This season of the tender foliage.

May 18.

May 18, 2020

The rhodora is one of the very latest leafing shrubs, for its leaf-buds are but just expanding, making scarcely any show yet, but quite leafless amid the blossoms. 

The Celtis occidentalis in bloom, maybe a day. Its shoots have grown two inches. It is as forward as the hickory at least; more than the elm. 

A red clover in blossom. 

A geranium budded; will open in a day or two.

Surprised to see a Ranunculus Purshii open. 

A choke-cherry blossomed in a tumbler yesterday, and probably outdoors. 

Finding the Linaria Canadensis yesterday at the Cliffs on a very close search for flowers makes me think that, by looking very carefully in the most favored and warmest localities, you may find most flowers out some weeks even in advance of the rest of their kind. 

We have had no storm this spring thus far, but it mizzles to-night.  Perchance a May storm is brewing.

This day it has mizzled  — as it were a dewy atmosphere, through which for the most part the sun shines. Methinks this is common at this season of the tender foliage, which requires a moist air and protection against the sun. 

A singular effect produced by a mass of ferns at a little distance, some rods square, their light yellow green tops seen above the dark masses of their fruit. At first one is puzzled to account for it. 

White ash fully in bloom.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 18, 1853


The rhodora is quite leafless amid the blossoms. See May 18, 1855 ("Rhodora; probably some yesterday.") May 18, 1856 ("The rhodora there maybe to-morrow. Elsewhere I find it . . . to-day."); May 18, 1857 ("Pratt says he saw the first rhodora . . . out yesterday") See also May 14, 1859 ('Rhodora out, says C."); May 17, 1853 (“The rhodora is peculiar for being, like the peach, a profusion of pink blossoms on a leafless stem. This shrub is, then, a late one to leaf out.”); May 17, 1858 ("Rhodora at Clamshell well out.”)

The Celtis occidentalis in bloom, maybe a day. Its shoots have grown two inches. See May 18, 1855 ("Celtis will probably shed pollen to-morrow; shoots already an inch long.") See also May 27, 1857 ("Celtis occidentalis, perhaps yesterday. How the staminate flowers drop off, even before opening!"); September 28, 1857 (" And they have cut down two or three of the very rare celtis trees, not found anywhere else in town. The Lord deliver us from these vandalic proprietors! The botanist and lover of nature has, perchance, discovered some rare tree which has sprung up by a farmer's wall-side to adorn and bless it, sole representative of its kind in these parts. Strangers send for a seed or a sprig from a distance, but, walking there again, he finds that the farmer has sent a raw Irishman. . . with axe and stub-scythe to exterminate it, and he will know it no more forever. . . .If some are prosecuted for abusing children, others deserve to be prosecuted for maltreating the face of nature committed to their care.")

A red clover in blossom. See June 12, 1854 (“Clover now reddens the fields.”); June 15, 1851 (“the clover gives whole fields a rich appearance, -- the rich red and the sweet-scented white. The fields are blushing with the red species as the western sky at evening.”); June 18, 1860 (“I see very distinctly the redness of a luxuriant field of clover on the top of Fair Haven Hill.”)

Finding the Linaria Canadensis yesterday at the Cliffs on a very close search for flowers makes me think that, by looking very carefully in the most favored and warmest localities, you may find most flowers out some weeks even in advance of the rest of their kind. See May 17, 1853 ("The low black berry, apparently, on Cliffs is out, earlier than else where, and Veronica arvensis, very small, obscure pale-blue flower, and, to my surprise, Linaria Canadensis."); May 22, 1855 ("Linaria Canadensis on Cliffs open.")  See also February 28, 1857 ("It takes several years' faithful search to learn where to look for the earliest flowers."); April 10, 1855 ("As for the early sedge, who would think of looking for a flower of any kind in those dry tufts whose withered blades almost entirely conceal the springing green ones? I patiently examined one tuft after another, higher and higher up the rocky hill, till at last I found one little yellow spike low in the grass which shed its pollen on my finger. As for the saxifrage, when I had given it up for to-day, having, after a long search in the warmest clefts and recesses, found only three or four buds which showed some white, I at length, on a still warmer shelf, found one flower partly expanded, and its common peduncle had shot up an inch. These few earliest flowers in these situations have the same sort of interest with the arctic flora, for they are remote and unobserved and often surrounded with snow.") And see A Book of  the Seasons,, by Henry Thoreau, the Earliest Flower

