis, and song sparrows are particularly lively and musical in the yard this rainy and truly April day. The air rings with them. ); April 1, 1857 ("Hear a phoebe, and this morning the tree sparrows sing very sweetly about Keyes’s arbor-vitae and Cheney’s pines and apple trees"); April 4, 1853 ("I hear the twitter of tree sparrows from fences and shrubs in the yard and from alders by meadows and the riverside every day.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Tree Sparrow

 I hear that same stertorous note of a frog or two as was heard the 13th . . . What kind is it?  See April 13, 1856 ("As I go by the Andromeda Ponds, I hear the tut tut of a few croaking frogs, and at Well Meadow I hear once or twice a prolonged stertorous sound, as from river meadows a little later usually, which is undoubtedly made by a different frog from the first.").  March 31, 1857 ("To-day both croakers and peepers are pretty numerously heard, and I hear one faint stertorous (bullfrog-like ??) sound on the river meadow."); April 3, 1858 ("They were the R. halecina.. . .Their note is a hard dry tut tut tut tut, not at all ringing like the toad’s. . .; and from time to time one makes that faint somewhat bullfrog-like er er er. Both these sounds, then, are made by one frog, . . . This, I think, is the first frog sound I have heard from the river meadows or anywhere, except the croaking leaf-pool frogs and the hylodes" );   April 10, 1859 ("Hear the first stuttering frog croak — probably halecina — in the last Cassandra Pond.");  April 7, 1860 ("This is the Rana halecina day, — awakening of the meadows.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The first frogs to begin calling and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  the Leopard Frog (Rana Halecina) in Spring

The robins sing with a will now. The robin sings most before 6 o’clock now . . . About noon it does mizzle a little. The robin sings throughout it. See April 16, 1855 (The robins, etc., blackbirds, song sparrows sing now on all hands just before sunrise, perhaps quite as generally as at any season""); April 13, 1852 ("The robin is the only bird as yet that makes a business of singing, steadily singing, — sings continuously out of pure joy and melody of soul."); April 21, 1852 ("The robins sing through the ceaseless rain . . . It is a pure, immortal melody . . . I have not this season heard more robins sing than this rainy day.") See also  March 8, 1855 ("This sound reminds me of rainy, misty April days in past years.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Robins in Spring

I hear the yeep yeep yeep yeeep yeeep yeep, or perhaps peop, of a fish hawk . . . and directlyI see his long curved wings undulating over Pinxter Swamp, now flooded. See April 14, 1856 ("It flies quite low, surveying the water, in an undulating, buoyant manner, like a marsh hawk, or still more a. nighthawk, with its long curved wings.") See also  April 15, 1855 ("When he launches off, he utters a clear whistling note, — phe phe, phe phe, phe phe, — . . .  and we follow him with our eyes till we can only see faintly his undulating wings against the sky in the western horizon.") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Osprey (Fish Hawk)

The F. juncorum says, phe phe phe phe ph-ph-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p, faster and faster; flies as I advance, but is heard distinctly still further off. See  April 13, 1854 ("hear the F. juncorum, -- phẽ- phẽ- phẽ- phẽ- phẽ-, pher-phẽ-ē-ē-ē-ē-ē-ē-ē-ē. How . . . clear and distinct, “like a spoon in a cup,” the last part very fast and ringing"); April 27, 1852 ("Heard the field or rush sparrow this morning (Fringilla juncorum), George Minott's "huckleberry-bird." . . .sounding like phe, phe, phe, pher-pher-tw-tw-tw-t-t-t-t, — the first three slow and loud, the next two syllables quicker, and the last part quicker and quicker, becoming a clear, sonorous trill or rattle, like a spoon in a saucer") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Field Sparrow

A grass-bird, with a sort of spot on its breast, sings, here here hé, che che che, chit chit chit, t’ chip chip chip chip chip.  See  April 13, 1856 ("I hear a bay-wing on the railroad fence sing, the rhythm somewhat like, char char (or here here), che che, chip chip chip (fast), chitter chitter chitter chit (very fast and jingling), tchea tchea (jinglingly)") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Bay-Wing Sparrow

