The simple peep peep of the peetweet.

May 8

A cloudy day. 

The small pewee, how long. 

The night-warbler's note. 

River four and seven eighths inches below summer level. 

Stone-heaps, how long? 

I see a woodchuck in the middle of the field at Assabet Bath. He is a  heavy fellow with a black tip to his tail, poking about almost on his belly, — where there is but little greenness yet, — with a great heavy head. He is very wary, every minute pausing and raising his head, and sometimes sitting erect and looking around. He is evidently nibbling some green thing, maybe clover. He runs at last, with an undulating motion, jerking his lumbering body along, and then stops when near a hole. But on the whole he runs and stops and looks round very much like a cat in the fields. 

The cinquefoil is closed in a cloudy day, and when the sun shines it is turned toward it. 

The simple peep peep of the peetweet, as it flies away from the shore before me, sounds hollow and rather mournful, reminding me of the seashore and its wrecks, and when I smell the fresh odor of our marshes the resemblance is increased. 

How the marsh hawk circles or skims low, round and round over a particular place in a meadow, where, perhaps, it has seen a frog, screaming once or twice, and then alights on a fence-post! How it crosses the causeway between the willows, at a gap in them with which it is familiar, as a hen knows a hole in a fence! I lately saw one flying over the road near our house. 

I see a gray squirrel ascend the dead aspen at the rock, and enter a hole some eighteen feet up it. Just below this, a crack is stuffed with leaves which project. Probably it has a nest within and has filled up this crack. 

Now that the river is so low, the bared bank, often within the button-bushes, is seen to be covered with that fine, short, always green Eleocharis acicularis (?).

C. has seen a brown thrasher and a republican swallow to-day.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 8, 1860


The small pewee, how long. See May 7, 1852 (" The first small pewee sings now che-vet, or rather chirrups chevet, tche-vet — a rather delicate bird with a large head and two white bars on wings."). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,the “Small Pewee"

The night-warbler's note. See May 8, 1852 ("The night-warbler while it is yet pretty light.");  May 28, 1854 ("The night-warbler, after his strain, drops down almost perpendicularly into a tree-top and is lost.”);  According to Emerson the night warbler is "a bird he had never identified, had been in search of twelve years, which always, when he saw it, was in the act of diving down into a tree or bush.” Probably the flight song of the oven-bird. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Oven-bird.

Stone-heaps, how long? See May 4, 1858 ("I asked [a fisherman] if he knew what fish made the stone-heaps in the river. He said the lamprey eel.”) May 8, 1858 ("Mr. Wright . . ., an old fisherman, remembers the lamprey eels well, which he used to see in the Assabet there, but thinks that there have been none in the river for a dozen years and that the stone-heaps are not made by them. "); May 12, 1858 ("George, the carpenter, says that he used to see a great many stone-heaps in the Saco in Bartlett, near the White Mountains, like those in the Assabet, and that there were no lampreys there and they called them “snake-heaps.”); July 31, 1859 ("A man fishing at the Ox-Bow said without hesitation that the stone-heaps were made by the sucker, at any rate that he had seen them made by the sucker in Charles River,")

The cinquefoil is closed in a cloudy day, and when the sun shines it is turned toward it. See May 2, 1860 ("The early potentillas are now quite abundant."); May 17, 1853 ("The early cinquefoil is now in its prime and spots the banks and hillsides and dry meadows with its dazzling yellow. How lively! It is one of the most interesting yellow flowers. ")

The simple peep peep of the peetweet, as it flies away from the shore before me, sounds hollow and rather mournful. See May 2, 1859 ("The river seems really inhabited when the peetweet is back . . ... This bird does not return to our stream until the weather is decidedly pleasant and warm. . . .Its note peoples the river, like the prattle of children once more in the yard of a house that has stood empty."); May 4, 1856 (“As soon as the rocks begin to be bare the peetweet comes and is seen teetering on them and skimming away from me.”)

