A Book of the Seasons: Yellow Bethlehem-star (Hypoxis erecta).

 For the first time I perceive this spring

that the year is a circle.  

I would make a chart of our life,

know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.

Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

The Hypoxis erecta, yellow Bethlehem-star,

where there is a thick, wiry grass in open path;

should be called yellow-eyed grass, methinks.

June 15, 1851

May 22. A yellow Bethlehem-star. May 22, 1853

May 28. White thorn and yellow Bethlehem-star (Hypoxis erecta). May 28, 1852

May 28. Hypoxis erecta, maybe a day or two. May 28, 1856

June 5. Yellow Bethlehem-star in prime. June 5, 1855

June 6. Yellow Bethlehem-star. June 6, 1858

June 9. There are many star flowers. I remember the anemone, especially the rue anemone, which is not yet all gone, lasting longer than the true one above all the trientalis, and of late the yellow Bethlehem-star, and perhaps others. June 9, 1853

June 15. The Hypoxis erecta, yellow Bethlehem-star, where there is a thick, wiry grass in open path; should be called yellow-eyed grass, methinks. June 15, 1851

July 31. See yellow Bethlehem-star still. July 31, 1856

August 4.  The yellow Bethlehem-star still, and the yellow gerardia, and a bluish "savory-leaved aster." August 4, 1851

August 18. Yellow Bethlehem-star yet, and indigo.  August 18, 1856

August 24. Yellow Bethlehem-star still. August 24, 1853

Hypoxis erecta or Hypoxis hirsuta,  common star-grass,

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Yellow Bethlehem-star

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 part of the meadow once belonged to the pond.

June 9..

James Wood, Senior, told me to-day that Asa (?) Melvin's father told him that he had seen ale wives caught (many of them) in the meadow which we were crossing, on the west of Bateman's Pond, where now there is no stream, and though it is wet you can walk everywhere; also one shad. He thinks that a great part of the meadow once belonged to the pond.

Gathered the Linnæa borealis.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 9, 1851

Twinflower
(Linnaea borealis)

Gathered the Linnæa borealis. See June 1, 1855 ("I find the Linnaea borealis growing near the end of the ridge in this lot toward the meadow, near a large white pine stump recently cut."); June 4, 1855 ("The Linnaea borealis has grown an inch."); June 10, 1856 ("I find some linnaea well out, after all, within a rod of the top of the hill, apparently two or three days. If it flowered more abundantly, probably it would be earlier."); and July 15, 1858 ("At about one mile or three quarters below the summit [of Lafayette], just above the limit of trees, we came to a little pond. . . In the dwarf fir thickets above and below this pond, I saw the most beautiful linnaeas that I ever saw. They grew quite densely, full of rose-purple flowers, — deeper reddish purple than ours, which are pale, — perhaps nodding over the brink of a spring, altogether the fairest mountain flowers I saw.")

June 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 9

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

AMERICAN TWINFLOWER There are about 21 references to this in Thoreau’s Journal. 

His first mention of it is on June 9, 1851 where he records gathering it but not specifying where

• On January 21, 1852 he lists “Linnaea Borealis Wood” among other woodlands being cut down that winter more seriously than ever. 
• On June 19, 1852 he notes not being able to find the Linnaea in Loring’s [woods?]|, perhaps because the woods are cut down. This suggests that this is the site referred to as Linnaea Borealis Wood in January of that year. 
• On June 24, 1852 while in the vicinity of or returning from White Pond he remarks on finding this just going out of blossom and how he should have found it long ago, and how its leaves densely cover the ground. 
• On June 3, 1853 he mentions going to Annursnack Hill by way of the Linnaea which was not yet flowering. The next sentence refers to “that thick pine wood” in connection with the Linnaea. 
• On June 6, 1853 he visits the Linnaea Woods, a famous place for tanagers, and finds the Linnaea in flower. 
• On May 30, 1854 he finds this budded in Stow’s Wood by Deep Cut. 
• On June 7, 1854 he records going to Dugan Desert via the Linnaea Hills and finding it abundantly in flower. 
• On June 1, 1855 he discovers a station for this at the end of a ridge while surveying the Holden wood-lot (in the vicinity of Nut Meadow Brook). 
• On June 10, 1856 on his way to Dugan Desert he notes finding some of it in flower within a rod of the top of the hill [Linnaea Hills]. In the same paragraph he mentions sproutland of Loring’s thick wood that was. 
• On August 28, 1856 going along Marlborough road he refers to going over “linnaea sprout-lands.”