This season of the tender foliage, See A Book of  the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 18

Perchance a May storm is brewing. See May 17, 1852 ("Now the sun has come out after the May storm, how bright, how full of freshness and tender promise and fragrance is the new world!"); May 17, 1853 ("Does not summer begin after the May storm?”); May 19, 1853 ("A May storm, gentle and rather warm");  May 22, 1857 ("When the May storm is over, then the summer is fairly begun.");May 22, 1858 ("Something like this annually occurs. After this May storm the sun bursts forth . . . and we seem to have taken a long stride into summer.")

I hear of young song sparrows and young robins

May 18. 

May 18, 2019

Surveying for Stow in Lincoln. 

Two-leaved Solomon's-seal. 

I hear of young song sparrows and young robins since the 16th. 

That handsome spawn of Ed. Emerson's aquarium — minute transparent ova in a double row on the glass or the stones — turns out to be snail-spawn, it having just hatched, and there was no salamander-spawn, as I thought on the 18th of April. Not Paludina decisa, but the smaller and simpler one.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 18, 1859

Two-leaved Solomon's-seal. May 13, 1855 (" The brook in Yellow Birch Swamp is very handsome now — broad and full, with the light-green hellebore eighteen inches high and the small two-leaved Solomon’s-seal about it, in the open wood.”); May 21, 1856 ("The Polygonatum pubescens there, in shade, almost out; perhaps elsewhere already.”); May 26, 1855 ("Two-leaved Solomon’s-seal pollen not long in most places.”); May 30, 1857 ("two-leaved Solomon's-seal out, . . . abundant.”)

That handsome spawn of Ed. Emerson's aquarium See April 18, 1859 (“Ed. Emerson shows me his aquarium.”)

Fifteen inches east of our line.

May 18. 

May 18, 2018

Set an arbor-vitae hedge fifteen inches east of our line; about twenty inches high.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 18, 1858

A wild apple tree in an old cellar-hole.

May 18. 

                                                           MAY 18, 2017

P. M. — To Bateman's Pond via Yellow Birch Swamp with Pratt. 

Pratt says he saw the first rhodora and cultivated pear out yesterday. 

Many are now setting out pines and other evergreens, transplanting some wildness into the neighborhood of their houses. I do not know of a white pine that has been set out twenty-five years in the town. It is a new fashion. 

Judging from the flowering of such of the plants as I notice, this is a backward season. 

There is a very grand and picturesque old yellow birch in the old cellar northwest the yellow birch swamp. Though this stands out in open land, it does not shed its pollen yet, and its catkins are not much more than half elongated, but it is very beautiful as it is, with its dark-yellowish tassels variegated with brown. 

Yet in the swamp westerly the yellow birches are in full bloom, and many catkins strew the ground. They are four or five inches long when in bloom. They begin to shed their pollen at the base of the catkin, as, I think, other birches do. 

In the yellow birch and ash swamp west of big yellow birch, I hear the fine note of cherry-birds, much like that of young partridges, and see them on the ash trees. 

Viola Muhlenbergii abundantly out, how long? 

The fever-bush in this swamp is very generally killed, at least the upper part, so that it has not blossomed. This is especially the case in the swamp; on higher ground, though exposed, it is in better condition. It appears to have been killed in the spring, for you see the unexpanded flower-buds quite conspicuous. 

Pratt shows me the fringed gentian stems by a swamp northeast of Bateman's Pond, but we find no traces of a new plant, and I think it must be annual there. 

The violet wood-sorrel is apparently later than the Oxalis stricta, not now so forward, lower, and darker green, only a few of the leaves showing that purplish mark. 

Hear the pepe, how long? 

In woods close behind Easterbrook's place, whence it probably strayed, several Canada plums now in bloom, showing the pink. Interesting to see a wild apple tree in the old cellar there, though with a forward caterpillar's nest on it. Call it Malus cellaris, that grows in an old cellar-hole.

Pedicularis, some time. 

The blossom-buds of the Cornus florida have been killed when an eighth of an inch in diameter, and are black within and fall on the least touch or jar; all over the town. There is a large tree on the further side the ravine near Bateman's Pond and another by some beeches on the rocky hillside a quarter of a mile northeast. 