How the marsh hawk circles or skims low, round and round over a particular place in a meadow. See May 2, 1855 ("Was that a harrier seen at first skimming low then seating and circling, with a broad whiteness on the wings beneath"); May 2, 1858 (" How patiently they skim the meadows, occasionally alighting, and fluttering "); May 14, 1855 (" See a male hen-harrier skimming low along the side of the river, often within a foot of the muddy shore, . . .Occasionally he alights and walks or hops flutteringly a foot or two over the ground")

 C. has seen a brown thrasher and a republican swallow to-day. See  May 7, 1852 ("Beginning, I may say, with robins, song sparrows, chip-birds, bluebirds, etc., I walk through larks, pewees, pigeon woodpeckers, chickadees, towhees, huckleberry-birds, wood thrushes, brown thrasher, jay, catbird, ");May 8, 1857  ("The ring of toads, the note of the yellowbird, the rich warble of the red-wing, the thrasher on the hillside, the robin's evening song, the woodpecker tapping some dead tree across the water")

Hear the pe-pe and evergreen-forest note, also night-warbler.

May 13. 

May 13, 2019

Friday. 

Surveying Damon's Acton lot. 

Hear the pe-pe and evergreen-forest note, also night-warbler (the last perhaps the 11th). 

Apple in bloom.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 13, 1859



Hear the pe-pe. See May 15, 1855 ("I hear from the top of a pitch pine in the swamp that loud, clear, familiar whistle . . . I saw it dart out once, catch an insect, and return to its perch muscicapa-like. As near as I could see it had a white throat . . .”).;May 18, 1857 ("Hear the pepe, how long?”); May 20, 1858 (“Hear the pepe”); June 5, 1856 (“The Muscicapa Cooperi sings pe pe pe’, sitting on the top of a pine”); June 6, 1857 ("As I sit on Lee's Cliff, I see a pe-pe on the topmost dead branch of a hickory eight or ten rods off. . . . mouse-colored above and head (which is perhaps darker), white throat, and narrow white beneath, with no white on tail.”)

Evergreen-forest note. See May 6, 1855 ("The er er twe, ter ter twe, evergreen-forest note."); June 1, 1854 ("Hear my evergreen-forest note, . . . I get a glimpse of its black throat and, I think, yellow head"); May 30, 1855 ("In the thick of the wood between railroad and Turnpike, hear the evergreen forest note, and see probably the bird,-- black throat, greenish-yellow or yellowish-green head and back, light-slate (?) wings with two white bars. Is it not the black-throated green warbler?”).

Night-warbler. See May 13, 1855 ("At 9.30 P.M. I hear from our gate my night-warbler. Never heard it in the village before.”)and  note to May 19, 1858 (“Heard the night-warbler begin his strain just like an oven-bird! I have noticed that when it drops down into the woods it darts suddenly one side to a perch when low.”)

Apple in bloom. See May 14, 1854 (“Apple in bloom”)

Storrow Higginson and other boys find nests and eggs of veery, wood thrush and tanager.

June 19. 

June 19, 2018

Saturday. 

I do not hear the night-warbler so often as a few weeks ago. Birds generally do not sing so tumultuously. 

Storrow Higginson and other boys have found this forenoon at Flint’s Pond one or more veery-nests on the ground. 

Also showed me one of five eggs, far advanced, they found there in a nest some fourteen feet high in a slender maple sapling, placed between many upright shoots, many dry leaves outside. It is a slender clear-blue egg, more slender and pointed at the small end than the robin's, and he says the bird was thrush like with a pencilled breast. It is probably the wood thrush. [Saw it the 23d, and it is apparently this bird. It is some ten rods south along path beyond the clearing, opposite a stone turned over.] He saw one or two other similar nests, he thought, not yet completed. 

Also showed me an egg, which answers to the description of the tanager's. Two fresh eggs in small white oak sapling, some four teen feet from ground. They saw a tanager near. [I have one egg. 
Vide 23d.] 

P. M. — To Bateman’s Pond. 

The swamp-pink, apparently not long, and the maple leaved viburnum, a little longer, but quite early. Some of the calla is going to seed. 

