Having crawled over the hill through the woods on our stomachs we watch various water-fowl for an hour. .

March 27. 

P. M. — Sail to Bittern Cliff. 

Scare up a flock of sheldrakes just off Fair Haven Hill, the conspicuous white ducks, sailing straight hither and thither. At first they fly low up the stream, but, having risen, come back half-way to us, then wheel and go up-stream. 

Soon after we scare up a flock of black ducks. 

J.J. Audubon (The flight of this Duck, which, in as far as I know, is peculiar to America, is powerful, rapid, and as sustained as that of the Mallard. While travelling by day they may be distinguished from that species by the whiteness of their lower wing-coverts, which form a strong contrast to the deep tints of the rest of their plumage See  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the American Black Duck)

We land and steal over the hill through the woods, expecting to find them under Lee's Cliff, as indeed we do, having crawled over the hill through the woods on our stomachs; and there we watched various water-fowl for an hour.

There are a dozen sheldrakes (or goosanders) and among them four or five females. They are now pairing. I should say one or two pairs are made. At first we see only a male and female quite on the alert, some way out on the pond, tacking back and forth and looking every way. They keep close together, headed one way, and when one turns the other also turns quickly. The male appears to take the lead. Soon the rest appear, sailing out from the shore into sight. 

We hear a squeaking note, as if made by a pump, and presently see four or five great herring gulls wheeling about. Sometimes they make a sound like the scream of a hen-hawk. They are shaped somewhat like a very thick white rolling-pin, sharpened at both ends. At length they alight near the ducks. 

The sheldrakes at length acquire confidence, come close inshore and go to preening themselves, or it may be they are troubled with lice. They are all busy about it at once, continually thrusting their bills into their backs, still sailing slowly along back and forth offshore. Sometimes they are in two or three straight lines. Now they will all seem to be crossing the pond, but presently you see that they have tacked and are all heading this way again. 

Among them, or near by, I at length detect three or four whistlers, by their wanting the red bill, being considerably smaller and less white, having a white spot on the head, a black back, and altogether less white, and also keeping more or less apart and not diving when the rest do. 

Now one half the sheldrakes sail off southward and suddenly go to diving as with one consent. Seven or eight or the whole of the party will be under water and lost at once. In the mean while, coming up, they chase one another, scooting over the surface and making the water fly, sometimes three or four making a rush toward one. 

At length I detect two little dippers, as I have called them, though I am not sure that I have ever seen the male before. They are male and female close together, the common size of what I have called the little dipper. They are incessantly diving close to the button-bushes.

 [Rice says that the little dipper has a hen bill and is not lobe footed. He and his brother Israel also speak of another water-fowl of the river with a hen bill and some bluish feathers on the wings.]

The female is apparently uniformly black, or rather dark brown, but the male has a conspicuous crest, with, apparently, white on the hindhead, a white breast, and white line on the lower side of the neck; i. e., the head and breast are black and white conspicuously. 

J J Audubon Fuligula albeola Buffle-headed Duck:" The bufflehead, being known in different districts by the names of Spirit Duck, Butter-box, Marrionette, Dipper, and Die-dipper, generally returns from the far north, where it is said to breed, about the beginning of September."

Can this be the Fuligula albeola, and have I commonly seen only the female? Or is it a grebe?

Fair Haven Pond four fifths clear. 

C. saw a phoebe, i e. pewee, the 25th. - 

The sheldrake has a peculiar long clipper look, often moving rapidly straight forward over the water. It sinks to very various depths in the water sometimes, as when apparently alarmed, showing only its head and neck and the upper part of its back, and at others, when at ease, floating buoyantly on the surface, as if it had taken in more air, showing all its white breast and the white along its sides. Sometimes it lifts itself up on the surface and flaps its wings, revealing its whole rosaceous breast and its lower parts, and looking in form like a penguin. 

When I first saw them fly up-stream I suspected that they had gone to Fair Haven Pond and would alight under the lee of the Cliff. So, creeping slowly down through the woods four or five rods, I was enabled to get a fair sight of them, and finally we sat exposed on the rocks within twenty five rods. They appear not to observe a person so high above them. 

