Early flowers, leaves and birds.

 

May 1. 

May 1, 2021

 Sunday.

A cold northwest wind.

Now, on my return to Concord, I am struck by the increased greenness of the country, or landscape.

I find that since I left Concord, April 11th, there have blossomed here, probably nearly in the following order, these plants, including those I saw in Haverhill: 

• dandelion, 
• field horse-tail, 
• Antennaria plantaginifolia, 
• sweet-gale, 
• epigæa, 
• Populus grandidentata, 
• Salix tristis, 
• Viola ovata (Ellen Emerson found it April 20th), 
• Potentilla Canadensis, 
• comptonia, 
• Thalictrum anemonoides, 
• Anemone nemorosa, 
• V. blanda, 
• P. balsamifera, 
• Aquilegia Canadensis, 
• Hedyotiscærulea, 
• andromeda, 
• Fragaria Virginiana (?) (distinguished from the other species in fruit),
• Salix alba, 
• benzoin, 
• Amelanchier Canadensis var. Botryapium.

Peach, cultivated cherry, and the following apparently just begun: 

• Viola pedata, 
• Ostrya Virginica, 
• V. cucullata (Ellen Emerson says she saw it the 30th ult.; it is to be looked for at Depot Field Brook).

And Rumex Acetosella shows red and is eight inches high on Columbine Cliff.

The expanding leaves of the sugar maples now make small crosses against the sky.

Other conspicuous green leaves are 

• the gooseberry, 
• currant, 
• elder, 
• the willows just beginning,
•  and alder, 
• and apple trees 
• and high blackberry, 
• amelanchier, 
• meadow-sweet,
•  beside many herbaceous plants.

Drosera (round leaved) leaves now.

Sedge-grass (early sedge) very abundant still.

The Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum is just ready to bloom and also the vacillans nearly.

These things observed on way To Cliffs.

The oak leaves on the plain are fallen.

The colors are now: 

• light blue above (where is my cyanometer? Saussure invented one, and Humboldt used it in his travels); 
• landscape russet and greenish,
•  spotted with fawn-colored plowed lands, 
• with green pine and gray or reddish oak woods intermixed, and 
• dark-blue or slate-colored water here and there.

It is greenest in the meadows and where water has lately stood, and a strong, invigorating scent comes up from the fresh meadows.

It is like the greenness of an apple faintly or dimly appearing through the russet.

A phoebe's nest and one cream-colored white egg at the spring-house; nest of mud, lined with grass and edged with hypnum.

Channing has seen a robin's nest and eggs.

I hear a black and white creeper at the Cliffs, and a chewink.

The shrub oaks are well budded.

The young ivy leaves are red on Cliffs.

Oaks and hickory buds just ready to open.

How aromatic the balm-of-Gilead buds now! 

The large woolly ferns and others stand up a foot on banks.

The skunk-cabbage leaves green the warm, springy meads.

Was it not the black and yellow or spotted warbler I saw by the Corner Spring? [Vide May 10th.] Apparently black, brown striped, with a yellow rump and also yellow wing, shoulders, and sides of breast, with a large black spot on breast; size of phæbe nearly; note somewhat like yellowbird. Yet I think it much too dark for the myrtle-bird.

Columbine Cliff a place to look for early rue anemones and nemorosa and dandelions.

The columbines have been out some days.

How ornamental to these dark-colored perpendicular cliffs, nodding from the clefts and shelves! 

The barn swallow is about.

Have we the Viola lanceolata?  [Yes. Vide Hubbard's] 

Is not the Botryapium our earliest variety of amelanchier, and what difference in the fruit? 

Channing says he has heard the wood thrush, brown thrasher, and stake-driver (?), since I have been gone.

This and last page for birds which I find come in the interval.

Did I not see the oven-bird yesterday?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 1, 1853

I find that since I left Concord, April 11th, there have blossomed here.  See April 8, 1859 ("The earliest peculiarly woodland herbaceous flowers are epigaea, anemone, thalictrum, and — by the first of May — Viola pedata.")

Dandelion: See April 18, 1860 ("Melvin has seen a dandelion in bloom."); April 29, 1857 ("I commonly meet with the earliest dandelion set in the midst of some liquid green patch. It seems a sudden and decided progress in the season.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Dandelion in Spring

Sweet-gale.  See  April 22, 1855 ("The blossoms of the sweet-gale are now on fire over the brooks, contorted like caterpillars.")

Epigæa. See April 9, 1853 ("The epigæa will not be out for some days."); see also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Epigaea

Populus grandidentata. See April 8, 1853 ("The male Populus grandidentata appears to open very gradually, beginning sooner than I supposed. It shows some of its red anthers long before it opens. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,the Big-toothed Aspen