See an oven-bird's nest with two eggs and one young one just hatched. The bird flits out low, and is, I think, the same kind that I saw flit along the ground and trail her wings to lead me off day before yesterday.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 19, 1858

To Bateman’s Pond. The swamp-pink, apparently not long. See June 20, 1853 ("Those great greenish-white puffs on the panicled andromeda are now decaying. On the swamp-pink they are solid."); June 20, 1856 ( ("Swamp-pink out apparently two or three days at Clamshell Ditch"); June 21, 1852 ("The swamp-pink bushes have many whitish spongy excrescences. "); June 30, 1852 ("Is not this period more than any distinguished for flowers, when roses, swamp-pinks, morning-glories, arethusas, pogonias, orchises, blue flags, epilobiums, mountain laurel, and white lilies are all in blossom at once?") See also November 5, 1855 ("Swamp-pink buds now begin to show.”); November 6, 1853 (“The remarkable roundish, plump red buds of the high blueberry.”); November 16, 1852 ("The swamp-pink and blueberry buds attract."); December 1, 1852 (“The large bright yellowish and reddish buds of the swamp-pink,"); December 11, 1855 ("The great yellow buds of the swamp-pink"); January 25, 1858 ("The large yellowish buds of the swamp pink."); January 10, 1855 ("The great buds of the swamp-pink, on the central twig, clustered together, are more or less imbrowned and reddened. "); January 31, 1854 ("In the winter, when there are no flowers and leaves are rare, even large buds are interesting and somewhat exciting. I go a-budding like a partridge. I am always attracted at this season by the buds of the swamp-pink, the poplars, and the sweet-gale."); February 13, 1858 )("How often vegetation is either yellow or red! as the buds of the swamp-pink, the leaves of the pitcher-plant, etc., etc."); February 13, 1858 ("The great buds of the swamp-pink, on the central twig, clustered together, are more or less imbrowned and reddened.")

Some of the calla is going to seed. 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." ”); June 24, 1857 ("Found [in Owl-Nest Swamp] the Calla palustris, out of bloom, and the naumbergia, now in prime, which was hardly begun on the 9th at Bateman Pond Swamp.”); August 29, 1857 ("I find the calla [in Owl-Nest Swamp] going to seed, but still the seed is green.”); and note to July 2, 1857 ("Calla palustris . . . at the south end of Gowing's Swamp. Having found this in one place, I now find it in another.")

Also showed me one of five eggs found there in a nest some fourteen feet high in a slender maple sapling. See July 31, 1857 ("Got the wood thrush’s nest of June 19th (now empty).")

See an oven-bird's nest with two eggs and one young one just hatched. The bird flits out low, and is, I think, the same kind that I saw flit along the ground and trail her wings to lead me off day before yesterday. See June 1, 1853 (“ Eggs in oven- bird's nest. ”); June 7, 1853; (“The oven-bird runs from her covered nest, so close to the ground under the lowest twigs and leaves, even the loose leaves on the ground, like a mouse, that I can not get a fair view of her. She does not fly at all. Is it to attract me, or partly to protect herself ?”); June 10, 1855; ( Oven-bird’s nest with four eggs two thirds hatched, under dry leaves, composed of pine-needles and dry leaves and a hair or two for lining, about six feet south west of a white oak which is six rods southwest of the hawk pine.”); June 18, 1854 (“Observe in two places golden-crowned thrushes, near whose nests I must have been, hopping on the lower branches and in the underwood, — a somewhat sparrow-like bird, with its golden-brown crest and white circle about eye, carrying the tail somewhat like a wren, and inclined to run along the branches. Each had a worm in its bill, no doubt intended for its young.”); July 3, 1853 (“The oven-bird's nest in Laurel Glen is near the edge of an open pine wood, under a fallen pine twig and a heap of dry oak leaves. Within these, on the ground, is the nest, with a dome-like top and an arched entrance of the whole height and width on one side. Lined within with dry pine-needles.”).

Heard the night-warbler begin his strain just like an oven-bird!