From the above Journal references it appears that Thoreau knew Linnaea from three sites in Concord: the Loring’s Wood west of Loring’s Pond [Linnaea Borealis Wood, Linnaea Hill(s), Linnaea Wood-lot] Stow’s Wood by Deep Cut in the Walden Woods, and in the Holden wood-lot near Nut Meadow Brook   ~ Ray Angelo, Vascular Flora of Concord Massachusetts,  American Twinflower; See also

Nature and Culture in the Northern Forest, 19; On the Trail of Twinflower

Painting by Hendrik Hollander, 1853. Via Wikimedia Commons.
Linnaeus adopted the twinflower as his personal symbol.

The pollen of the pitch pine now beginning to cover the surface of the pond.

June 9.

Walden is still rising, though the rains have ceased and the river has fallen very much. 

I see the pollen of the pitch pine now beginning to cover the surface of the pond. Most of the pines at the north northwest end have none, and on some there is only one pollen-bearing flower. 

I saw a striped snake which the fire in the woods had killed, stiffened and partially blackened by the flames, with its body partly coiled up and raised from the ground, and its head still erect as if ready to dart out its tongue and strike its foe. No creature can exhibit more venom than a snake, even when it is not venomous, strictly speaking.

The fire ascended the oak trees very swiftly by the moss which fringed them.

The life in us is like the water in the river; it may rise this year higher than ever it was known to before and flood the uplands — even this may be the eventful year and drown out all our muskrats.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 9, 1850

I see the pollen of the pitch pine now beginning to cover the surface of the pond.  See June 1, 1853 (" A little of the pollen now along the shore of the still coves. The pitch pines near by have shed theirs."); June 14, 1854 ("Bacon says he has seen pitch pine pollen in a cloud going over a hill a mile off;"); June 18, 1860 ("I see in the southerly bays of Walden the pine pollen now washed up thickly . . . It has come quite across the pond from where the pines stand, full half a mile, probably washed across most of the way."); June 21, 1856 ("Much pine pollen is washed up on the northwest side of the pond. Must it not have come from pines at a distance? ); June 21, 1860 (" Having noticed the pine pollen washed up on the shore of three or four ponds in the woods lately. . . .The air must be full of this fine dust at this season, that it must be carried to great distances, and its presence might be detected remote from pines by examining the edges of bodies of water ... the lakes detect for us thus the presence of the pine pollen in the atmosphere. They are our pollinometers. ")

No creature can exhibit more venom than a snake, even when it is not venomous. See April 26, 1857 ("I have the same objection to killing a snake that I have to the killing of any other animal, yet the most humane man that I know never omits to kill one.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Striped Snake


June 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 9

Walden still rises

 though the rains have ceased and the 

river has fallen

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Walden still rises

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

I have come with a spy-glass to look at the hawks

June 9.

4. 30 A. M.— To Nawshawtuct by boat.

A prevalent fog, though not quite so thick as the last described.

It is a little more local, for it is so thin southwest of this hill that I can see the earth through it, but as thick as before northeast. Yet here and there deep valleys are excavated in it, as painters imagine the Red Sea for the passage of Pharaoh's host, wherein trees and houses appear as it were at the bottom of the sea.

What is peculiar about it is that it is the tops of the trees which you see first and most distinctly, before you see their trunks or where they stand on earth.

Far in the northeast there is, as before, apparently a tremendous surf breaking on a distant shoal. It is either a real shoal, i. e. a hill over which the fog breaks, or the effect of the sun's rays on it. 

I was amused by the account which Mary, the Irish girl who left us the other day, gave of her experience at-- the milkman's, in the north part of the town. She said that twenty-two lodged in the house the first night, including two pig men, that Mr. —-kept ten men, had six children and a deaf wife, and one of the men had his wife with him, who helped sew, beside taking care of her own child. Also all the cooking and washing for his father and mother, who live in another house and whom he is bound to carry through, is done in his house, and she, Mary, was the only girl they hired; and the workmen were called up at four by an alarm clock which was set a quarter of an hour ahead of the clock down stairs, — and that more than as much ahead of the town clock, — and she was on her feet from that hour till nine at night. Each man had two pairs of overalls in the wash, and the cans to be scalded were countless. Having got through washing the breakfast dishes by a quarter before twelve, Sunday noon, by — ' s time, she left, no more to return. He had told her that the work was easy, that girls had lived with him to recover their health, and then went away to be married. He is regarded as one of the most enterprising and thrifty farmers in the county, and takes the premiums of the Agricultural Society. He probably exacts too much of his hands.