It was a pretty sight to see a pair of them tacking about, always within a foot or two of each other and heading the same way, now on this short tack, now on that, the male taking the lead, sinking deep and looking every way. When the whole twelve had come together they would soon break up again, and were continually changing their ground, though not diving, now sailing slowly this way a dozen rods, and now that, and now coming in near the shore. Then they would all go to preening themselves, thrusting their bills into their backs and keeping up such a brisk motion that you could not get a fair sight of one’s head.

From time to time you heard a slight titter, not of alarm, but perhaps a breeding-note, for they were evidently selecting their mates. I saw one scratch its ear or head with its foot. 

Then it was surprising to see how, briskly sailing off one side, they went to diving, as if they had suddenly come across a school of minnows. A whole company would disappear at once, never rising high as before. Now for nearly a minute there is not a feather to be seen, and the next minute you see a party of half a dozen there, chasing one another and making the water fly far and wide.

When returning, we saw, near the outlet of the pond, seven or eight sheldrakes standing still in a line on the edge of the ice, and others swimming close by. They evidently love to stand on the ice for a change.

I saw on the 22d a sucker which apparently had been dead a week or two at least. Therefore they must begin to die late in the winter.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 27,1858



Sheldrakes. See March 22, 1858 ("I see two of these very far off on a bright-blue bay where the waves are running high. They are two intensely white specks, which yet you might mistake for the foaming crest of waves. Now one disappears, but soon is seen again, and then its companion is lost in like manner, having dived."); March 5, 1857 ("I scare up six male sheldrakes, with their black heads, in the Assabet,—the first ducks I have seen"); March 16, 1855 ("Scare up two large ducks . . . I think it the goosander or sheldrake."); March 16, 1854 ("I see ducks afar, sailing on the meadow, leaving a long furrow in the water behind them.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Merganser, Goosander)

Can this be the Fuligula albeola, and have I commonly seen only the female? Or is it a grebe? See January 15, 1858 ("At Natural History Rooms, Boston. Looked at the little grebe. Its feet are not webbed with lobes on the side like the coot, and it is quite white beneath."); December 26, 1857 ("The little dipper must, therefore, be different from a coot. Is it not a grebe?); April 19, 1855 ("A little duck, asleep with its head in its back, exactly in the middle of the pond. It has a moderate-sized black head and neck, a white breast, and seems dark-brown above, with a white spot on the side of the head, not reaching to the out side, from base of mandibles, and another, perhaps, on the end of the wing, with some black there. . . .I think it is the smallest duck I ever saw. Floating buoyantly asleep on the middle of Walden Pond. Is it not a female of the buffle-headed or spirit duck?"); December 26, 1853 ("Saw in it a small diver, probably a grebe or dobchick, dipper, or what-not, with the markings, as far as I saw, of the crested grebe, but smaller. It had a black head, a white ring about its neck, a white breast, black back, and apparently no tail.”); September 27, 1860 (" I see a little dipper in the middle of the river.. . .It has a dark bill and considerable white on the sides of the head or neck, with black between it, no tufts, and no observable white on back or tail.");April 22, 1861 (" [Mann] obtained to-day the buffle-headed duck, diving in the river near the Nine-Acre Corner bridge. I identify it at sight as my bird seen on Walden. ")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Little Dipper

They must begin to die late in the winter. See note to March 28, 1857 ("Every spring there are many dead suckers floating belly upward on the meadows. This phenomenon of dead suckers is as constant as the phenomenon of living ones; nay, as a phenomenon it is far more apparent.")

Another still, moist, overcast day.

April 15.

9 A. M. —— To Atkins’s boat-house. 

No sun till setting. Another still, moist, overcast day, without sun, but all day a crescent of light, as if breaking away in the north. 

The waters smooth and full of reflections. A still cloudy day like this is perhaps the best to be on the water. To the clouds, perhaps, we owe both the stillness and the reflections, for the light is in great measure reflected from the water. 

Robins sing now at 10 A. M. as in the morning, and the phoebe; and pigeon woodpecker’s cackle is heard, and many martins (with white—bellied swallows) are skimming and twittering above the water, perhaps catching the small fuzzy gnats with which the air is filled. 

The sound of church bells, at various distances, in Concord and the neighboring towns, sounds very sweet to us on the water this still day. It is the song of the villages heard with the song of the birds.

The Great Meadows are covered, except a small island in their midst, but not a duck do we see there.