May 19. 

A. M. – Surveying (by the eye) for Warner the meadow surveyed for John Hosmer in June, ’56. 

The black currant near southwest corner of his Saw Mill field (Ribes floridum) perfectly out; how long? 

P. M. – To Everett Spring.

May 19, 2019

There appears to be quite a variety in the colors of the Viola cucullata [blue marsh violet]. Some dark-blue, if not lilac (?), some with a very dark blue centre and whitish circum ference, others dark-blue within and dark without, others all very pale blue. 

May 19, 2019

Stellaria borealis well out, apparently several days. 

What I called the Ranunculus bulbosus there May 3d proves to be the R. repens. It would appear then to be the earliest ranunculus. It is a dense bed of yellow now. I am struck by the light spot in the sinuses of the leaves. 

The Equisetum sylvaticum there is now of a reddish cast. 

Starflower (Trientalis borealis)

May 19, 2023

R. W. E. says that Pratt found yesterday out the trientalis, Trillium cernuum, and Smilacina bifolia. 

Four rods plus south of the cross-fence over Everett's hill, on the west slope, I find the Ranunculus abortivus, two plants open only; but will not shed pollen till to-morrow. 

A rod or two further the Equisetum hyemale, apparently a little past bloom, or effete, all the heads open. 

Looking with my glass into the Gourgas pond-hole, I see three or four buck-bean blossoms. 

Two birds about the size and of the appearance of a pigeon or turtle dove start up with a loud alarm note from the shallow muddy flat there, — with a harsh shrill cry, phil phil phil or the like. At first I could not guess what they were, but since concluded that they were the larger yellow-legs. 

Could this bird have made the sound heard on the 15th? 

There remained feeding on the mud along the water's edge two peetweet-like birds, but apparently larger and less teetering. I thought they were T. solitaires. 

Heard the night-warbler begin his strain just like an oven-bird! I have noticed that when it drops down into the woods it darts suddenly one side to a perch when low.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 19, 1858

Surveying for Warner the meadow surveyed for John Hosmer in June, ’56. See June 3, 1856 ("Surveying for John Hosmer beyond pail-factory”); June 4, 1856 (“Surveying for J. Hosmer . . .running a line on the west edge of Loring’s Pond, south of the brook.”).  Also  June 6, 1856 ("J. Hosmer, who is prosecuting Warner for flowing his land, says that the trees are not only broken off when young by weight of ice, but, being rubbed and barked by it, become warty or bulge out there.")

There appears to be quite a variety in the colors of the Viola cucullata. See May 15, 1856  ("Viola cucullata abundant now.”); 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.")

Two birds start up with a loud alarm note from the shallow muddy flat with a harsh shrill cry, phil phil phil or the like The larger 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. ...”); August 5, 1855 (" Hear a yellow-legs flying over,—phe' phe phe, phe' phe phe.”); September 14, 1854 ("A flock of thirteen tell tales, great yellow-legs, start up with their shrill whistle from the midst of the great Sudbury meadow, and away they sail in a flock. . .to alight in a more distant place.”)

Heard the night-warbler begin his strain just like an oven-bird!  Thoreau's night-warbler  is likely the oven-bird making its flight call. According to Emerson the night warbler is "a bird he had never identified, had been in search of twelve years, which always, when he saw it, was in the act of diving down into a tree or bush.” See  May 8, 1860 ("The night-warbler's note.");  May 9, 1852 ("Heard the night warbler.”); May 9, 1853 ("Again I think I heard the night-warbler.”); May 10, 1854 ("Heard the night-warbler. “);  May 12, 1857 ("A night-warbler, plainly light beneath. It always flies to a new perch immediately after its song");.  May 13, 1855 ("At 9.30 P.M. I hear from our gate my night-warbler. Never heard it in the village before.”); May 14, 1852 (“Most birds are silent in the storm.Hear the robin, oven-bird, night warbler, and [etc.]); May 16, 1858 ("Hear the night-warbler"); May 17, 1858 ("Just after hearing my night-warbler I see two birds on a tree. ...[One perhaps golden-crowned thrush. ]”); May 19, 1858 (“Heard the night-warbler begin his strain just like an oven-bird! I have noticed that when it drops down into the woods it darts suddenly one side to a perch when low."); May 28, 1854 ("The night-warbler, after his strain, drops down almost perpendicularly into a tree-top and is lost.”). See also May 12, 1855 (“We sit about half an hour, and it is surprising what various distinct sounds we hear there deep in the wood, as if the aisles of the wood were so many ear trumpets,-- the cawing of crows, the peeping of hylas in the swamp and perhaps the croaking of a tree-toad, the oven-bird, the yorrick of Wilson’s thrush, a distant stake-driver, the night-warbler and black and white creeper, the lowing of cows, the late supper horn, the voices of boys, the singing of girls, -- not all together but separately, distinctly, and musically, from where the partridge and the red-tailed hawk and the screech owl sit on their nests.”)