Early violets: Viola ovata (Ellen Emerson found it April 20th), V. cucullata (Ellen Emerson says she saw it the 30th ult.; it is to be looked for at Depot Field Brook). See  April 19, 1858 ("Viola ovata on bank above Lee's Cliff. Edith Emerson found them there yesterday.");. April 23, 1858 (" Saw a Viola blanda in a girl's hand");   May 5, 1859  ("V. blanda and cucullata are. . .rather rare; V. pedata and lanceolata rarer yet, or not seen");  May 9, 1852 ("The first Viola pedata ");  May 20, 1852 ("The Viola ovata is of a deep purple blue, is darkest and has most of the red in it; the V. pedata is smooth and pale-blue, delicately tinged with purple reflections; the cucullata is more decidedly blue, slaty-blue, and darkly striated."); May 19, 1858 (“There appears to be quite a variety in the colors of the Viola cucullata. Some dark-blue, if not lilac (?), some with a very dark blue centre and whitish circumference, others dark-blue within and dark without, others all very pale blue.”); May 16, 1852 (“I observe some very pale blue Viola cuculata in the meadows. ”); May 31, 1858 (“I saw . . . to-day a white V. cucullata. ”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Violets

Saussure invented one, and Humboldt used it in his travels. See May 4, 1853 ("He used Saussure's cyanometer even to measure the color of the sea.")

A phoebe's nest and one cream-colored white egg. See June 20, 1856 (" A phoebe nest, second time, with four cream-white eggs. . . . The second brood in the same nest.")

Was it not the black and yellow or spotted warbler I saw by the Corner Spring? . . . I think it much too dark for the myrtle-bird. See May 4, 1853 ("The myrtle-bird, which makes me think the more that I saw the black and yellow warbler on Sunday."); May 10, 1853 ("I hear , and have for a week , in the woods , the note of one or more small birds somewhat like a yellow bird's . What is it ? Is it the redstart ? I now see one of these . The first I have distinguished . And now I feel pretty certain that my black and yellow warbler of May 1st was this."); May 29, 1855 ("females of the redstart, described by Wilson, — very different from the full-plumaged black males. ")

American Redstart

Did I not see the oven-bird yesterday? See May 1, 1852 ("I think I heard an oven-bird just now, - wicher wicher whicher wich. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Oven-bird

The sugar maple keys (or buds?) hang down one inch.

May 1. 

May 1, 2020

Plant potatoes; the very midst of early potato planting.

I now, as usual, turn up numerous yellow dor-bugs, which are as yet a very pale yellow, not having been exposed to the light. Also those great white potato worms. 

The sugar maple keys (or buds?) hang down one inch, quite. 

Ed. Emerson's snails (the simplest kind) spawned March 28. I see young now as big as the head of a pin. The stones in his aquarium are covered with very minute green polypuses, some of them budded. We The incipient ones are like a fine forest. You can only see them against a strong light. 

H. D Thoreau, Journal, May 1, 1860

I now, as usual, turn up numerous yellow dor-bugs. See April 6, 1857 ("Areoda lanigera is apparently the common yellow dor-bug.")

Also those great white potato worms. See May 5, 1857 ("Have dug up in the garden this season half a dozen of those great leather-colored pupae (with the tongue-case bent round to breast like a long urn-handle) of the sphinx moth. First potato-worm.")

The sugar maple keys (or buds?) hang down one inch, quite. See May 6, 1860 ("Maple keys an inch and a half long."); May 10, 1852 ("Are those the young keys of sugar maples that I see?"); June 2, 1856 ("White maple keys conspicuous.”)

As I sat in the woods admiring the beauty of the blue butterfly.

May 1. 

Hear the ruby-crowned wren. 

We accuse savages of worshipping only the bad spirit, or devil, though they may distinguish both a good and a bad; but they regard only that one which they fear and worship the devil only. We too are savages in this, doing precisely the same thing. 

This occurred to me yesterday as I sat in the woods admiring the beauty of the blue butterfly. 

We are not chiefly interested in birds and insects, for example, as they are ornamental to the earth and cheering to man, but we spare the lives of the former only on condition that they eat more grubs than they do cherries, and the only account of the insects which the State encourages is of the "Insects Injurious to Vegetation.” 

We too admit both a good and a bad spirit, but we worship chiefly the bad spirit, whom we fear. We do not think first of the good but of the harm things will do us. 

The catechism says that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, which of course is applicable mainly to God as seen in his works. Yet the only account of its beautiful insects — butterflies, etc. — which God has made and set before us which the State ever thinks of spending any money on is the account of those which are injurious to vegetation!

This is the way we glorify God and enjoy him forever. Come out here and behold a thousand painted butterflies and other beautiful insects which people the air, then go to the libraries and see what kind of prayer and glorification of God is there recorded. Massachusetts has published her report on "Insects Injurious to Vegetation," and our neighbor the "Noxious Insects of New York.” 

We have attended to the evil and said nothing about the good. This is looking a gift horse in the mouth with a vengeance.

Children are attracted by the beauty of butterflies, but their parents and legislators deem it an idle pursuit. The parents remind me of the devil, but the children of God. Though God may have pronounced his work good, we ask, "Is it not poisonous?” 

Science is inhuman. Things seen with a microscope begin to be insignificant. So described, they are as monstrous as if they should be magnified a thousand diameters. Suppose I should see and describe men and houses and trees and birds as if they were a thousand times larger than they are! With our prying instruments we disturb the balance and harmony of nature.