In the swampy meadow north of this Pratt says he finds the calla. 

The Rubus triflorus is well out there on the hummocks. 

The white ash is not yet out in most favorable places.

The red huckleberry looks more forward — blossom-buds more swollen — than those of common there.

Some high blueberry. 

Pratt has found perfectly white Viola pedata behind Easterbrook place, and cultivated them, but now lost them. 

Says he saw two "black" snakes intertwined (copulating ?) yesterday.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 18, 1857

Pratt says he saw the first rhodora out yesterday. See  May 18, 1853 ("The rhodora is one of the very latest leafing shrubs, for its leaf-buds are but just expanding, making scarcely any show yet, but quite leafless amid the blossoms");  May 18, 1855 ("Rhodora; probably some yesterday.") May 18, 1856 ("The rhodora there [Kalmia Swamp] maybe to-morrow. Elsewhere I find it (on Hubbard’s meadow) to-day. ") See also May 14, 1859 ('Rhodora out, says C.")

Viola Muhlenbergii abundantly out, how long? See May 22, 1856 ("Viola Muhlenbergii . . . abundantly out; how long? A small pale-blue flower growing in dense bunches,”)

The yellow birches are in full bloom, and many catkins strew the ground. They are four or five inches long when in bloom. See May 17, 1857 ("The yellow birch catkins . . .hanging straight down at a height from the ground on the end of the pendulous branches, amid the just expanding leaf-buds. ") ; May 5, 1859 (“ You see a great tree all hung with long yellow or golden tassels at the end of its slender, drooping spray, in clusters at intervals of a few inches or a foot. These are all dangling and incessantly waving in the wind, — a great display of lively blossoms (lively both by their color and motion) without a particle of leaf”); See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  the Yellow Birch 

Pratt says he finds the calla. See June 7, 1857 (“Pratt has got the Calla palustris, in prime. . .from the bog near Bateman's Pond”); June 9, 1857 (“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." ”); July 2, 1957 (" Calla palustris . . . at the south end of Gowing's Swamp. Having found this in one place, I now find it in another.”); September 4, 1857 (To Baeman’s Pond . . .Arum berries ripe.”)

Pratt has found perfectly white Viola pedata . . . but now lost them. See May 18, 1854 ("The V. pedata beginning to be abundant. "). May 20, 1852 ("the V. pedata is smooth and pale-blue, delicately tinged with purple reflections").

Judging from the flowering of such of the plants as I notice, this is a backward season. The white ash is not yet out in most favorable places. See May 18, 1853 ("White ash fully in bloom.")

A wild apple tree

grows in an old cellar-hole –

Malus cellaris.

A Book of the Seasons: May 18 (tender green foliage, abundant violets, young birds, summer-like days, the world can never be more beautiful)

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 18

This tender fresh green --

the world can never be more

beautiful than now.

May 18, 1852

Sunny yellow-green

light and life in the landscape.

This beautiful world.

May 18,1852

May 18, 2019

 I still sit on its Cliff in a new spring day

and look over the awakening woods and the river

and hear the new birds sing

with the same delight as ever.

It is as sweet a mystery to me as ever,

what this world is.

Henry Thoreau,

 May 1850

It seems to take but one summer day to fetch the summer in. May 18, 1851

The shrub oaks are now blossoming . May 18, 1851

Chinquapin was probably a little later to leaf, and will be to flower, than the shrub oak. May 18, 1854

The oak leaves of all colors are just expanding, and are more beautiful than most flowers. May 18, 1851

The hickory buds are almost leaves May 18, 1851

By looking very carefully in the most favored and warmest localities, you may find most flowers out some weeks even in advance of the rest of their kind. May 18, 1853

The rhodora is one of the very latest leafing shrubs, for its leaf-buds are but just expanding, making scarcely any show yet, but quite leafless amid the blossoms. May 18, 1853

Viola lanceolata, two days at least. May 18, 1854

The V. pedata beginning to be abundant. May 18, 1854

E. Emerson finds half a dozen yellow violets. May 18, 1856

Viola Muhlenbergii abundantly out, how long? May 18, 1857

A red clover in blossom. May 18, 1853

Sorrel pollen. May 18, 1855

The violet wood-sorrel is apparently later than the Oxalis stricta, not now so forward, lower, and darker green, only a few of the leaves showing that purplish mark. May 18, 1857