June 9, 2023

The steam of the engine streaming far behind is regularly divided, as if it were the vertebræ of a serpent, probably by the strokes of the piston.

The reddish seeds or glumes of grasses cover my boots now in the dewy or foggy morning.

The diervilla out apparently yesterday.

The first white lily bud.

White clover is abundant and very sweet on the common, filling the air, but not yet elsewhere as last year.


8 A. M. – To Orchis Swamp; Well Meadow.

Hear a goldfinch; this the second or third only that I have heard.

Whiteweed now whitens the fields.

There are many star flowers. I remember the anemone, especially the rue anemone, which is not yet all gone, lasting longer than the true one above all the trientalis, and of late the yellow Bethlehem-star, and perhaps others.

I have come with a spy-glass to look at the hawks. They have detected me and are already screaming over my head more than half a mile from the nest.

I find no difficulty in looking at the young hawk (there appears to be one only, standing on the edge of the nest), resting the glass in the crotch of a young oak. I can see every wink and the color of its iris.

It watches me more steadily than I it, now looking straight down at me with both eyes and outstretched neck, now turning its head and looking with one eye.

How its eye and its whole head express anger! Its anger is more in its eye than in its beak.

It is quite hoary over the eye and on the chin.

The mother meanwhile is incessantly circling about and above its charge and me, farther or nearer, sometimes withdrawing a quarter of a mile, but occasionally coming to alight for a moment almost within gunshot, on the top of a tall white pine; but I hardly bring my glass fairly to bear on her, and get sight of her angry eye through the pine-needles, before she circles away again.

Thus for an hour that I lay there, screaming every minute or oftener with open bill. Now and then pursued by a kingbird or a blackbird, who appear merely to annoy it by dashing down at its back.

Meanwhile the male is soaring, apparently quite undisturbed, at a great height above, evidently not hunting, but amusing or recreating himself in the thinner and cooler air, as if pleased with his own circles, like a geometer, and enjoying the sublime scene.

I doubt if he has his eye fixed on any prey, or the earth. He probably descends to hunt.



Got two or three handfuls of strawberries on Fair Haven. They are already drying up.

The huckleberry bedbug-smelling bug is on them.It is natural that the first fruit which the earth bears should emit and be as it were an embodiment of that vernal fragrance with which the air has teemed.

Strawberries are its manna, found ere long where that fragrance has filled the air. Little natural beds or patches on the sides of dry hills, where the fruit sometimes reddens the ground. But it soon dries up, unless there is a great deal of rain.

Well, are not the juices of early fruit distilled from the air? 

Prunella out.

The meadows are now yellow with the golden senecio, a more orange yellow, mingled with the light glossy yellow of the buttercup.

The green fruit of the sweet-fern now.

The Juniperus repens appears, though now dry and effete, to have blossomed recently.

The tall white Erigeron annuus ( ? ), for this is the only one described as white tinged with purple, just out.

The bullfrogs are in full blast to-night.

I do not hear a toad from my window; only the crickets beside. The toads I have but rarely heard of late. So there is an evening for the toads and another for the bullfrogs.



H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 9, 1853

June 9, 2013

The steam of the engine streaming far behind is regularly divided, as if it were the vertebræ of a serpent.  See December 25, 1851 ("If there is not something mystical in your explanation, something unexplainable to the understanding, some elements of mystery, it is quite insufficient.  . . Just as inadequate to a pure mechanic would be a poet's account of a steam-engine.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Steam of the Engine

I have come with a spy-glass to look at the hawks. See June 8, 1853 ("At length I detect the nest about eighty feet from the ground, in a very large white pine by the edge of the swamp. It is about three feet in diameter, of dry sticks, and a young hawk, apparently as big as its mother, stands on the edge of the nest looking down at me")

So there is an evening for the toads and another for the bullfrogs.  See June 13, 1851 ("The different frogs mark the seasons pretty well,- the peeping hyla, the dreaming frog, and the bullfrog."); See also  June 1, 1853 ("The birds have now all come and no longer fly in flocks. The hylodes are no longer heard. The bullfrogs begin to trump.”); June 11, 1853 ("Another fog this morning. The mosquitoes first troubled me a little last night. On the river at dusk I hear the toads still, with the bullfrogs.");  June 15, 1860 ("A new season begun. The bullfrogs now commonly trump at night, and the mosquitoes are now really troublesome. For some time I have not heard toads by day, and the hylodes appear to have done.")