P. M. — To Second Division. Very warm. 

Looking from Clamshell over Hosmer's meadow, about half covered with water, see hundreds of turtles, chiefly picta, now first lying out in numbers on the brown pieces of meadow which rise above the water. You see their black backs shine on these hummocks left by the ice, fifty to eighty rods off. They would rapidly tumble off if you went much nearer.

This heat and stillness draws them up. It is remarkable how surely they are advertised of the first warm and still days, and in an hour or two are sure to spread themselves over the hummocks. There is to-day a general resurrection of them, and there they bask in the sun. It is their sabbath. 

At this distance, if you are on the lookout, especially with a glass, you can discover what numbers of them there are, but they are shy and will drop into the water on a near approach. All up and down our river meadows their backs are shining in the sun to-day. It is a turtle day. 

As we sat on the steep hillside south of Nut Meadow Brook Crossing, we noticed a remarkable whirlwind on a small scale, which carried up the oak leaves from that Island copse in the meadow. The oak leaves now hang thinly and are very dry and light, and these small whirlwinds, which seem to be occasioned by the sudden hot and calm weather (like whirlpools or dimples in a smooth stream), wrench them off, and up they go, somewhat spirally, in countless flocks like birds, with a rustling sound; and higher and higher into the clear blue deeps they rise above our heads, till they are fairly lost to sight, looking, when last seen, mere light specks against the blue, like stars by day, in fact. I could distinguish some, I have no doubt, five or six hundred feet high at least, but if I looked aside a moment they were lost. The largest oak leaves looked not bigger than a five-cent-piece. These were drifting eastward, — to descend where? Methought that, instead of decaying on the earth or being consumed by fire, these were being translated and would soon be taken in at the windows of heaven. I had never observed this phenomenon so remarkable.

The flight of the leaves. 

This was quite local, and it was comparatively still where we sat a few rods on one side. Thousands went up together in a rustling flock. Many of the last oak leaves hang thus ready to go up. 

I noticed two or more similar whirlwinds in the woods elsewhere this afternoon. One took up small twigs and clusters of leaves from the ground, matted together. I could easily see where it ran along with its nose (or point of its tunnel) close to the ground, stirring up the leaves as it travelled, like the snout of some hunting or rooting animal. 

See and hear chewink. 

See a little snake on the dry twigs and chips in the sun, near the arbutus, uniformly brown (or reddish-brown) above except a yellowish ring on the occiput, the head also lighter than the body; beneath vermilion, with apparently a row of light dots along each side. It is apparently Coluber amamus (?), except that it has the yellowish ring. 

Luzula campestris. Also the Oryzopsis Canadensis by the Major Heywood path-side, say a day, or April 30th, six inches high or more, with fine bristle-like leaves. 

See a thrasher.

What is that rush at Second Division? It now forms a dense and very conspicuous mass some four rods long and one foot high. The top for three inches is red, and the impression at a little distance is like that made by sorrel. Certainly no plant of this character exhibits such a growth now, i. e. in the mass. It surprises you to see it, carries your thoughts on to June. 

The climbing fern is persistent, i. e. retains its greenness still, though now partly brown and withered.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 1, 1859



The only account of the insects which the State encourages is of the "Insects Injurious to Vegetation.” See April 6, 1857 ("To New Bedford Library. . . Take out Emmons’s Report on the insects injurious to vegetation in New York.

See a plate of the Colias Philodice, or common sulphur-yellow butterfly, male and female of different tinge.”)

It is a turtle day.  See August 28, 1856 ("Has not the great world existed for them as much as for you?”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  The Painted Turtle

A little snake uniformly brown (or reddish-brown) above except a yellowish ring on the occiput, the head also lighter than the body; beneath vermilion, with apparently a row of light dots along each side.  Probably the ring-neck snake (Coluber punctatus) -- slate gray, black or brown back with complete yellow ring just behind the head, bright yellow or rarely orange belly and occasionally small black spots. Snakes of Massachusetts ringneck snake. Compare HDT’s other "Coluber amaenus” snakes, conforming generally to the redbelly snake (Storeria occipitomaculata occipitomaculata):  October 11, 1856 (“It is apparently Coluber amaenus, the red snake. Brown above, light-red beneath, about eight inches long . . . It is a conspicuous light red beneath, then a bluish-gray line along the sides, and above this brown with a line of lighter or yellowish brown down the middle of the back.”); September 9, 1857 ("It was a dark ash-color above, with darker longitudinal lines, light brick-red beneath. There were three triangular buff spots just behind the head, one above and one each side. It is apparently Coluber amaenus”); April 29, 1858 (“A little brown snake with blackish marks along each side of back and a pink belly. Was it not the Coluber amaenus?”)  

The genus Storeria consists of five species, four of which are known as brown snakes, and the other of which is known as the redbelly snake. Most Storeria are a variant of brown in color. They sometimes have a lighter-colored stripe down the center of the back, and small black blotches along the body, and just behind the head. The underside is usually lighter brown-colored, yellow, or in the case of the redbelly snake, reddish in color. They rarely grow beyond 13 inches.

