March 19 P. M. —To Hill and Grackle Swamp. Another pleasant and warm day. Painted my boat afternoon.
The other day the face of the meadow wore a peculiar appearance, as if it were beginning to wake up under the influence of the southwest wind and the warm sun, but it cannot again this year present precisely that appearance to me. I have taken a step forward to a new position and must see something else. You perceive, and are affected by, changes too subtle to be described.
I see little swarms of those fine fuzzy gnats in the air. I am behind the Hemlocks. It is their wings which are most conspicuous, when they are in the sun. Their bodies are comparatively small and black, and they have two mourning plumes in their fronts. Are not these the winter gnat? They keep up a circulation in the air like water-bugs on the water. They people a portion of the otherwise vacant air, being apparently fond of the sunshine, in which they'are most conspicuous. Sometimes a globular swarm two feet or more in diameter, suggesting how genial and habitable the air is become.
I hear turkeys gobble. This too, I suppose, is a spring sound.
I hear a steady sigh of the wind, rising and swelling into a roar, in the pines, which seems to tell of a long, warm rain to come.
I see a white pine which has borne fruit in its ninth year. The cones, four in number, which are seven eighths of an inch long, have stems about two and a half inches long!— not yet curving down; so the stem probably does not grow any more.
Met Channing and walked on with him to what we will call Grackle Swamp, admiring the mosses; those bright-yellow hypnums (?), like sunlight on decaying logs, and jungermannia, like sea-mosses ready spread.
Hear the phebe note of a chickadee.
In the swamp, see grackles, four or five, with the light ring about eye, — their bead eyes. They utter only those ineffectual split notes, no conqueree.
Might I not call that Hemlock Brook? and the source of it Horse-skull Meadow?
Hear the pleasant chill-lill of the F. hyemalis, the first time have heard this note. This, too, suggests pleasant associations.
Met Channing and walked on with him to what we will call Grackle Swamp, admiring the mosses; those bright-yellow hypnums (?), like sunlight on decaying logs, and jungermannia, like sea-mosses ready spread.
Hear the phebe note of a chickadee.
In the swamp, see grackles, four or five, with the light ring about eye, — their bead eyes. They utter only those ineffectual split notes, no conqueree.
Might I not call that Hemlock Brook? and the source of it Horse-skull Meadow?
Hear the pleasant chill-lill of the F. hyemalis, the first time have heard this note. This, too, suggests pleasant associations.
By the river, see distinctly red-wings and hear their conqueree. They are not associated with grackles. They are an age before their cousins, have attained to clearness and liquidity. They are officers, epauletted; the others are rank and file. I distinguish one even by its flight, hovering slowly from tree-top to tree-top, as if ready to utter its liquid notes. Their whistle is very clear and sharp, while the grackle's is ragged and split.
It is a fine evening, as I stand on the bridge. The waters are quite smooth; very little ice to be seen. The red-wing and song sparrow are singing, and a flock of tree sparrows is pleasantly warbling.
A new era has come. The red-wing's gurgle-ee is heard when smooth waters begin; they come together.
One or two boys are out trying their skiffs, even like the fuzzy gnats in the sun, and as often as one turns his boat round on the smooth surface, the setting sun is reflected from its side.
I feel reproach when I have spoken with levity, when I have made a jest, of my own existence. The makers have thus secured seriousness and respect for their work in our very organization. The most serious events have their ludicrous aspect, such as death; but we cannot excuse ourselves when we have taken this view of them only. It is pardonable when we spurn the proprieties, even the sanctities, making them stepping-stones to something higher.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 19, 1858
One or two boys are out trying their skiffs, even like the fuzzy gnats in the sun, and as often as one turns his boat round on the smooth surface, the setting sun is reflected from its side.
I feel reproach when I have spoken with levity, when I have made a jest, of my own existence. The makers have thus secured seriousness and respect for their work in our very organization. The most serious events have their ludicrous aspect, such as death; but we cannot excuse ourselves when we have taken this view of them only. It is pardonable when we spurn the proprieties, even the sanctities, making them stepping-stones to something higher.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 19, 1858
March 19, 2018
Another pleasant and warm day. Painted my boat afternoon. See March 19, 1855 ("A fine clear and warm day for the season. Launch my boat."); March 20, 1853 ("(Yesterday I forgot to say I painted my boat.")); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Boat in. Boat out.
I see little swarms of those fine fuzzy gnats in the air. See March 20, 1858 ("It cheers me more to behold the swarms of gnats which have revived in the spring sun."); March 20, 1860 ("I observed on the 18th a swarm of those larger tipulidæ, or fuzzy gnats . . . This afternoon, in the sprinkling rain, I see a very small swarm of the same kind dancing in like manner . . . These gyrate in the air as water-bugs on the water. ") March 25, 1859 ("I thought the other day, How we enjoy a warm and pleasant day at this season! We dance like gnats in the sun. ") See alao A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Fuzzy Gnats (tipulidæ)
I hear turkeys gobble. This too, I suppose, is a spring sound. See March 20, 1856 ("For two or three days I have heard the gobbling of turkeys, the first spring sound") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: The gobbling of turkeys
In the swamp, see grackles . . . They utter only those ineffectual split notes. March 8, 1860 ("I suspect that I have seen only grackles as yet. "); March 13, 1859 ("Probably grackles have been seen some days. I think I saw them on the 11th?"); March 29, 1853 (" It would be worth the while to attend more to the different notes of the blackbirds."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,Signs of the Spring: the grackle arrives
Hear the pleasant chill-lill of the F. hyemalis, the first time have heard this note. See March 18, 1857 ("I hear the chill-lill or tchit-a-tchit of the slate-colored sparrow, and see it."); March 20, 1852 ("And now, within a day or two, I have noticed the chubby slate-colored snowbird (Fringilla hyemalis?). . . It has two white feathers in its tail."); March 20, 1855 ("At my landing I hear the F. hyemalis,”); TMarch 20, 1858 ("The note of the F. hyemalis, or chill-lill, is a jingle, with also a shorter and drier crackling or shuffling chip as it flits by.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, the note of the dark-eyed junco going northward
The red-wing's gurgle-ee is heard when smooth waters begin. See March 19, 1853 ("His first note may be a chuck, but his second is a rich gurgle or warble."); March 19, 1855 ("I hear at last the tchuck tchuck of a blackbird and, looking up, see him flying high over the river southwesterly in great haste to reach somewhere."); March 16, 1860 ("How handsome as they go by in a checker, each with a bright-scarlet shoulder! "); March 17, 1858 ("Now I hear . . . the tchuck tchuck of a blackbird, and after, a distinct conqueree. So it is a red-wing?"); March 18, 1857 ("And now from far southward coming on through the air, the chattering of blackbirds, —probably red-wings, for I hear an imperfect conqueree."); March 22, 1855 ("The blackbirds already sing o-gurgle ee-e-e from time to time on the top of a willow or elm or maple, but oftener a sharp, shrill whistle or a tchuck.”); April 9, 1856 ("The red-wing’s o’gurgle-ee-e is in singular harmony with the sound and impression of the lapsing stream or the smooth, swelling flood beneath his perch. He gives expression to the flood."); April 12, 1859 ("The red-wings generally sit on the black willows and the swamp white oaks and maples by the water, and sing o-gurgle-ee this evening, as if glad to see the river's brink appearing again and smooth waters also.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, The Red-wing Arrives
Red-wing's gurgle-ee
heard when smooth waters begin –
they come together.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The red-wing's gurgle-ee is heard when smooth waters begin.
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
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