Surprised to see a Ranunculus Purshii open. May 18, 1853

Lady’s-slipper almost fully blossomed. May 18, 1851

Two-leaved Solomon's-seal. May 18, 1859

I think that I have made out two kinds of poplar, — the Populus tremuloides or American aspen, and the P. grandidentata , or large American aspen, whose young leaves are downy. May 18, 1851

The blooming of the apple trees is becoming general. May 18, 1851

Interesting to see a wild apple tree in the old cellar there, though with a forward caterpillar's nest on it. Call it Malus cellars, that grows in an old cellar-hole. May 18, 1857

There is a very grand and picturesque old yellow birch in the old cellar northwest the yellow birch swamp. May 18, 1857

The yellow birches are in full bloom, and many catkins strew the ground. They are four or five inches long when in bloom. May 18, 1857

In the yellow birch and ash swamp west of big yellow birch, I hear the fine note of cherry-birds, much like that of young partridges, and see them on the ash trees. May 18, 1857

First veery strain. May 18, 1855

The scarlet tanagers are come. May 18, 1851

The swamp is all alive with warblers about the hoary expanding buds of oaks, maples, etc., and amid the pine and spruce. They swarm like gnats now. They fill the air with their little tshree tshree sprayey notes. May 18, 1856

The birds are in full blast. May 18, 1851

The night-warbler is a powerful singer for so small a bird. It launches into the air above the forest, or over some hollow or open space in the woods, and challenges the attention of the woods by its rapid and impetuous warble, and then drops down swiftly into the tree-tops like a performer withdrawing behind the scenes, and he is very lucky who detects where it alights. May 18, 1860

A Sylvia Americana, — parti-colored warbler, — in the Holden Wood, sings a, tshrea tshrea tshrea, tshre’ tshritty tshrit’. .May 18, 1856

A female goldfinch on an oak . . . When I get over the fence, a flock of twenty or more, male and female, rise from amid the stubble, and, alighting on the oaks, sing pleasantly all together, in a lively manner. May 18, 1856

Observe a blackbird’s (red-wing’s) nest finished. May 18, 1855

At Clamshell a bay-wing sparrow’s nest, four eggs (young half hatched) May 18, 1855

I hear of young song sparrows and young robins since the 16th. May 18, 1859

See the yellow-legs feeding on shore. May 18, 1855

Hear a tree-toad.  May 18, 1856

The clump of golden willows west of new stone bridge is very handsome now seen from hill, with its light-yellowish foliage, because the stems of the trees are seen through it.  May 18, 1855

A singular effect produced by a mass of ferns at a little distance, some rods square, their light yellow green tops seen above the dark masses of their fruit. May 18, 1853 

The deciduous trees are springing, to countenance the pines, which are evergreen. May 18, 1851.

There is a peculiar freshness about the landscape; you scent the fragrance of new leaves. May 18, 1851

To the eye the forest presents the tenderest green. May 18, 1851

The landscape has a new life and light infused into it. May 18, 1851

The landscape is most beautiful looking towards the sun . . . at four. May 18, 1852

This tender foliage, putting so much light and life into the landscape, is the remarkable feature at this date. The week when the deciduous trees are generally and conspicuously expanding their leaves.  May 18, 1852

Combined with the tender fresh green, you have this remarkable clearness of the air. I doubt if the landscape will be any greener. May 18, 1852

  
The world can never be more beautiful than now. May 18, 1852

We have had no storm this spring thus far, but it mizzles to-night. Perchance a May storm is brewing. May 18, 1853

The turning-point between winter and summer is reached. May 18, 1851

*****

May 18, 2019

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Reminiscence and Prompting

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

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

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Earliest Flower

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Spring Leaf-out

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Aspens

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Big-toothed Aspen

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Yellow Birch

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Veery(Wilson's thrush)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Tree-toad

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Scarlet Tanager

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Parti-Colored (Parula) Warbler (Sylvia Americana)