On a low limb of a maple on the edge of the river, thirty rods from the present shore, we see a fish hawk eating a fish. Sixty rods off we can see his white crest. We land and get nearer by stealing through the woods. His legs look long as he stands up on the limb with his back to us, and his body looks black against the sky and by contrast with the white of his head. 

There is a dark stripe on the side of the head. He has got the fish under his feet on the limb, and will bow his head, snatch a mouthful, and then look hastily over his right shoulder in our direction, then snatch another mouthful and look over his left shoulder. At length he launches off and flaps heavily away. 

We find at the bottom of the water beneath where he sat numerous fragments of the fish he had been eating, parts of the fins, entrails, gills, etc., and some was dropped on the bough. From one fin which I examine, I judge that it was either a sucker or a pout. There were small leeches adhering to it. 

In the meanwhile, as we steal through the woods, we hear the pleasing note of the pine warbler, bringing back warmer weather, and we hear one honk of a goose, and, looking up, see a large narrow harrow of them steering northeast. 

Half a mile further we see another fish hawk upon a dead limb midway up a swamp white oak over the water, at the end of a small island. We paddle directly toward him till within thirty rods. A crow comes scolding to the tree and alights within three feet, looking about as large, compared with the hawk, as a crow blackbird to a crow, but he pays no attention to him. 

We have a very good view of him, as he sits sidewise to us, and of his eagle-shaped head and beak. The white feathers of his head, which are erected somewhat, make him look like a copple crowned hen. When he launches off, he utters a clear whistling note, — phe phe, phe phe, phe phe, — somewhat like that of a telltale, but more round and less shrill and rapid, and another, perhaps his mate, fifty rods off, joins him. 

They fly heavily, as we look at them from behind, more like a blue heron and bittern than I was aware of, their long wings undulating slowly to the tip, like the heron’s, and the bodies seeming sharp like a gull’s and unlike a hawk’s. 

In the water beneath where he was perched, we find many fragments of a pout, — bits of red gills, entrails, fins, and some of the long flexible black feelers, — scattered for four or five feet. This pout appeared to have been quite fresh, and was probably caught alive. 

We afterward start one of them from an oak over the water a mile beyond, just above the boat house, and he skims off very low over the water, several times striking it with a loud sound heard plainly sixty rods off at least; and we follow him with our eyes till we can only see faintly his undulating wings against the sky in the western horizon. You could probably tell if any were about by looking for fragments of fish under the trees on which they would perch. 

We scare up but few ducks — some apparently black, which quacked—and some small rolling-pins, probably teal. 

Returning, we have a fine view of a blue heron, standing erect and open to view on a meadow island, by the great swamp south of the bridge, looking as broad as a boy on the side, and then some sheldrakes sailing in the smooth water beyond. These soon sail behind points of meadow. The heron flys away, and one male sheldrake flys past us low over the water, reconnoitring, large and brilliant black and white. 

When the heron takes to flight, what a change in size and appearance! It is presto change! There go two great undulating wings pinned together, but the body and neck must have been left behind somewhere. 

Before we rounded Ball’s Hill, —the water now beautifully smooth,—at 2.30 P. M., we see three gulls sailing on the glassy meadow at least half a mile off, by the oak peninsula, — the plainer because they are against the reflection of the hills. They look larger than afterward close at hand, as if their whiteness is reflected and doubled. 

As we advance into the Great Meadows, making the only ripples in their broad expanse, there being still not a ray of sunshine, only a subdued light through the thinner crescent in the north, the reflections of the maples, of Ponkawtasset and the poplar hill, and the whole township in the southwest, are as perfect as I ever saw. 

A wall which runs down to the water on the hillside, without any remarkable curve in it, is exaggerated by the reflection into the half of an ellipse. The meadow is expanded to a large lake, the shoreline being referred to the sides of the hills reflected in it. It is a scene worth many such voyages to see. 

It is remarkable how much light those white gulls, and also a bleached post on a distant shore, absorb and reflect through that sombre atmosphere, — conspicuous almost as candles in the night. When we get near to the gulls, they rist heavily and flap away, answering a more distant one, with a remarkable, deliberate, melancholy, squeaking scream, mewing, or piping, almost a squeal. It was a little like the loon. Is this sound the origin of the name sea-mew?

Notwithstanding the smoothness of the water, we can not easily see black ducks against the reflection of the woods, but hear them rise at a distance before we see them. 