The climbing fern is persistent, i. e. retains its greenness still, though now partly brown and withered. CLIMBING FERN, or Hartford Fern (Lygodium palmatum) . A species of fern found, rarely, from Massachusetts to Kentucky and southward, remarkable for climbing or twining around weeds and shrubs ~ Wikisource. See October 2, 1859 (“The climbing fern is perfectly fresh, — and apparently therefore an evergreen, — the more easily found amid the withered cinnamon and flowering ferns.”); November 30, 1851 (“The Lygodium palmatum is quite abundant on that side of the swamp, twining round the goldenrods”)

I sat in the woods

admiring the beauty of

the blue butterfly. 

After the lapse of thousands of years you may still detect the individual in the turn of a sentence or the tone of a thought.

May 1. 

May 1, 2018

A warm and pleasant day, reminding me of the 3d of April when the R. halecina waked up so suddenly and generally, and now, as then, apparently a new, allied frog is almost equally wide awake, — the one of last evening (and before).

When I am behind Cheney's this warm and still afternoon, I hear a voice calling to oxen three quarters of a mile distant, and I know it to be Elijah Wood's. It is wonderful how far the individual proclaims him self. Out of the thousand millions of human beings on this globe, I know that this sound was made by the lungs and larynx and lips of E. Wood, am as sure of it as if he nudged me with his elbow and shouted in my ear. He can impress himself on the very atmosphere, then, can launch himself a mile on the wind, through trees and rustling sedge and over rippling water, associating with a myriad sounds, and yet arrive distinct at my ear; and yet this creature that is felt so far, that was so noticeable, lives but a short time, quietly dies and makes no more noise that I know of. I can tell him, too, with my eyes by the very gait and motion of him half a mile distant. Far more wonderful his purely spiritual influence, — that after the lapse of thousands of years you may still detect the individual in the turn of a sentence or the tone of a thought!!

E. Wood has a peculiar way of modulating the air, imparts to it peculiar vibrations, which several times when standing near him I have noticed, and now a vibration, spreading far and wide over the fields and up and down the river, reaches me and maybe hundreds of others, which we all know to have been produced by Mr. Wood's pipes.

However, E. Wood is not a match for a little peeping hylodes in this respect, and there is no peculiar divinity in this.

The inhabitants of the river are peculiarly wide awake this warm day, — fishes, frogs, and toads, from time to time, — and quite often I hear a tremendous rush of a pickerel after his prey.

They are peculiarly active, maybe after the Rana palustris, now breeding. It is a perfect frog and toad day. I hear the stertorous notes of last evening from all sides of the river at intervals, but most from the grassiest and warmest or most sheltered and sunniest shores.

I get sight of ten or twelve Rana palustris and catch three of them. One apparent male utters one fine, sharp squeak when caught.

Also see by the shore one apparent young bull frog (?), with bright or vivid light green just along its jaws, a dark line between this and jaws, and a white throat; head, brown above. This is the case with one I have in the firkin, which I think was at first a dull green. These are the only kinds I find sitting along the river.

The Rana palustris is the prevailing one, and I suppose it makes the halecina-like sound described last night. [It does. Vide May 2d.]

They will be silent for a long time. You will see perhaps one or two snouts and eyes above the surface, then at last may hear a coarsely purring croak, often rapid and as if it began with a p, at a distance sounding softer and like tut tut, tut tut, tut, lasting a second or two; and then, perchance, others far and near will be excited to utter similar sounds, and all the shore seems alive with them.

However, I do not as yet succeed to see one make this sound. Then there may be another pause of fifteen or thirty minutes.

The Rana palustris leaves a peculiar strong scent on the hand, which reminds me of days when I went a-fishing for pickerel and used a frog's leg for bait. When I try to think what it smells like, I am inclined to say that it might be the bark of some plant. It is disagreeable.

Some are in the water, others on the shore. - I do not see a single R. halecina. What has become of the thousands with which the meadows swarmed a month ago? They have given place to the R. palustris. Only their spawn, mostly hatched and dissolving, remains, and I expect to detect the spawn of the palustris soon.

I find many apparent young bullfrogs in the shaded pools on the Island Neck. Probably R. fontinalis. There is one good-sized bullfrog among them. This probably the first bullfrog of the season.

The toads are so numerous, some sitting on all sides, that their ring is a continuous sound throughout the day and night, if it is warm enough, as it now is, except perhaps in the morning. It is as uninterrupted to the ear as the rippling breeze or the circulations of the air itself, for when it dies away on one side it swells again on another, and if it should suddenly cease all men would exclaim at the pause, though they might not have noticed the sound itself.

It occurs to me that that early purple grass on pools corresponds to the color of leaves acquired after the frosts in the fall, as if the cold had, after all, more to do with it than is supposed. As the tops of the Juncus filiformis are red, and the first Lysimachia quadrifolia red-brown.

As I sit above the Island, waiting for the Rana palustris to croak, I see many minnows from three quarters to two inches long, but mostly about one inch. They have that distinct black line along each side from eye to tail on a somewhat transparent brownish body, dace-like, and a very sharply forked tail. When were they hatched? Certainly two or three months ago, at least; perhaps last year. Is it not the brook minnow?

I also hear the myrtle-birds on the Island woods. Their common note is somewhat like the chill-lill or jingle of the F. hyemalis.

Ephemerae quite common over the water.