The meadows are now yellow with the golden senecio, a more orange yellow, mingled with the light glossy yellow of the buttercup. See May 23, 1853 ("I am surprised by the dark orange-yellow of the senecio. At first we had the lighter, paler spring yellows of willows, dandelion, cinquefoil, then the darker and deeper yellow of the buttercup; and then this broad distinction between the buttercup and the senecio, as the seasons revolve toward July."); June 6, 1858 ("Golden senecio is not uncommon now") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Golden Senecio

Hen-hawk's eggs

June 9.

June 9, 1859

Thursday. A boy shows me one of three (apparent) hen-hawk's eggs, fresh, obtained on the 6th from a pine near Breed's house site.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 9, 1859



Hen-hawk’s eggs. See March 2, 1856 ("I can hardly believe that hen-hawks may be beginning to build their nests now, yet their young were a fortnight old the last of April last year.”) ; May 1, 1855 ("The reason I did not see my hawks at Well Meadow last year was that he found and broke up their nest there, containing five eggs.”); and note to June 8, 1853 (“I hear a hawk scream, and, . . . 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 about eighty feet from the ground, in a very large white pine by the edge of the swamp. It is about three feet in diameter, of dry sticks, and a young hawk, apparently as big as its mother, stands on the edge.”). Compare June 8, 1858 (“The marsh hawk's eggs are not yet hatched. )

June 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 9

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021

A yellow spotted turtle digging her hole.

June 9.

P. M. – To Beck Stow's. 

June 9, 2018

High blackberry, not long. 

I notice by the roadside at Moore's Swamp the very common Juncus effusus, not quite out, one to two and a half feet high. 

See a yellow spotted turtle digging her hole at 5 P.M., in a pasture near Beck Stow's, some dozen rods off. It is made under one side like the picta’s.

Potamogetons begin to prevail in the river and to catch my oar. The river is weedy. 

White maple keys are abundantly floating.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 9, 1858

See a yellow spotted turtle digging her hole. See June 6, 1855(“I see a yellow-spotted tortoise twenty rods from river”); June 11, 1854 (“I saw a yellow-spotted tortoise come out, — undoubtedly to lay its eggs, — which had climbed to the top of a hill as much as a hundred and thirty feet above any water.”); June 15, 1857 (“From time to time passed a yellow-spot or a painted turtle in the path, for now is their laying-season.”); June 16, 1858 (“I see a yellow-spotted turtle digging its hole at mid afternoon, but, like the last of this species I saw, it changed its place after I saw it, and I did not get an egg; it is so wary.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow-Spotted Turtle (Emys guttata)

White maple keys are abundantly floating. See May 29, 1854 ("The white maple keys have begun to fall and float down the stream.”); May 30, 1853 ("The white maple keys falling and covering the river."); June 2, 1856 ("White maple keys conspicuous.”)

June 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 9

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021

 

Three steps into the swamp barelegged.

June 9. 

June 9, 2017

A large fog. 

Celastrus scandens, maybe a day. 

Triosteum, apparently several days (not at all June 1st). 

Both kinds of sap, yellow birch and black, are now, in some bottles, quite aromatic and alike; but this year, methinks, it has a more swampy taste and musty, and most of the bottles are merely sour. 

P. M. — To Violet Sorrel and Calla Swamp. 

A peetweet's nest near wall by Shattuck's barn, Merrick's pasture, at base of a dock; four eggs just on the point of being hatched. A regular nest of weak stubble set in ground. 

In the sprout-land beyond the red huckleberry, an indigo-bird, which chips about me as if it had a nest there. This is a splendid and marked bird, high-colored as is the tanager, looking strange in this latitude. Glowing indigo. It flits from top of one bush to another, chirping as if anxious. Wilson says it sings, not like most other birds in the morning and evening chiefly, but also in the middle of the day. In this I notice it is like the tanager, the other fiery-plumaged bird. They seem to love the heat. It probably had its nest in one of those bushes. 

The calla is generally past prime and going to seed. I had said to Pratt, "It will be worth the while to look for other rare plants in Calla Swamp, for I have observed that where one rare plant grows there will commonly be others." Carrying out this design, this afternoon, I had not taken three steps into the swamp barelegged before I found the Naumbergia thyrsiflora in sphagnum and water, which I had not seen growing before. (Channing brought one to me from Hubbard's Great Meadow once.) It is hardly beginning yet. (In prime June 24th. Vide June 24th.)

The water in this Calla Swamp feels cold to my feet, and perhaps this is a peculiarity of it; on the north side a hill. 

When I was at the yellow-throat's nest (as above) I heard that very loud sharp pheet pheet of a wood- chuck (?) or rabbit which I have often heard before. 