May 19.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 19

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

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

What kind of life it must be that is lived always in sight of mountains..

May 17

Louring and more or less rainy. 

P. M. – To Ledum Swamp. 

Near Baeomyces Bank, I see the Salix humilis showing its down or cotton, and also the S. tristis. Probably the last is wholly out of bloom some time. These, then, have ripe seed before the white maple. 

It rains gently from time to time as I walk, but I see a farmer with his boys, John Hosmer, still working in the rain, bent on finishing his planting. He is slowly getting a soaking, quietly dropping manure in the furrows. 

This rain is good for thought. It is especially agreeable to me as I enter the wood and hear the soothing dripping on the leaves. It domiciliates me in nature. The woods are the more like a house for the rain; the few slight noises sound more hollow in them; the birds hop nearer; the very trees seem still and pensive. The clouds are but a higher roof. The clouds and rain confine me to near objects, the surface of the earth and the trees. 

On the first holdings up in the intervals of the rain, the chewink is heard again, and the huckleberry-bird, and the evergreen-forest note, etc. 

I am coming in sight of the Charles Miles house. What a pleasant sandy road, soaking up the rain, that from the woods to the Miles house! The house becomes a controlling feature in the landscape when there is but one or two in sight. 

The red maple tops ten days ago looked like red paint scaling off, when seen against houses. Now they have acquired a browner red. 

The Populus grandidentata now shows large, silvery, downy, but still folded, leafets. 

You are more than paid for a wet coat and feet, not only by the exhilaration that the fertile moist air imparts, but by the increased fragrance and more gem-like character of expanding buds and leafets in the rain. All vegetation is now fuller of life and expression, some what like lichens in wet weather, and the grass. Buds are set in syrup or amber. 

May 17, 2018

Measured the large apple tree in front of the Charles Miles house. It is nine feet and ten inches in circumference at two and a half feet from the ground, the smallest place below the branches, which are now four, — once five, one being cut, — starting at about five feet from the ground, and each as big as a good-sized modern tree. The top is large. The trunk looks healthy and is scarcely larger at the ground than where measured. It is large for an oak, a sturdy-looking tree, reminding one of the portly bodies of some of our grandfathers. It is not grafted. Once stood by the fence. 

While I was measuring the tree, Puffer came along, and I had a long talk with him, standing under the tree in the cool sprinkling rain till we shivered. He said that he had seen pout-spawn attached to the under side of the white lily pads! ! He thought he knew it from having seen it in their bodies. He thought that the pickerel spawn was dropped in deep water and was devoured by pouts and eels. Wondered where eels bred, and how, for he never detected any spawn in them. Had been told (like Witherell) that they gendered into, i.e. copulated with, the clam. 

Told of a winter some fifteen years ago when there was a freshet in February, and the snapping turtles thought it was spring and came up with it on to the meadows; but it froze, and the ice settled on them and killed them when the water went down, and they were found dead in great numbers in the spring, — one that must have weighed one hundred pounds. Had seen pickerel that had been frozen four or five hours brought to life in water. 