The Stellaria media is abundantly out . . .The shepherd’s-purse, too, is well out. See April 2, 1856 ("Some of the earliest plants are now not started because covered with snow, as the stellaria and shepherd’s purse.”); see also  March 5, 1860 ("Chickweed and shepherd's-purse in bloom in C.'s garden, and probably all winter, or each month."); March 22, 1860 ("Stellaria media and shepherd's-purse bloom;");   April 14, 1855 ("Most of the stellaria has been winter-killed, but I find a few flowers on a protected and still green sprig, probably not blossomed long.”); April 25, 1855 ("Shepherd’s-purse will bloom to-day”); April 26, 1852 ("Chickweed (Stellaria media), naturalized, shows its humble star-like white flowers now")

Cheney’s elm shows stamens on the warm side pretty numerously. Probably that at Lee’s Cliff a little earlier. See T April 15, 1852 ("he broad flat brown buds on Mr. Cheney's elm, containing twenty or thirty yellowish-green threads, surmounted with little brownish-mulberry cups, which contain the stamens and the two styles, -- these are just expanding or blossoming now."); April 17, 1855 (“The flowers of the common elm at Lee’s are now loose and dangling, apparently well out a day or two in advance of Cheney’s, but I see no pollen.”)

I see a pine warbler, much less yellow than the last.  See April 9, 1856 ("Its bright yellow or golden throat and breast, etc., are conspicuous at this season.”); see also  April 16, 1857 (" Meanwhile I hear the note of the pine warbler.")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, 1859 (" The warm pine woods are all alive this afternoon with the jingle of the pine warbler, the for the most part invisible minstrel."); April 15, 1860 (" At Conantum pitch pines hear the first pine warbler") and  A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Pine Warbler 

Walden is still covered with ice, which is still darker green and more like water than before.  See April 13, 1856 ("Dark-green clear ice . . . quite hard still. At a little distance you would mistake it for water; further off still . . . it is blue as in summer.“). Only in 1852 did Walden’s ice last past April 16th. See Walden ("In 1845 Walden was first completely open on the 1st of April; in '46, the 25th of March; in '47, the 8th of April; in '51, the 28th of March; in '52, the 18th of April; in '53, the 23rd of March; in '54, about the 7th of April.) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Ice-Out

Callitriche Pool, where the tin is cast.  See April 16, 1855 ("This pool dries up in summer. The very pools, the receptacles of all kinds of rubbish, now, soon after the ice has melted, so transparent and of glassy smoothness and full of animal and vegetable life, are interesting and beautiful objects.”)

A rain-threatening

and misty, moist April day –

robins sing throughout.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Walden is still covered with ice.

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-560416

A quarter moon in the sky

follows us  back through the old growth trees

coming home after our walk at dusk, 

orange sky in the west,

to end a perfect day,

we hear the first hermit thrush,.

 astonishing.

April 16, 2016 zphx

How silent are the footsteps of Spring!

March 30

March 30, 2016

P. M. — To Walden and Fair Haven. 

Still cold and blustering. I come out to see the sand and subsoil in the Deep Cut, as I would to see a spring flower, some redness in the cheek of Earth.

These cold days have made the ice of Walden dry and pretty hard again at top. It is just twenty-four inches thick in the middle, about eleven inches of snow ice. It has lost but a trifle on the surface. The inside is quite moist, the clear ice very crystalline and leaky, letting the water up from below, so as to hinder my cutting. It seems to be more porous and brittle than the snow ice. 

I go to Fair Haven via the Andromeda Swamps. The snow is a foot and more in depth there still. There is a little bare ground in and next to the swampy woods at the head of Well Meadow, where the springs and little black rills are flowing. I see already one blade, three or four inches long, of that purple or lake grass, lying flat on some water, between snow—clad banks, — the first leaf with a rich bloom on it. 

How silent are the footsteps of Spring! 

There, too, where there is a fraction of the meadow, two rods over, quite bare, under the bank, in this warm recess at the head of the meadow, though the rest of the meadow is covered with snow a foot or more in depth, I am surprised to see the skunk cabbage, with its great spear-heads open and ready to blossom (i. e. shed pollen in a day or two); and the Caltha palustris bud, which shows yellowish; and the golden saxifrage, green and abundant; also there are many fresh tender leaves of (apparently) the gold thread in open meadow there, all surrounded and hemmed in by snow, which has covered the ground since Christmas and stretches as far as you can see on every side; and there are as intense blue shadows on the snow as I ever saw. 