The hellebore was very much eaten off about the wall whence it proceeded. It was kept up from time to time while I stayed.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 9, 1857

June 9, 2017

I had not taken three steps into the swamp barelegged . . . See August 30, 1856 (“I left my shoes and stockings on the bank far off and waded barelegged through rigid andromeda.and other bushes a long way, to the soft open sphagnous centre of the swamp. ”)

Both kinds of sap, yellow birch and black, are now, in some bottles, quite aromatic and alike; but this year, methinks, it has a more swampy taste . . . See  April 16, 1857 ("Get birch sap, — two bottles yellow birch and five of black birch"). Also see April 12, 1856 ("According to Rees’s Cyclopaedia, the sap of the birches is fermentable in its natural state.");   April 11, 1856 ("I have now got four kinds of birch sap. . . .I do not think I could distinguish the different kinds of birch with my eyes shut. I drank some of the black birch wine with my dinner for the name of it; but, as a steady drink, it is only to be recommended to outdoor men and foresters. ");  May 27, 1856 ("My three kinds of birch sap have now become more acid, especially the white and canoe birch. The black birch is milder and more agreeable. With sugar it is an agreeable drink. . . ."); June 21, 1856 ("My canoe birch wine smells and tastes like mead considerably. All my birch wines are now more acid and very good indeed with sugar. Am surprised to see it effervesce, all white with white sugar only, like a soda water."); July 26, 1856 ( "Drank up the last of my birch wine. It is an exceedingly grateful drink now, especially the aromatic, mead like, apparently checkerberry-flavored one, which on the whole I think must be the black birch. It is a surprisingly high-flavored drink, thus easily obtained, and considering that it had so little taste at first. Perhaps it would have continued to improve.")

June 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 9

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021

A Book of the Seasons: June 9 (bright sky, waving grass and trees, floating cumuli, strawberry and clover, shad-fly and cricket -- a full moon)

The year is but a succession of days,

and I see that I could assign some office to each day

which, summed up, would be the history of the year.

Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852

June 9.

New life and motion
the season of waving boughs.
This first half of June.
June 9, 1852

June 9, 2017

For a week past we have had washing days. June 9, 1852 

The weather is very clear, and the sky bright. June 9, 1852 

The river shines like silver. June 9, 1852 

The grass waving, and trees having leaved out, their boughs wave and feel the effect of the breeze. June 9, 1852

New life and motion is imparted to the trees. June 9, 1852

The season of waving boughs; and the lighter under sides of the new leaves are exposed. June 9, 1852

The waving, undulating rye. June 9, 1852

The deciduous trees have filled up the intervals between the evergreens, and the woods are bosky now. June 9, 1852

The general leafiness, shadiness, and waving of grass and boughs in the breeze characterize the season. June 9, 1852

There are some large cumuli with glowing downy cheeks floating about. June 9, 1856

Now I notice where an elm is in the shadow of a cloud,—the black elm-tops and shadows of June. June 9, 1856

It is a dark eyelash which suggests a flashing eye beneath. June 9, 1856

It suggests houses that lie under the shade, the repose and siesta of summer noons, the thunder-cloud, bathing, and all that belongs to summer. June 9, 1856

It suggests also the creak of crickets, a June sound now fairly begun, inducing contemplation and philosophic thoughts, — the sultry hum of insects. June 9, 1856

This is the first half of June. June 9, 1852

Meanwhile the crickets are strengthening their quire. June 9, 1852

Without an umbrella, thinking the weather settled at last. June 9, 1856

Compelled to squat under a bank and stand under a wood-pile through a shower. June 9, 1856

We have half a dozen showers to-day, distinct summer showers from black clouds suddenly wafted up from the west and northeast; also some thunder and hail, - large white stones. June 9, 1860

The reddish seeds or glumes of grasses cover my boots now in the dewy or foggy morning. June 9, 1853

A large fog. June 9, 1857

A prevalent fog, though . . . a little more local. June 9, 1853

What is peculiar about it is that it is the tops of the trees which you see first and most distinctly, before you see their trunks or where they stand on earth. June 9, 1853

The meadows are now yellow with the golden senecio, a more orange yellow, mingled with the light glossy yellow of the buttercup. June 9, 1853

The diervilla out apparently yesterday. June 9, 1853

The first white lily bud. June 9, 1853

White clover is abundant and very sweet on the common, filling the air. June 9, 1853

Whiteweed now whitens the fields. June 9, 1853

There are many star flowers. June 9, 1853

I remember the anemone, especially the rue anemone, which is not yet all gone, lasting longer than the true one above all the trientalis, and of late the yellow Bethlehem-star, and perhaps others. June 9, 1853