May 18, 2018

The Celtis occidentalis in bloom, maybe a day. Its shoots have grown two inches. See May 18, 1855 ("Celtis will probably shed pollen to-morrow; shoots already an inch long.") See also May 27, 1857 ("Celtis occidentalis, perhaps yesterday. How the staminate flowers drop off, even before opening!"); September 28, 1857 (" And they have cut down two or three of the very rare celtis trees, not found anywhere else in town. The Lord deliver us from these vandalic proprietors! The botanist and lover of nature has, perchance, discovered some rare tree which has sprung up by a farmer's wall-side to adorn and bless it, sole representative of its kind in these parts. Strangers send for a seed or a sprig from a distance, but, walking there again, he finds that the farmer has sent a raw Irishman. . . with axe and stub-scythe to exterminate it, and he will know it no more forever. . . .If some are prosecuted for abusing children, others deserve to be prosecuted for maltreating the face of nature committed to their care.")

Finding the Linaria Canadensis yesterday at the Cliffs on a very close search for flowers makes me think that, by looking very carefully in the most favored and warmest localities, you may find most flowers out some weeks even in advance of the rest of their kind. See May 17, 1853 ("The low black berry, apparently, on Cliffs is out, earlier than else where, and Veronica arvensis, very small, obscure pale-blue flower, and, to my surprise, Linaria Canadensis."); May 22, 1855 ("Linaria Canadensis on Cliffs open.") See also February 28, 1857 ("It takes several years' faithful search to learn where to look for the earliest flowers."); April 10, 1855 ("As for the early sedge, who would think of looking for a flower of any kind in those dry tufts whose withered blades almost entirely conceal the springing green ones? I patiently examined one tuft after another, higher and higher up the rocky hill, till at last I found one little yellow spike low in the grass which shed its pollen on my finger. As for the saxifrage, when I had given it up for to-day, having, after a long search in the warmest clefts and recesses, found only three or four buds which showed some white, I at length, on a still warmer shelf, found one flower partly expanded, and its common peduncle had shot up an inch. These few earliest flowers in these situations have the same sort of interest with the arctic flora, for they are remote and unobserved and often surrounded with snow.") And see A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Earliest Flower


Two-leaved Solomon's-seal. May 13, 1855 (" The brook in Yellow Birch Swamp is very handsome now — broad and full, with the light-green hellebore eighteen inches high and the small two-leaved Solomon’s-seal about it, in the open wood.”); May 26, 1855 ("Two-leaved Solomon’s-seal pollen not long in most places.”); May 30, 1857 ("two-leaved Solomon's-seal out, . . . abundant.”)

That handsome spawn of Ed. Emerson's aquarium See April 18, 1859 (“Ed. Emerson shows me his aquarium.”)

The rhodora is quite leafless amid the blossoms. See  May 18, 1855 ("Rhodora; probably some yesterday.") May 18, 1856 ("The rhodora there maybe to-morrow. Elsewhere I find it . . . to-day."); May 18, 1857 ("Pratt says he saw the first rhodora . . . out yesterday") See also May 14, 1859 ('Rhodora out, says C."); May 17, 1853 (“The rhodora is peculiar for being, like the peach, a profusion of pink blossoms on a leafless stem. This shrub is, then, a late one to leaf out.”); May 17, 1858 ("Rhodora at Clamshell well out.”)

Viola Muhlenbergii abundantly out, how long? See May 22, 1856 ("Viola Muhlenbergii . . . abundantly out; how long? A small pale-blue flower growing in dense bunches,”)

A red clover in blossom. See June 12, 1854 (“Clover now reddens the fields.”); June 15, 1851 (“the clover gives whole fields a rich appearance, -- the rich red and the sweet-scented white. The fields are blushing with the red species as the western sky at evening.”); June 18, 1860 (“I see very distinctly the redness of a luxuriant field of clover on the top of Fair Haven Hill.”)

Pratt says he finds the calla. See June 7, 1857 (“Pratt has got the Calla palustris, in prime. . .from the bog near Bateman's Pond”); June 9, 1857 (“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." ”); July 2, 1957 (" Calla palustris . . . at the south end of Gowing's Swamp. Having found this in one place, I now find it in another.”); September 4, 1857 (To Baeman’s Pond . . .Arum berries ripe.”)

Pratt has found perfectly white Viola pedata . . . but now lost them. See May 18, 1854 ("The V. pedata beginning to be abundant. "). May 20, 1852 ("the V. pedata is smooth and pale-blue, delicately tinged with purple reflections").