Suddenly a large hawk sailed over from the Assabet, which at first I took for a hen-harrier, it was so neat a bird and apparently not very large. It was a fish hawk, with a very conspicuous white crown or head and a uniform brown above elsewhere; beneath white, breast and belly. Probably it was the male, which is the smaller and whiter beneath. A wedge-shaped tail. He alighted on a dead elm limb on Prichard’s ground, and at this distance, with my glass, I could see some dark of head above the white of throat or breast. He was incessantly looking about as if on his guard.

After fifteen minutes came a crow from the Assabet and alighted cawing, about twenty rods from him, and ten minutes later another. How alert they are to detect these great birds of prey! They do not thus pursue ordinary hawks, and their attendance alone might suggest to unskillful observers the presence of a fish hawk or eagle. Some crows up the Assabet evidently knew that he was sitting on that elm far away.

He sailed low almost directly over my boat, fishing. His wings had not obviously that angular form which I thought those of another had the other day.

The old Salix sericea is now all alive with the hum of honey-bees. This would show that it is in bloom. I see and hear one bumblebee among them, inaugurating summer with his deep bass. May it be such a summer to me as it suggests. It sounds a little like mockery, however, to cheat me again with the promise of such tropical opportunities. I have learned to suspect him, as I do all fortune-tellers. But no sound so brings round the summer again.

It is like the drum of May training. This reminds me that men and boys and the most enlightened communities still love to march after the beating of a drum, as do the most aboriginal of savages.

Two sternothaeruses which I catch emit no scent yet.

Hear a thrasher.

Hear that a shad-bush is out at Lee’s Cliff.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 1, 1858

Their ring is a continuous sound throughout the day and night, as uninterrupted to the ear as the rippling breeze or the circulations of the air itself, for when it dies away on one side it swells again on another, and if it should suddenly cease all men would exclaim at the pause, though they might not have noticed the sound itself. See May 1, 1857 ("There is a cool and breezy south wind, and the ring of the first toad leaks into the general stream of sound, unnoticed by most . . . ")

Early purple grass on pools corresponds to the color of leaves acquired after the frosts in the fall. See note to  May 1, 1856 ("How pleasing that early purple grass in smooth water! Half a dozen long, straight purple blades of different lengths but about equal width, close together and exactly parallel, resting flat on the surface of the water. There is something agreeable in their parallelism and flatness.")

Two sternothaeruses which I catch emit no scent yet. See April 1, 1858 ("I see six Sternothaerus odoratus in the river thus early. . . .. I took up and smelt of five of these, and they emitted none of their peculiar scent!”); June 16, 1858 (“Two sternothaerus which I smell of have no scent to-day.”)  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musk Turtle (Sternothaerus odoratus )

I do not see a single R. halecina. What has become of the thousands with which the meadows swarmed a month ago? See  April 3, 1858 ("This might be called the Day of the Snoring Frogs, or the Awakening of the Meadows") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Leopard Frog (Rana Halecina) in Spring

The ring of the toad.

May 1. 

Friday. 2 p.m. — First notice the ring of the toad, as I am crossing the Common in front of the meeting-house. 

There is a cool and breezy south wind, and the ring of the first toad leaks into the general stream of sound, unnoticed by most, as the mill-brook empties into the river and the voyager cannot tell if he is above or below its mouth. The bell was ringing for town meeting, and every one heard it, but none heard this older and more universal bell, rung by more native Americans all the land over. It is a sound from amid the waves of the aerial sea, that breaks on our ears with the surf of the air, a sound that is almost breathed with the wind, taken into the lungs instead of being heard by the ears. It comes from far over or through the troughs of the aerial sea, like a petrel, and who can guess by what pool the singer sits? whether behind the meeting-house horse-sheds, or from over the burying- ground hill, or from the riverside? 

A new reign has commenced. Bufo the First has ascended to his throne, the surface of the earth, led into office by the south wind. Bufo the Double-chinned inflates his throat. Attend to his message. Take off your greatcoats, swains! and prepare for the summer campaign. Hop a few paces further toward your goals. The measures I shall advocate are warmth, moisture, and low-flying insects. 

White-throated sparrow in shrub oaks by Walden road. 

Is that moss with little green pendulous fruit on reddish stems Bryum pyriform? 

Apparently a skunk has picked up what I took to be the dead shrew in the Goose Pond Path. How they ransack the paths these nights ! The ground is spotted with their probings. 

Plucked the Arum triphyllum, three inches high, with its acrid corm (solid bulb), from the edge of Saw Mill Brook. 

It is foolish for a man to accumulate material wealth chiefly, houses and land. Our stock in life, our real estate, is that amount of thought which we have had, which we have thought out. The ground we have thus created is forever pasturage for our thoughts. I fall back on to visions which I have had. What else adds to my possessions and makes me rich in all lands? If you have ever done any work with these finest tools, the imagination and fancy and reason, it is a new creation, independent on the world, and a possession forever. You have laid up something against a rainy day. You have to that extent cleared the wilderness. Is a house but a gall on the face of the earth, a nidus which some insect has provided for its young?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 1, 1857

Apparently a skunk has picked up what I took to be the dead shrew in the Goose Pond Path. See July 31, 1856 ("Another short-tailed shrew dead in the wood-path."); July 12, 1856 (“I have found them thus three or four times before. . . .Have I not commonly noticed them dead after rain?”)

