To sit under the first apple tree in blossom is to take another step into summer.

May 21. 

Morning by river. 

May 21, 2019

A song sparrow's nest and eggs so placed in a bank that none could tread on it; bluish-white, speckled.

Also a robin's nest and eggs in the crotch of a maple.

Methinks birds that build amid the small branches of trees wait for the leaves to expand. [?]

The dew hangs on the grass like globules of quicksilver. Can I tell by it if it has rained in the night? I hear that it has.

P. M. — The black oak is just beginning to blossom.

The earlier apple trees are in bloom, and resound with the hum of bees of all sizes and other insects. To sit under the first apple tree in blossom is to take another step into summer.  The apple blossoms are so abundant and full, white tinged with red; a rich-scented Pomona fragrance, telling of heaps of apples in the autumn, perfectly innocent, wholesome, and delicious. 

On hillsides cut off two years ago, the red oaks now contrast at a little distance with the yellowish-green birches. The latter are covered with green lice, which cover me. 

The catbird sings like a robin sometimes, sometimes like a blackbird's sprayey warble. There is more of squeak or mew, and also of clear whistle, than in the thrasher's note. 

Nemopanthes in bloom; leaves three quarters of an inch. 

Sand cherry also, fully. 

Young blueberries every where in bloom, and Viola pedata along the woodland paths, in high land. 

Sorrel in bloom, beginning. I am eager to taste a handful.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 21, 1852


A song sparrow's nest and eggs so placed in a bank that none could tread on it; bluish-white, speckled.See  May 6, 1860 ("See a song sparrow’s nest with four eggs in the side of a bank, or rather ditch. I commonly find the earliest ones in such sheltered and concealed places"); May 12, 1857 ("I hear of, and also find, a ground-bird's (song sparrow's) nest with five eggs.");   May 27, 1856 ("Fringilla melodia’s nest in midst of swamp, with four eggs, made partly of usnea; two stories, i.e. upon an old nest, elevated one foot above the water; eggs with very dark blotches.")

Also a robin's nest and eggs in the crotch of a maple. See May 21, 1856 ("A robin’s nest without mud, on a young white oak in woods, with three eggs.") See also  May 6. 1855 (''A robin’s nest with two eggs, betrayed by peeping."); May 13, 1853 ("A robin's nest, with young, on the causeway"); May 19, 1854 ("The robin's nest and eggs are the earliest I see.")

The dew hangs on the grass like globules of quicksilver. May 11, 1852 ("Dews come with the grass. There is, I find on examining, a small, clear drop at the end of each blade, quite at the top on one side."); May 13, 1860: ("Each dewdrop is a delicate crystalline sphere trembling at the tip of a fresh green grass-blade.")

The earlier apple trees are in bloom. See note to May 25 , 1852 ("It is blossom week with the apples.")

The warblers begin to come in numbers with the leafing of the trees.

May 15 

Sunday. 

Observe Cornus florida involucres.

Sarsaparilla flower. 

Salix discolor seed, or down, begins to blow. 

A woodcock starts up with whistling sound. 

I have been struck of late with the prominence of the Viburnum nudum leaf in the swamps, reddish-brown and one inch over, a peculiarly large and mature-looking, firm-looking leaf. 

Swamp white oak leafed several days, but generally appears as in winter at a little distance. 

Salix lucida well out, how long? 

Nemopanthes flower, apparently a day or two. 

Now, when the warblers begin to come in numbers with the leafing of the trees, the woods are so open that you can easily see them. They are scarce and silent in a cool and windy day, or found only in sheltered places. 

I see an oak shoot (or sprout) already grown ten inches, when the buds of oaks and of most trees are but just burst generally. You are surprised to see such a sudden and rapid development when you had but just begun to think of renewed life, not yet of growth. Very properly these are called shoots. 

This plant has, perhaps, in four or five days accomplished one fourth part [of] its whole summer's growth. (So on the 4th of June I notice the shoots of the white pine, five to nine inches long, arranged raywise about the terminal one and the end of their branches, having in about a fortnight accomplished one quarter to one third their whole summer growth. Thus they may be properly said to shoot when their season comes, and then stand to harden and mature before the winter.)

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 15, 1859

Now, when the warblers begin to come in numbers with the leafing of the trees, the woods are so open that you can easily see them. See May 15, 1860 ("Deciduous woods now swarm with migrating warblers, especially about swamps.”) See also 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 11, 1853 (" How many little birds of the warbler family are busy now about the opening buds . . .  They are almost as much a part of the tree as its blossoms and leaves. They come and give it voice."); May 18, 1856 ("The swamp is all alive with warblers about the hoary expanding buds of oaks, maples, etc., and amid the pine and spruce."); May 18, 1857 ("The swamp is all alive with warblers . . . They fill the air with their little tshree tshree sprayey notes")May 23, 1857 ("This is the time and place to hear the new-arriving warblers, the first fine days after the May storm. When the leaves generally are just fairly expanding,"); May 28, 1855 ("I have seen within three or four days two or three new warblers “) 

I see an oak shoot (or sprout) already grown ten inches. See May 26, 1854 ("Some young red oaks have already grown eighteen inches, i. e. within a fortnight, before their leaves have two-thirds expanded. They have accomplished more than half their year's growth, as if,. . . now burst forth like a stream which has been dammed. They are properly called shoots.”); May 25, 1853 ("Many do most of their growing for the year in a week or two at this season. They shoot - they spring - and the rest of the Year they harden and mature,. . .”); June 30, 1854 ("Young oak shoots have grown from one and a half to three or four feet, but now in some cases appear to be checked and formed a large bud.”)

So on the 4th of June I notice the shoots of the white pine, five to nine inches long. See May 19, 1854 ("The white pine shoots are now two or three inches long generally, — upright light marks on the body of dark green.”); May 28, 1855 (“White pine and pitch pine shoots from two to five inches long.”);July 4, 1860 ("The white pine shoot which on the 19th of June had grown sixteen and a quarter inches and on the 27th twenty and three quarters is now twenty-three and an eighth inches long.”)

The warblers begin

to come in numbers with the

leafing of the trees.