The birds are still in the middle of the day, but begin to sing again by 4.30 P. M., probably because of the clouds. See and hear a kingfisher—do they not come with the smooth waters of April? — hurrying over the meadow as if on urgent business. 

That general tut tut tut tut, or snoring, of frogs on the shallow meadow heard first slightly the 5th. There is a very faint er er er now and then mixed with it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 15, 1855

The sound of church bells sounds very sweet to us on the water this still day. It is the song of the villages. See April 5, 1855 ("[W]e on the water hear the loud and musical sound of bells ringing for church in the surrounding towns.")

We hear the pleasing note of the pine warbler, bringing back warmer weather. See April 15, 1859 ("The warm pine woods are all alive this afternoon with the jingle of the pine warbler."); 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

We hear one honk of a goose, and, looking up, see a large narrow harrow of them steering northeast. See  April 19, 1855 ("I hear a faint honk and, looking up, see going over the river, within fifty rods, thirty-two geese in the form of a hay-hook . . . At least three hundred have passed over Concord, or rather within the breadth of a mile, this spring (perhaps twice as many); for I have seen or heard of a dozen flocks, and the two I counted had about thirty each.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring, Geese Overhead

 [Four fish hawks] See April 14, 1852 ("The streams break up; the ice goes to the sea. Then sails the fish hawk overhead, looking for his prey.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Osprey (Fish Hawk)

It is remarkable how much light those white gulls . . . absorb and reflect through that sombre atmosphere, — conspicuous almost as candles in the night. See March 22, 1858 ("We see many gulls on the very opposite side of the meadow, near the woods. They look bright-white, like snow on the dark-blue water. It is surprising how far they can be seen, how much light they reflect, and how conspicuous they are."); March 24, 1860 ("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.")

We can not easily see black ducks against the reflection of the woods, but hear them rise at a distance before we see them. See April 25, 1855 ("Two black ducks circle around me three or four times . . . I hear the whistling of their wings."); See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the American Black Duck

See and hear a kingfisher—do they not come with the smooth waters of April? — hurrying over the meadow as if on urgent business. See  April 1, 1860 ("A kingfisher seen and heard."); April 10, 1859 ("See a kingfisher flying very low, in the ricochet manner, across the water.");   April 11, 1856 ("Does not its arrival mark some new movement in its finny prey?") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. The Kingfisher

That general tut tut tut tut, or snoring of frogs . . . a very faint er er er now and then mixed with it. See note to 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 ")

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

To be on waters

smooth and full of reflections

this still cloudy day.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Another still, moist, overcast day.

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

A great gull standing far away on the top of a muskrat-cabin

March 18

Fair in the forenoon, but more or less cloudy and windy in the afternoon.

P. M. — Round by Hollowell place 'via Clamshell. 

I see with my glass as I go over the railroad bridge, sweeping the river, a great gull standing far away on the top of a muskrat-cabin which rises just above the water opposite the Hubbard Bath. When I get round within sixty rods of him, ten minutes later, he still stands on the same spot, constantly turning his head to every side, looking out for foes. 

Like a wooden image of a bird he stands there, heavy to look at; head, breast, beneath, and rump pure white; slate-colored wings tipped with black and extending beyond the tail,— the herring gull. I can see clear down to its webbed feet. But now I advance, and he rises easily, goes off northeastward over the river with a leisurely flight. 

At Clamshell Hill I sweep the river again, and see, standing midleg deep on the meadow where the water is very shallow with deeper around, another of these wooden images, which is harder to scare. I do not fairly distinguish black tips to its wings. It is ten or fifteen minutes before I get him to rise, and then he goes off in the same leisurely manner, stroking the air with his wings, and now making a great circle back on its course, so you cannot tell which way it is bound. 

By standing so long motionless in these places they may perchance accomplish two objects, i. e., catch passing fish  like a heron and escape the attention of man. 

Its utmost motion was to plume itself once and turn its head about. If it did not move its head, it would look like a decoy. 

Our river is quite low for the season, and yet it is here without freshet or easterly storm. It seems to take this course on its migrations without regard to the state of the waters. 

Meanwhile a small dark-colored duck, all neck and wings, a winged rolling-pin, went over,--perhaps a teal. 

For the last two or three days very wet and muddy walking, owing to the melting of the snow; which also has slightly swollen the small streams.