Plucked the Arum triphyllum, three inches high, with its acrid corm. See May 19, 1851 ("Find the Arum triphyllum and the nodding trillium, or wake-robin, in Conant's Swamp.")

A Book of the Seasons: May 1. (flowers and birdsong, early purple grass, ovenbird, ruby-crowned wren, thrasher, myrtle-birds, violets, the ring of the toad)

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

May 1.

We have poetry –

flowers and the song of birds, 

before woods leaf out.

May 1, 1852

May 1, 2014

Sunday. A cold northwest wind. Now, on my return to Concord, I am struck by the increased greenness of the country, or landscape. May 1, 1853

There is an unaccountable sweetness as of flowers in the air, — a true May day. May 1, 1855

We have, then, flowers and the song of birds before the woods leaf out, – like poetry. May 1, 1852

Why have the white pines at a distance that silvery look around their edges or thin parts? Is it owing to the wind showing the under sides of the needles? Methinks you do not see it in the winter.  May 1, 1855

What various brilliant and evanescent colors on the surface of this agitated water, now, as we are crossing Willow Bay, looking toward the half-concealed sun over the foam-spotted flood! It reminds me of the sea.  May 1, 1855

The water is strewn with myriads of wrecked shad-flies, erect on the surface, with their wings up like so many schooners all headed one way. What an abundance of food they must afford to the fishes! May 1, 1854

Suddenly a large hawk sailed over from the Assabet . . . It was a fish hawk, with a very conspicuous white crown or head and a uniform brown above elsewhere; beneath white, breast and belly. Probably it was the male, which is the smaller and whiter beneath. A wedge-shaped tail. He alighted on a dead elm limb. May 1, 1858

After fifteen minutes came a crow from the Assabet and alighted cawing, about twenty rods from him [an osprey in an elm], and ten minutes later another. How alert they are to detect these great birds of prey! May 1, 1858

A partridge bursts away from under the rock below me on quivering wings. May 1, 1852

The maples of Potter’s Swamp, seen now nearly half a mile off against the russet or reddish hillside, are a very dull scarlet, like Spanish brown, but one against a green pine wood is much brighter. May 1, 1855 

From the hilltop I look over Wheeler’s maple swamp. The maple-tops are now, I should say, a bright brick red. It is the red maple’s reign now. May 1, 1856

The sugar maple keys (or buds?) hang down one inch, quite. May 1, 1860 

The viburnum (Lentago or nudum) leaves unexpectedly forward at the Cliff Brook and about Miles Swamp. May 1, 1854

The climbing fern is persistent, i. e. retains its greenness still, though now partly brown and withered. May 1, 1859

How pleasing that early purple grass in smooth water! May 1, 1856

It occurs to me that that early purple grass on pools corresponds to the color of leaves acquired after the frosts in the fall, as if the cold had, after all, more to do with it than is supposed. May 1, 1858

As we sit on the steep hillside south of Nut Meadow Brook Crossing, we notice a remarkable whirlwind on a small scale, which carries up the oak leaves from that Island copse in the meadow.  May 1, 1859

Off and up they go

high into the clear blue deeps.

The flight of the leaves.

May 1, 1859

Apparently a skunk has picked up what I took to be the dead shrew in the Goose Pond Path. How they ransack the paths these nights ! May 1, 1857

I think I heard an oven-bird just now, - wicher wicher whicher wich.  May 1, 1852

Did I not see the oven-bird yesterday? May 1, 1853

Hear a golden-crested wren at Cedar Swamp .May 1, 1854

Hear the ruby-crowned wren. May 1, 1859

See a thrasher. May 1, 1859 

Hear a thrasher. May 1, 1858.

I hear the first towhee finch. He says to-wee, to-wee, and another, much farther off than I supposed when I went in search of him, says whip your ch-r-r-r-r-r-r, with a metallic ring. May 1, 1852

I hear a black and white creeper at the Cliffs, and a chewink. May 1, 1853.  See and hear chewink. May 1, 1859

I also hear the myrtle-birds on the Island woods. Their common note is somewhat like the chill-lill or jingle of the F. hyemalis. May 1, 1858

The myrtle-bird is one of the commonest and tamest birds now. It catches insects like a pewee, darting off from its perch and returning to it, and sings something like a-chill chill, chill chill, chill chill, a-twear, twill twill twee, May 1, 1855

I am on the Cliff. It is about six. The flicker cackles. I hear a woodpecker tapping. The tinkle of the huckleberry-bird comes up from the shrub oak plain. May 1, 1852

The columbines have been out some days. May 1, 1853. I think that the columbine cannot be said to have blossomed there [Lee's Cliff] before to-day, — the very earliest. May 1, 1854

The scrolls of the ferns clothed in wool at Sassafras Shore, five or six inches high. May 1, 1856

Thalictrum anemonoides at Conant Cliff. May 1, 1855. 

Thalictrum anemonoides well out, probably a day or two, same shore, by the apple trees. May 1, 1856

Viola ovata on southwest side of hill, high up near pines. May 1, 1856.