Prunella out. June 9, 1853

A strawberry half turned on the sand of the causeway side, — the first fruit or berry of the year that I have tasted. June 9, 1854

Got two or three handfuls of strawberries on Fair Haven. . . . Little natural beds or patches on the sides of dry hills, where the fruit sometimes reddens the ground. June 9, 1853

High blackberry, not long. June 9, 1858

The green fruit of the sweet-fern now. June 9, 1853

The Juniperus repens appears, though now dry and effete, to have blossomed recently. June 9, 1853

The tall white Erigeron annuus (?), for this is the only one described as white tinged with purple, just out. June 9, 1853

I notice by the roadside at Moore's Swamp the very common Juncus effusus, not quite out, one to two and a half feet high. June 9, 1858

Celastrus scandens, maybe a day. June 9, 1857

Triosteum, apparently several days (not at all June 1st). June 9, 1857

The calla is generally past prime and going to seed. J une 9, 1857

This afternoon, I had not taken three steps into the swamp barelegged before I found the strawberry and clover thyrsiflora in sphagnum and water, which I had not seen growing before.

The water in this Calla Swamp feels cold to my feet, June 9, 1857

Veronica scutellata, apparently several days. June 9, 1854

Veronica scutellata (how long?) at Corner Spring. June 9, 1856

Early primrose done, say-two days. June 9, 1855

Rhus Toxicodendron on Island Rock. June 9, 1855

Lambkill out. June 9, 1855

Fever-root, perhaps several days. June 9, 1855

I see some white oak pincushions, nearly two inches through. June 9, 1854

Is that galium, out apparently some days in the woods by Deep Cut,?

The tupelo stamens are loose and will perhaps shed pollen to- morrow or next day. June 9, 1854

Ladies’-slippers are going to seed. June 9, 1854

Sidesaddle, apparently a day or two; petals hang down. June 9, 1855

An orchis, probably yellowish, will be common in Wheeler’s meadow. June 9, 1855

Find the great fringed orchis out apparently two or three days. Two are almost fully out, two or three only budded. June 9, 1854

A large spike of peculiarly delicate pale-purple flowers growing in the luxuriant and shady swamp is remarkable that this, one of the fairest of all our flowers, should also be one of the rarest, — for the most part not seen at all. . .I am inclined to think of it as a relic of the past as much as the arrowhead, or the tomahawk I found on the 7th. June 9, 1854

Gathered the Linnæa borealis. June 9, 1851 

I see the thick, flower-like huckleberry apples. June 9, 1854

The locust in bloom. June 9, 1852 

I should like to know the birds of the woods better, what birds inhabit our woods? . . . What musicians compose our woodland quire?  They must be forever strange and interesting to me. June 9, 1854

In the sprout-land beyond the red huckleberry, an indigo-bird, which chips about me as if it had a nest there. This is a splendid and marked bird, high-colored as is the tanager, looking strange in this latitude. Glowing indigo. It flits from top of one bush to another, chirping as if anxious. . . .. It probably had its nest in one of those bushes. June 9, 1857

See very few hawks for several weeks. June 9, 1855

A boy shows me one of three (apparent) hen-hawk's eggs, fresh, obtained on the 6th from a pine near Breed's house site. June 9, 1859

I have come with a spy-glass to look at the hawks. They have detected me and are already screaming over my head more than half a mile from the nest. June 9, 1853

I find no difficulty in looking at the young hawk . . . I can see every wink and the color of its iris. It watches me more steadily than I it, now looking straight down at me with both eyes and outstretched neck, now turning its head and looking with one eye. June 9, 1853

Hear a goldfinch; this the second or third only that I have heard. June 9, 1853

How prominent a place the vireos hold! It is probably the yellow-throated vireo I hear now . . . invisible in the tops of the trees. June 9, 1854

A lark flashing his white tail, and showing his handsome yellow breast, with its black crescent like an Indian locket.June 9, 1854

Chimney and bank swallows are still hovering over the river, and cherry-birds fly past. June 9, 1854

For a day or two I have heard the fine seringo note of the cherry-birds, and seen them flying past, the only (?) birds, methinks, that I see in small flocks now, except swallows. June 9, 1854

I think I have hardly heard a bobolink for a week or ten days. June 9, 1855

Catbird’s nest, one egg, on a blueberry bush, three feet from ground, of (as usual) sticks, leaves, bark, roots. Another near same (also in V. Muhlenbergii Swamp) on a bent white birch and andromeda, eighteen inches from ground; three eggs; stubble of weeds mainly instead of twigs, otherwise as usual. June 9, 1855 