The spring advances in spite of snow and ice, and cold even. 

The ground under the snow has long since felt the influence of the spring sun, whose rays fall at a more favorable angle. The tufts or tussocks next the edge of the snow were crowned with dense phalanxes of stiff spears of the stiff triangularish sedge-grass, five inches high but quite yellow with a very slight greenness at the tip, showing that they pushed up through the snow, which melting, they had not yet acquired color. This is the greatest growth of any plant I have seen. I had not suspected any. 

I can just see a little greening on our bare and dry south bank. In warm recesses and clefts in meadows and rocks in the midst of ice and snow, nay, even under the snow, vegetation commences and steadily advances. 

I find Fair Haven Pond and the river lifted up a foot or more, the result of the long, steady thaw in the sun. The water of the pond and river has run over the meadows, mixing with and partly covering the snow, making it somewhat difficult to get into the river on the east side. On the east side of the pond, the ice next the shore is still frozen to the bottom under water by one edge, while the other slants upward to meet the main body of the ice of the pond. This sort of canal on one or both sides of the river is from a rod to three or four rods wide. This is the most decided step toward breaking up as yet.

But the pond and river are very solid yet. I walk over the pond and down on the middle of the river to the bridge, without seeing an opening. 

See probably a hen-hawk (?) (black tips to wings), sailing low over the low cliff next the river, looking probably for birds. [May have been a marsh hawk or harrier.] 

The south hillsides no sooner begin to be bare, and the striped squirrels and birds resort there, than the hawks come from southward to prey on them. I think that even the hen-hawk is here in winter only as the robin is. 

For twenty-five rods the Corner road is impassable to horses, because of their slumping in the old snow; and a new path has been dug, which a fence shuts off the old. Thus they have served the roads on all sides the town.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 30, 1856

See probably a hen hawk (?) ... may have been a marsh hawk or harrier. See March 27, 1855 (“See . . . [the hen-barrier, i.e. marsh hawk, male.] Slate-colored; . . . black tips to wings and white rump.”); March 29, 1854 ("See two marsh hawks (?), white on rump... think I saw a hen-hawk”);  March 6, 1858 ("I see the first hen-hawk, or hawk of any kind, methinks, since the beginning of winter."); March 15, 1860 ("These hawks[hen-hawks], as usual, began to be common about the first of March, showing that they were returning from their winter quarters. . . . An easily recognized figure anywhere.”); March 23, 1859 (“. . .we saw a hen-hawk perch on the topmost plume of one of the tall pines at the head of the meadow. Soon another appeared, probably its mate, but we looked in vain for a nest there. It was a fine sight, their soaring above our heads, presenting a perfect outline and, as they came round, showing their rust-colored tails with a whitish rump, or, as they sailed away from us, that slight teetering or quivering motion of their dark-tipped wings seen edgewise, now on this side, now that, by which they balanced and directed themselves.”).  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The hen-hawk. Note What HDT calls the "marsh hawk/hen harrier" is the northern harrier.   The “hen-hawk” is the red-tailed  hawk. ~ zphx

The south hillsides no sooner begin to be bare, and the striped squirrels and birds resort there, than the hawks come from southward to prey on them. See March 30, 1853 ("Hawks are hunting now. You have not to sit long on the Cliffs before you see one.") 

The snow is a foot and more in depth there still. See February 19, 1856 (" seventeen or eighteen inches deep on a level."); March 26, 1857 ("Men will hardly believe me when I tell them of the thickness of snow and ice at this time last year.")

Man comes out of his

winter quarters this month as

lean as a woodchuck.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  How silent are the footsteps of Spring!

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2025

*****

Rob and Eldred cut down trees at both views it really has improved things, the view spectacular but it is a sad day for the trees there is of course a jumble at the base. We survey the upper view around sunset. And somehow in the dark coming to the Moss Trail up the trail we go and then made a trail at the top of it I thought towards our land but when we left the marked area we walked and walked and talked and said she frankly didn't know where we were I got out the compass and we were headed east we found the main  Kendall trail and presently she said I think we should cut through here we come out somewhat south of where we usually do to ascend what I call the Saddletrail and go to sit at the view again. 20160330 Zphx