 Viola ovata (Ellen Emerson found it April 20th), May 1, 1853

At Clamshell, the Viola blanda. I do not look for pollen. May 1, 1855

Have we the Viola lanceolata? May 1, 1853

Plucked the Arum triphyllum, three inches high, with its acrid corm (solid bulb), from the edge of Saw Mill Brook. May 1, 1857

Looking from Clamshell over Hosmer's meadow, about half covered with water, see hundreds of turtles, chiefly picta, now first lying out in numbers on the brown pieces of meadow which rise above the water. . . . All up and down our river meadows their backs are shining in the sun to-day. It is a turtle day. May 1, 1859

Two sternothaeruses which I catch emit no scent yet. May 1, 1858

Snakes are now common on warm banks. May 1, 1854

See a little snake on the dry twigs and chips in the sun, near the arbutus, apparently Coluber amamus. May 1, 1859

First notice the ring of the toad, as I am crossing the Common in front of the meeting-house. There is a cool and breezy south wind, and the ring of the first toad leaks into the general stream of sound, unnoticed by most, . . .. The bell was ringing for town meeting, and every one heard it, but It is a sound from amid the waves of the aerial sea, that breaks on our ears with the surf of the air, a sound that is almost breathed with the wind. May 1, 1857

The toads are so numerous, some sitting on all sides, that their ring is a continuous sound throughout the day and night, . . .as uninterrupted to the ear as the rippling breeze or the circulations of the air itself, for when it dies away on one side it swells again on another, and if it should suddenly cease all men would exclaim at the pause, though they might not have noticed the sound itself. May 1, 1858

I find many apparent young bullfrogs in the shaded pools on the Island Neck. Probably R. fontinalis. May 1, 1858 

A warm and pleasant day, reminding me of the 3d of April when the R. halecina waked up so suddenly and generally, and now, as then, apparently a new, allied frog is almost equally wide awake, — the one of last evening (and before). May 1, 1858

I do not see a single R. halecina. What has become of the thousands with which the meadows swarmed a month ago? They have given place to the R. palustris. Only their spawn, mostly hatched and dissolving, remains, and I expect to detect the spawn of the palustris soon. May 1, 1858 

As I sit above the Island, waiting for the Rana palustris to croak, I see many minnows from three quarters to two inches long, but mostly about one inch. They have that distinct black line along each side from eye to tail on a somewhat transparent brownish body. May 1, 1858

The inhabitants of the river are peculiarly wide awake this warm day, — fishes, frogs, and toads, from time to time, — and quite often I hear a tremendous rush of a pickerel after his prey. They are peculiarly active, maybe after the Rana palustris, now breeding. It is a perfect frog and toad day. May 1, 1858

I get sight of ten

or twelve Rana palustris

and catch three of them.

May 1, 1858

I hear the wood thrush, which still thrills me, - a sound to be heard in a new country ,- from one side of a clearing. May 1, 1852

Leaving the woods I hear the hooting of an owl, which sounds very much like a clown calling to his team. May 1, 1852

*****

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Voice of the Barred Owl

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Musk Turtle (Sternothaerus odoratus )

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Green Frog in Spring (Rana Fontinalis)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The  Pickerel frog  (Rana palustris)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Ring of Toads

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Insect Hatches in Spring

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Violets

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Viburnum lentago

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Red Maple

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The White Pines

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Myrtle-bird

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Oven-bird

A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, The Black and White Creeper

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the ruby-crowned or crested wren

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Field Sparrow 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Chewink  (Rufous-sided Towhee)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Spring sounds.  Woodpeckers Tapping

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Partridge

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The American Crow

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Osprey 

May 1, 2024

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 

 April  30 < <<<<<  May 1.  >>>>> May 2

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, May 1

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2022 

We have, then, flowers and the song of birds before the woods leaf out, – like poetry. See

Spring flowers flash out,

the blossom precedes the leaf.

So with poetry.

April 28, 1852

There is an unaccountable sweetness as of flowers in the air, — a true May day. See May 6, 1855 ("that unaccountable fugacious fragrance, as of all flowers, bursting forth in air,. . .the general fragrance of the year.. . . It surpasses all particular fragrances."); May 16, 1854 ("The earth is all fragrant as one flower. ”) May 16, 1852 (“The whole earth is fragrant as a bouquet held to your nose. A fine, delicious fragrance, which will come to the senses only when it will.”).

Why have the white pines at a distance that silvery look around their edges or thin parts? See April 29, 1852 ("The pines have an appearance they have not worn before, yet not easy to describe. The mottled sunlight and shade, seen looking into the woods, is more like summer.”); May 18, 1852 ("the dark-green pines, wonderfully distinct, near and erect, with their distinct dark stems, spiring tops, regularly disposed branches, and silvery light on their needles.”). February, 5, 1852 ("The boughs, feathery boughs, of the white pines, tier above tier, reflect a silvery light against the darkness of the grove, as if both the silvery-lighted and greenish bough and the shadowy intervals of the shade behind belong to one tree.”) See also A Book of the Seasons , White Pines