A catbird’s nest, three eggs, in a high blueberry, four feet from ground, with rather more dry leaves than usual, above Assabet Spring. June 9, 1855 

A chewink’s nest sunk in ground under a bank covered with ferns, dead and green, and huckleberry bushes; composed of dry leaves, then grass stubble, and lined with a very few slender, reddish moss stems; four eggs, rather fresh; merely enough moss stems to indicate its choice. June 9, 1855

A peetweet's nest near wall by Shattuck's barn, Merrick's pasture, at base of a dock; four eggs just on the point of being hatched. A regular nest of weak stubble set in ground. June 9, 1857

A yellowbird’s nest 

eight feet from ground in crotch of 

a slender maple. 

June 9, 1855

A yellowbird’s nest in a poplar on Hubbard’s Bridge causeway; four fresh eggs; ten feet high, three rods beyond fence. June 9, 1856

When I was at the yellow-throat's nest (as above) I heard that very loud sharp pheet pheet of a wood-chuck (?) or rabbit which I have often heard before. June 9, 1857

A chip-bird’s in a white thorn on the Hill; one egg. June 9, 1855

A song sparrow’s nest low in Wheeler’s meadow, with five eggs, made of grass lined with hair. June 9, 1855

The nest probably of the small pewee — looking from the ground like a yellowbird’s, showing reddish wool of ferns —against a white birch, on a small twig, eighteen feet from ground. Four little eggs, all pale cream-color before blowing, white after - fresh. June 9, 1855

Found to-day, of nests, one song sparrow, one small pewee, one yellowbird, one chip-bird, three catbirds, one chewink, one robin (the last on a black willow, two feet from ground, one egg). June 9, 1855

A young robin abroad. June 9, 1856

The veery rings, and the tree toad. June 9, 1854

See a yellow spotted turtle digging her hole at 5 P.M., in a pasture near Beck Stow's, some dozen rods off. It is made under one side like the picta’s. June 9, 1858

I saw a striped snake which the fire in the woods had killed. . .No creature can exhibit more venom than a snake, even when it is not venomous, strictly speaking. June 9, 1850

I see the pollen of the pitch pine now beginning to cover the surface of the pond. June 9, 1850

Walden is still rising, though the rains have ceased and the river has fallen very much. June 9, 1850

The willow down and seeds are blowing over the causeway. June 9, 1854

White maple keys are abundantly floating. June 9, 1858

It is twilight, and the river is covered with that dusty lint, as was the water next the shore at Walden this afternoon. June 9, 1854

The summer aspect of the river begins perhaps when the Utricularia vulgaris is first seen on the surface, as yesterday. June 9, 1854

Potamogetons begin to prevail in the river and to catch my oar. The river is weedy. June 9, 1858

The air is now pretty full of shad-flies, and there is an incessant sound made by the fishes leaping for such as are struggling on the surface ; it sounds like the lapsing of a swift stream, sucking amid rocks. June 9, 1854

The fishes make a business of thus getting their evening meal, dimpling the river like large drops as far as I can see, sometimes making a loud plashing. June 9, 1854

Again, about seven, the ephemera came out, in numbers as many as last night, now many of them coupled, even tripled; and the fishes leap as before. June 9, 1856

Meanwhile the kingfishers are on the lookout for the fishes as they rise, and I saw one dive in the twilight and go off uttering his cr-r-ack, cr-r-rack. June 9, 1854

The mosquitoes encircle my head and torment me, and I see a great moth go fluttering over the tree-tops and the water, black against the sky, like a bat. June 9, 1854

The fishes continue to leap by moonlight. A full moon. June 9, 1854

I do not hear a toad from my window; only the crickets beside. June 9, 1853

The bullfrogs are in full blast to-night. June 9, 1853

The toads I have but rarely heard of late. June 9, 1853

So there is an evening for the toads and another for the bullfrogs. June 9, 1853

June 9, 2019

*****

See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau:

Waving grasses, Buttercups, and Shade
Summer
The Golden Senecio
The Maple Keys
The Purple Fringed Orchids
The Purple Pitcher Plant
Umbrella Adventures
The Cricket in Spring
Insect Hatches in Spring (millers, perla, shad-flies or ephemera)
Young Birds
the Goldfinch
The Hen Hawk
the “Small Pewee"
the Summer Yellowbird
The Yellow-throated Vireo
The Ring of Toads
The Tree-toad
The Bullfrog in Spring
The Yellow-Spotted Turtle
Reminiscence and Prompting
June Moonlight