Notwithstanding the water on the surface, it is easier crossing meadows and swamps than it will be a month hence, on account of the frost in the ground.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 18, 1855

Like a wooden image of a bird See March 16, 1860 ("I also see two gulls nearly a mile off . . . Thus they will stand for an hour, at least . . . like great wooden images of birds, bluish-slate and white. But when they fly they are quite another creature.");   See also March 8, 1853 ("I must be on the lookout now for the gulls and the ducks."; March 16, 1859 ("We meet one great gull beating up the course of the river against the wind, at Flint's Bridge. (One says they were seen about a week ago, but there was very little water then.) Its is a very leisurely sort of limping flight, tacking its way along like a sailing vessel, yet the slow security with which it advances suggests a leisurely contemplativeness in the bird, as if it were working out some problem quite at its leisure. As often as its very narrow, long, and curved wings are lifted up against the light, I see a very narrow distinct light edging to the wing where it is thin. Its black- tipped wings. Afterwards, from Ball's Hill, looking north, I see two more circling about looking for food over the ice and water. "); March 18, 1859 ("Rice thinks that he has seen two gulls on the Sudbury meadows."); March 22, 1858 ("We see many gulls on the very opposite side of the meadow, near the woods. They look bright-white, like snow on the dark-blue water. It is surprising how far they can be seen, how much light they reflect, and how conspicuous they are."); March 23, 1859 ("I see come slowly flying from the southwest a great gull, of voracious form, which at length by a sudden and steep descent alights in Fair Haven Pond, scaring up a crow which was seeking its food on the edge of the ice."); March 24, 1860 ("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 . . .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."); March 27,1858 ("We hear a squeaking note, as if made by a pump, and presently see four or five great herring gulls wheeling about. Sometimes they make a sound like the scream of a hen-hawk. They are shaped somewhat like a very thick white rolling-pin, sharpened at both ends. "); March 27, 1859 ("I see a gull flying over Fair Haven Pond which appears to have a much duskier body beneath than the common near by, though about the same size. Can it be another species? "); March 28, 1858 (" I look toward Fair Haven Pond, now quite smooth. 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. . . . But when one kind of life goes, another comes. ");  March 29, 1854 ("A gull of pure white, - a wave of foam in the air. How simple and wave-like its outline, two curves, - all wing - like a birch scale."); April 4, 1855") ("A gull is circling round Fair Haven Pond, seen white against the woods and hillsides, looking as if it would dive for a fish every moment, and occasionally resting on the ice."); April 4, 1857 ("Am not sure what kind of large gulls I see there, some more white, some darker, methinks, than the herring gull."); April 7, 1853 ("A great gull, though it is so fair and the wind northwest, fishing over the flooded meadow. He slowly circles round and hovers with flapping wings in the air over particular spots, repeatedly returning there and sailing quite low over the water, with long, narrow, pointed wings, trembling throughout their length. "); April 13, 1859 ("Saw a great bird flying rather low and circling more or less over the Great Meadows, which I at first thought was a fish hawk, having a fair sight of it from Ball's Hill, but with my glass I saw that it was a gull, but, I should say, wholly slate-color and dark at that, — though there may have been small spots which made no impression of another color. It was at least as large, maybe larger than the herring gull. Was it the saddle back gull ? "); April 15, 1855 ("It is remarkable how much light those white gulls . . . absorb and reflect through that sombre atmosphere, — conspicuous almost as candles in the night."); See also Weisner X, 

9:06 AM · Mar 18, 2024

Meanwhile a small dark-colored duck, all neck and wings, a winged rolling-pin, went over,--perhaps a teal. See  March 24, 1857 ("Humphrey Buttrick . . . shot three black ducks and two green-winged teal, – though the latter had no green on their wings, it was rather the color of his boat, but Wesson assured him that so they looked in the spring. "); March 25, 1854 ("Is not the small duck or two I see one at a time and flying pretty high a teal?"); April 15, 1855 ("We scare up but few ducks — some apparently black, which quacked—and some small rolling-pins, probably teal.")

Very wet and muddy walking, owing to the melting of the snow. See March 16, 1858 ("I walk in muddy fields, hearing the tinkling of new born rills.”)

March 18. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, March 18

A great gull standing 

far away on the top of 

a muskrat-cabin. 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau A great gull standing far away on the top of a muskrat-cabin 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau 

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdy-550318