It is the red maple’s reign now.  See April 24, 1857 ("I see the now red crescents of the red maples in their prime . . . above the gray stems."); April 28, 1855 ("The red maples, now in bloom, are quite handsome at a distance over the flooded meadow beyond Peter’s. The abundant wholesome gray of the trunks and stems beneath surmounted by the red or scarlet crescents.”) April 26, 1855 ("The blossoms of the red maple (some a yellowish green) are now most generally conspicuous and handsome scarlet crescents over the swamps. “);May 1, 1855 ("The maples of Potter’s Swamp, seen now nearly half a mile off against the russet or reddish hillside, are a very dull scarlet, like Spanish brown . . .”); May 7, 1854 (A spreading red maple in bloom, seen against a favorable background, as water looking down from a hillside, presenting not a dense mass of color but an open, graceful and ethereal top of light crimson or scarlet . . .”). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Red Maple

The sugar maple keys (or buds?) hang down one inch, quite. See May 6, 1860 ("Maple keys an inch and a half long."); May 10, 1852 ("Are those the young keys of sugar maples that I see?"); June 2, 1856 ("White maple keys conspicuous.”)

As we sat on the steep hillside south of Nut Meadow Brook Crossing, we noticed a remarkable whirlwind. See April 7, 1860 ("As we were ascending the hill in the road beyond College Meadow, we saw . . . a small whirlwind. . .taking up a large body of withered leaves beneath it, which were whirled about with a great rustling and carried forward with it into the meadow, frightening some hens there.”); December 11, 1858 ("A “swirl,” applied to leaves suddenly caught up by a sort of whirlwind, is a good word enough, methinks.")

The climbing fern is persistent, i. e. retains its greenness still, though now partly brown and withered. CLIMBING FERN, or Hartford Fern (Lygodium palmatum) . A species of fern found, rarely, from Massachusetts to Kentucky and southward, remarkable for climbing or twining around weeds and shrubs ~ Wikisource. See October 2, 1859 (“The climbing fern is perfectly fresh, — and apparently therefore an evergreen, — the more easily found amid the withered cinnamon and flowering ferns.”); November 30, 1851 (“The Lygodium palmatum is quite abundant on that side of the swamp, twining round the goldenrods”)

How pleasing that early purple grass in smooth water! See April 29, 1855 ("That lake grass — or perhaps I should call it purple grass — is now apparently in perfection on the water.” . . . )

Plucked the Arum triphyllum, three inches high, with its acrid corm. See May 19, 1851 ("Find the Arum triphyllum and the nodding trillium, or wake-robin, in Conant's Swamp.")f

Apparently a skunk has picked up what I took to be the dead shrew in the Goose Pond Path. See July 31, 1856 ("Another short-tailed shrew dead in the wood-path."); July 12, 1856 (“I have found them thus three or four times before. . . .Have I not commonly noticed them dead after rain?”)

I think I heard an oven-bird just now, - wicher wicher whicher wich. See April 27, 1854 (“Hear a faint sort of oven-bird's (?) note.”); May 4, 1855 (“In cut woods a small thrush, with crown inclining to rufous, tail foxy, and edges of wings dark-ash; clear white beneath. I think the golden-crowned?”); May 7, 1852 (“The first oven-bird.”); May 7, 1853 (“The woods now begin to ring with the woodland note of the oven-bird.”); May 9, 1857 (“Golden-crowned thrush note. ”); May 10, 1858 (“As I paddle along, hear the Maryland yellow-throat, the bobolink, the oven-bird, and the yellow-throated vireo.”); May 12, 1855 (“Hear an oven-bird.”); May 13, 1856 (“Also the oven-bird sings.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Oven-bird.

Snakes are now common on warm banks. See April 20, 1854 ("A striped snake on a warm, sunny bank.")

A little snake (Coluber punctatus) -- See Snakes of Massachusetts ringneck snake. Compare HDT’s other "Coluber amaenus” snakes, conforming generally to the redbelly snake (Storeria occipitomaculata occipitomaculata): October 11, 1856 (“It is apparently Coluber amaenus, the red snake. Brown above, light-red beneath, about eight inches long . . . It is a conspicuous light red beneath, then a bluish-gray line along the sides, and above this brown with a line of lighter or yellowish brown down the middle of the back.”); September 9, 1857 ("It was a dark ash-color above, with darker longitudinal lines, light brick-red beneath. There were three triangular buff spots just behind the head, one above and one each side. It is apparently Coluber amaenus”); April 29, 1858 (“A little brown snake with blackish marks along each side of back and a pink belly. Was it not the Coluber amaenus?”)

It is a turtle day. See August 28, 1856 ("Has not the great world existed for them as much as for you?”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Painted Turtle

Two sternothaeruses which I catch emit no scent yet. See April 1, 1858 ("I see six Sternothaerus odoratus in the river thus early. . . .. I took up and smelt of five of these, and they emitted none of their peculiar scent!”); June 16, 1858 (“Two sternothaerus which I smell of have no scent to-day.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musk Turtle (Sternothaerus odoratus )

Leaving the woods I hear the hooting of an owl, which sounds very much like a clown calling to his team. See November 18, 1851 (“ Now at sundown I hear the hooting of an owl, — hoo hoo hoo, hoorer hoo. It sounds like the hooting of an idiot or a maniac broke loose”)