*****

foggy morning

June 9, 2023

It suggests houses that lie under the shade, the repose and siesta of summer noons, the thunder-cloud, bathing, and all that belongs to summer. See June 8, 1850 (" When the frogs dream, and the grass waves, and the buttercups toss their heads, and the heat disposes to bathe in the ponds and streams then is summer begun"); June 8, 1859 ("Within a day or two has begun that season of summer when you see afternoon showers, maybe with thunder, or the threat of them, dark in the horizon"); June 11, 1856 ("It is very hot this afternoon, and that peculiar stillness of summer noons now reigns in the woods. "); June 16, 1860 ("It appears to me that these phenomena occur simultaneously, say June 12th :• Heat about. 85° at 2 P.M.• Hylodes cease to peep.• Purring frogs (Rana palustris) cease.• Lightning-bugs first seen.• Bullfrogs trump generally.• Mosquitoes begin to be really troublesome.• Afternoon thunder-showers almost regular.• Sleep with open window.• Turtles fairly and generally begun to lay.")

Without an umbrella, thinking the weather settled at last. See June 8, 1860 ("Within a day or two has begun that season of summer when you see afternoon showers, maybe with thunder, or the threat of them, dark in the horizon, and are uncertain whether to venture far away or without an umbrella.")

The meadows are now yellow with the golden senecio, a more orange yellow, mingled with the light glossy yellow of the buttercup. See May 23, 1853 ("I am surprised by the dark orange-yellow of the senecio. At first we had the lighter, paler spring yellows of willows, dandelion, cinquefoil, then the darker and deeper yellow of the buttercup; and then this broad distinction between the buttercup and the senecio, as the seasons revolve toward July."); June 6, 1858 ("Golden senecio is not uncommon now") 

See a yellow spotted turtle digging her hole. See June 6, 1855(“I see a yellow-spotted tortoise twenty rods from river”); June 11, 1854 (“I saw a yellow-spotted tortoise come out, — undoubtedly to lay its eggs, — which had climbed to the top of a hill as much as a hundred and thirty feet above any water.”); June 15, 1857 (“From time to time passed a yellow-spot or a painted turtle in the path, for now is their laying-season.”); June 16, 1858 (“I see a yellow-spotted turtle digging its hole at mid afternoon, but, like the last of this species I saw, it changed its place after I saw it, and I did not get an egg; it is so wary.”)

White maple keys are abundantly floating. See May 21, 1853 ("The white maple keys are nearly two inches long by a half-inch wide, in pairs, with waved inner edges like green moths ready to bear off their seeds."); May 29, 1854 ("The white maple keys have begun to fall and float down the stream.”); May 30, 1853 ("The white maple keys falling and covering the river."); June 2, 1856 ("White maple keys conspicuous.”) May 30, 1853 ("The white maple keys falling and covering the river."); June 6, 1855 ("The white maple keys are about half fallen. It is remarkable that this happens at the time the emperor moth (cecropia) comes out.”)

Again, about seven, the ephemera came out, in numbers as many as last night, ...; and the fishes leap as before. . . . See June 8, 1856 (“my boat being by chance at the same place where it was in ’54, I noticed a great flight of ephemera”).  See also June 9, 1854 (7 p. m. — Up Assabet. . . .[T]here is an incessant sound made by the fishes leaping for their evening meal, dimpling the river like large drops as far as I can see . ..”); June 2, 1854 ("It was a great flight of ephemera").

So there is an evening for the toads and another for the bullfrogs.  See June 13, 1851 ("The different frogs mark the seasons pretty well,- the peeping hyla, the dreaming frog, and the bullfrog."); See also  June 1, 1853 ("The birds have now all come and no longer fly in flocks. The hylodes are no longer heard. The bullfrogs begin to trump.”); June 11, 1853 ("Another fog this morning. The mosquitoes first troubled me a little last night. On the river at dusk I hear the toads still, with the bullfrogs.");  June 15, 1860 ("A new season begun. The bullfrogs now commonly trump at night, and the mosquitoes are now really troublesome. For some time I have not heard toads by day, and the hylodes appear to have done.")

the dark eye and shade of June

June 9, 2017

If you make the least correct 

observation of nature this year,

 you will have occasion to repeat it

 with illustrations the next, 

and the season and life itself is prolonged.

April 7, 1853 

June 8 < <<<<<. June 9  >>>>> June 10

June 9, 2023

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 9

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 ©  2009-2023

https://tinyurl.com/HDT06June