Judging from the flowering of such of the plants as I notice, this is a backward season. The white ash is not yet out in most favorable places. See May 18, 1853 ("White ash fully in bloom.")

The scarlet tanagers are come. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Scarlet Tanager

The swamp is all alive with warblers.  They fill the air with their little tshree tshree sprayey notes. See April 19, 1854 ("Within a few days the warblers have begun to come. They are of every hue. Nature made them to show her colors with. There are as many as there are colors and shades. "); May 7, 1852 ("For now, before the leaves, they begin to people the trees in this warm weather. The first wave of summer from the south."); May 15, 1860 ("Deciduous woods now swarm with migrating warblers, especially about swamps.”); May 23, 1857 ("about the edges of the swamps in the woods, these birds are flitting about in the tree-tops like gnats, catching the insects about the expanding leaf-buds");May 28, 1855 ("I have seen within three or four days two or three new warblers “)

Tell tale, great yellow-legs. See May 31, 1854 ( "It acts the part of a telltale." "watchful, but not timid, ... while it stands on the lookout ... wades in the water to the middle of its yellow legs; goes off with a loud and sharp phe phe phe phe. ...")

The clump of golden willows west of new stone bridge is very handsome now seen from hill, with its light-yellowish foliage. See May 18, 1853 ("A singular effect produced by a mass of ferns at a little distance, some rods square, their light yellow green tops seen above the dark masses of their fruit.")

The yellow birches are in full bloom, and many catkins strew the ground. They are four or five inches long when in bloom. See May 17, 1857 ("The yellow birch catkins . . . hanging straight down at a height from the ground on the end of the pendulous branches, amid the just expanding leaf-buds."); May 5, 1859 (“ You see a great tree all hung with long yellow or golden tassels at the end of its slender, drooping spray, in clusters at intervals of a few inches or a foot. These are all dangling and incessantly waving in the wind, — a great display of lively blossoms (lively both by their color and motion) without a particle of leaf”);  

Viola lanceolata, two days at least. V. pedata beginning to be abundant. See May 5, 1859 (V. pedata and lanceolata rarer yet, or not seen. ”); May 6, 1855 (“Viola lanceolata,yesterday at least. ”); May 6, 1859 ("Viola pedata begins to be common about white pine woods there.”) May 13, 1858 ( Viola lanceolata, how long?”); May 17, 1853 ("tV. pedata there [by the Corner Spring] presents the greatest array of blue of any flower as yet.“);

This tender foliage, putting so much light and life into the landscape. See May 18, 1851("The landscape has a new life and light infused into it. And to the eye the forest presents the tenderest green.")

The world can never be more beautiful than now. See May 1850 ("I still sit on its Cliff in a new spring day, and look over the awakening woods and the river, and hear the new birds sing, with the same delight as ever. It is as sweet a mystery to me as ever, what this world is. . . ."); May 5, 1852 ("Every part of the world is beautiful today.”); May 17, 1852 ("I was surprised, on turning round, to behold the serene and everlasting beauty of the world. “); May 22, 1854 ("How many times I have been surprised thus, on turning about on this very spot, at the fairness of the earth!”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

The landscape has a new life and light infused into it. And to the eye the forest presents the tenderest green. See May 17, 1854 (“The wooded shore is all lit up with the tender, bright green of birches fluttering in the wind and shining in the light”); see also May 19, 1860 (“See a green snake, a very vivid yellow green, of the same color with the tender foliage at present, and as if his colors had been heightened by the rain.”)

Perchance a May storm is brewing. See May 17, 1852 ("Now the sun has come out after the May storm, how bright, how full of freshness and tender promise and fragrance is the new world!"); May 17, 1853 ("Does not summer begin after the May storm?”); May 19, 1853 ("A May storm, gentle and rather warm"); May 20, 1853 ("The 18th and 19th a rather gentle and warm May storm, more rain, methinks, than we have had before this spring at one time."); May 22, 1857 ("When the May storm is over, then the summer is fairly begun."); May 22, 1858 ("Something like this annually occurs. After this May storm the sun bursts forth . . . and we seem to have taken a long stride into summer.")

The turning-point between winter and summer is reached. Compare March 30, 1860 ("[Y]ou seem to be crossing the threshold between winter and summer. As I walk the street I realize that a new season has arrived.”)

May, 18, 2020

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 

 

 May 17 < <<<<<  May 18  >>>>> May 19

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 18 

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 © 2009-2022

Kalmia swamp is all alive with warblers

May 18. 

MAY 18, 2016

Ed. Emerson says he saw at Medford yesterday many ground-birds’ nests and eggs under apple trees. R. W. E.’s black currant (which the wild Ribes floridum is said to be much like), maybe a day. R. W. E. says that Agassiz tells him he has had turtles six or seven years, which grew so little, compared with others of the same size killed at first, that he thinks they may live four or five hundred years.

P. M. — To Kalmia Swamp. 

Go across fields from R. W. E.’s to my boat at Cardinal Shore. 

In A. Wheeler’s stubble-field west of Deep Cut, a female (?) goldfinch on an oak, without any obvious black, is mewing incessantly, the note ending rather musically. When I get over the fence, a flock of twenty or more, male and female, rise from amid the stubble, and, alighting on the oaks, sing pleasantly all together, in a lively manner. 

Going along the Spring Path, hear an oft-repeated tchip tchar, tchip tchar, etc., or tchip tcharry (this is a common note with birds) from a large bird on a tree top, a sort of flaxen olive. Made me think of a female rose-breasted grosbeak, though we thought the beak more slender. 

On the surface of the water amid the maples, on the Holden Wood shore where I landed, I noticed some of the most splendid iridescence or opalescence from some oily matter, where the water was smooth amid the maples, that I ever saw. It was where some sucker or other fish, perchance, had decayed. 

The colors are intense blue and crimson, with dull golden. The whole at first covering seven or eight inches, but broken by the ripples I have made into polygonal figures like the fragments of a most wonderfully painted mirror. These fragments, drift and turn about, apparently, as stifily on the surface as if they were as thick and strong as glass. 

The colors are in many places sharply defined in fine lines, making unaccountable figures, as if they were produced by a sudden crystallization. How much color or expression can reside in so thin a substance! 

With such accompaniments does a sucker die and mix his juices with the river. This beauty like the rainbow and sunset sky marks the spot where his body has mingled with the elements. 

A somewhat similar beauty reappears painted on the clam’s shell. Even a dead sucker suggests a beauty and so a glory of its own. I leaned over the edge of my boat and admired it as much as ever I did a rainbow or sunset sky. The colors were not faint, but strong and fiery, if not angry. 

Found a young turtle about two inches long of a flat roundish form, with scales as rough as usual, but a dull reddish or yellowish spot in middle of each scale, and edges beneath were also a pinkish red. Can it be a young yellow-spot? 

I have not noticed a tree sparrow since December! 

A Sylvia Americana, — parti-colored warbler, — in the Holden Wood, sings a, tshrea tshrea tshrea, tshre’ tshritty tshrit’. 

One low Kalmia glauca, before any rhodora there-abouts. Several kalmias, no doubt, to-morrow. 

The rhodora there maybe to-morrow. Elsewhere I find it (on Hubbard’s meadow) to-day. 

The swamp is all alive with warblers about the hoary expanding buds of oaks, maples, etc., and amid the pine and spruce. They swarm like gnats now. They fill the air with their little tshree tshree sprayey notes. 

I see close by, hopping close up to the main stem of young white pines, what you would call a Maryland yellow-throat, but less chubby, yellow throat, beneath, and vent, and dark under tail, black side; but hear no note. 

Also another clear pure white beneath, and vent, and side—head; black above, finely marked with yellow; yellow bars on wings; and golden crown; black bill and legs; with a clear, sweet warble like take tche tche, tchut tch utter we. Can this be a chestnut-sided warbler, and I not see the chestnut? Hopping amid oak twigs?

I think I hear a yellow-throated vireo. Hear a tree-toad. 

Sail back on Hubbard’s redstart path, and there see a mud turtle draw in his head, . . .

E. Emerson finds half a dozen yellow violets. A hair bird’s nest building. I hear whip-poor-wills about R. W. E.’s.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 18, 1856

A female goldfinch on an oak . . . a flock of twenty or more, male and female, rise from amid the stubble, and, alighting on the oaks, sing pleasantly all together, in a lively manner. See May 13, 1854 ("Goldfinch heard pretty often "); May 17, 1856 ("A goldfinch twitters over."); May 23, 1857 ("The first goldfinch twitters over.");J une 9, 1853 ("Hear a goldfinch; this the second or third only that I have heard."); July 31, 1855 ("Have observed the twittering over of goldfinches for a week."); July 31, 1859 (" The goldfinch's note, the cool watery twitter, is more prominent now"); August 4, 1852 (" hear the singular watery twitter of the goldfinch . . . as it ricochets over, he and his russet female") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Goldfinch

With such accompaniments does a sucker die and mix his juices with the river. See March 28, 1857 ("When I realize that the mortality of suckers in the spring is as old a phenomenon, perchance, as the race of suckers itself, I contemplate it with serenity and joy even, as one of the signs of spring."); April 18, 1852 ("The sight of the sucker floating on the meadow at this season affects me singularly."); May 23, 1854 ("How many springs shall I continue to see the common sucker (Catostomus Bostoniensis) floating dead on our river!")

A somewhat similar beauty reappears painted on the clam’s shell. See December 3, 1853 ("When I see even these humble clamshells lying open along the riverside, displaying some blue, or violet, or rainbow tints, I am reminded that some pure serenity has occupied them.")

Found a young turtle about two inches long of a flat roundish form . . . Can it be a young yellow-spot?  See  June 3, 1856 (" Picked up a young wood tortoise . . .but there was no orange on it . . .So the one of similar rounded form and size and with distinct scales but faint yellow spots on back must have been a young spotted turtle, I think, after all.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow-Spotted Turtle (Emys guttata)

The rhodora there maybe to-morrow. See  May 18, 1853 ("The rhodora is one of the very latest leafing shrubs, for its leaf-buds are but just expanding, making scarcely any show yet, but quite leafless amid the blossoms."); May 18, 1855 ("Rhodora; probably some yesterday.");  May 18, 1857 ("Pratt says he saw the first rhodora . . . out yesterday"); See also May 13, 1860 ("The rhodora on shore will apparently bloom to-morrow.");  May 15, 1855 ("Rhodora will apparently open in two or three days."); May 16, 1853 ("Rhodora, trillium, and yellow violets yesterday at least."); May 17, 1853 (“The rhodora is peculiar for being, like the peach, a profusion of pink blossoms on a leafless stem. This shrub is, then, a late one to leaf out.”);  May 17, 1856 ("The rhodora there[Kalmia Swamp] will open in a day or two."); May 17, 1858 ("Rhodora at Clamshell well out.”); May 19, 1854 ("The rhodora is late, and is naked flowering."); May 26, 1859 ("The rhodora at Ledum Swamp is now in its perfection, brilliant islands of color."); May 27, 1856 (“Kalmia in prime, and rhodora.”); May 31, 1857 (“Rhodora now in its prime.”)

The swamp is all alive with warblers . . . They fill the air with their little tshree tshree sprayey notes. See April 19, 1854 ("Within a few days the warblers have begun to come. They are of every hue. Nature made them to show her colors with. There are as many as there are colors and shades. "); May 7, 1852 ("For now, before the leaves, they begin to people the trees in this warm weather. The first wave of summer from the south."); May 15, 1860 ("Deciduous woods now swarm with migrating warblers, especially about swamps.”);  May 23, 1857 ("about the edges of the swamps in the woods, these birds are flitting about in the tree-tops like gnats, catching the insects about the expanding leaf-buds");May 28, 1855 ("I have seen within three or four days two or three new warblers “)

I think I hear a yellow-throated vireo. See May 19, 1856 ("Hear and see a yellow-throated vireo, which methinks I have heard before . . . singing indolently, ullia — eelya, and sometimes varied to eelyee.”); May 27, 1854 ("I see and hear the yellow-throated vireo. It is somewhat similar (its strain) to that of the red-eye, prelia pre-li-ay, with longer intervals and occasionally a whistle like tlea tlow, or chowy chow, or tully ho on a higher key. It flits about in the tops of the trees."); May 28, 1855 ("Do I not hear a short snappish, rasping note from a yellow-throat vireo?"); May 29, 1855 ( "Also the yellow-throated vireo—its head and shoulders as well as throat yellow (apparently olive-yellow above), and its strain but little varied and short, not continuous.”)  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow-throated Vireo

Beauty marks the spot 

where his body has mingled 

with the elements.