Said that the black snake laid eight or ten eggs in a field. Once killed a very large water adder, and counted over sixty little snakes in it an inch or two long, and that was not all. Once he was going along, saw a water adder and heard a low sound which it made with its mouth, and he saw as many as twenty-five little snakes run into its mouth. 

Says the foxes eat the Emys picta, which I believe he called grass turtles. He had seen where they had opened them. But they could not get at the box turtle. Found some young stake-drivers as he was mowing. 

When the hummingbird flew about the room yesterday, his body and tail hung in a singular manner be tween the wings, swinging back and forth with a sort of oscillating motion, not hanging directly down, but yet pulsating or teetering up and down. 

I see a chewink flit low across the road with its peculiar flirting, undulating motion. 

I thought yesterday that the view of the mountains from the bare hill on the Lincoln side of Flint's Pond was very grand. Surely they do not look so grand any where within twenty miles of them. 

And I reflected what kind of life it must be that is lived always in sight of them. I looked round at some windows in the middle of Lincoln and considered that such was the privilege of the inhabitants of these chambers; but their blinds were closed, and I have but little doubt that they are blind to the beauty and sublimity of this prospect. 

I doubt if in the landscape there can be anything finer than a distant mountain-range. They are a constant elevating influence.

Ranunculus acris, apparently in a day or two. 

Rhodora at Clamshell well out. 

Just after hearing my night-warbler I see two birds on a tree. 

The one which I examined — as well as I could without a glass — had a white throat with a white spot on his wings, was dark above and moved from time to time like a creeper, and it was about the creeper's size. [The plate of Sylvia Canadensis in New York Reports has since reminded me of this.]

The other bird, which I did not examine particularly, was a little larger and more tawny – Perhaps golden-crowned thrush.

It is remarkable how little way most men get in their account of the mysteries of nature. Puffer, after describing the habits of a snake or turtle, – some peculiarity which struck him in its behavior, — would say with a remarkable air as if he were communicating or suggesting something, possibly explaining something, “Now I take it that is Nature; Nature did that.”

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 17, 1858 

The clouds and rain confine me to near objects, the surface of the earth and the trees. See August 4, 1854 ("Rain and mist contract our horizon and we notice near and small objects"); September 20, 1857 ("The outlines of trees are more conspicuous and interesting such a day as this, being seen distinctly against the near misty background, – distinct and dark. "); December 16, 1855 ("The mist makes the near trees dark and noticeable, like pictures, and makes the houses more interesting, revealing but one at a time."); ;February 6, 1852 (A mistiness makes the woods look denser, darker and more primitive.); November 29, 1850 ("The trees and shrubs look larger than usual when seen through the mist...As you advance, the trees gradually come out of the mist and take form before your eyes.") See also November 7, 1855 ("I find it good to be out this still, dark, mizzling afternoon . . .The world and my life are simplified.")

Just after hearing my night-warbler I see two birds. See  May 16, 1858 ("A golden-crowned thrush hops quite near . . . Hear the night warbler."); May 19 , 1858. ("Heard the night-warbler begin his strain just like an oven-bird!") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  The Oven-bird

A very large black snake I thought was preparing to strike at me

May 16

A. M. – Up Assabet. 

Aralia nudicaulis at Island. The leaf-stalks are often eaten off, probably by some quadruped. 

The flower-buds of the Cornus florida are five eighths of an inch in diameter. 

The Salix lucida will hardly bloom within two days. The S. Torreyana catkins are so reddish that at a little distance it looks some what like the common black cherry now leafing. 

A hummingbird yesterday came into the next house and was caught. Flew about our parlor to-day and tasted Sophia's flowers. In some lights you saw none of the colors of its throat. In others, in the shade the throat was a clear bright scarlet, but in the sun it glowed with splendid metallic, fiery reflections about the neck and throat. 

It uttered from time to time, as it flew, a faint squeaking chirp or chirrup. The hum sounded more hollow when it approached a flower. Its wings fanned the air so forcibly that you-felt the cool wind they raised a foot off, and nearer it was very remarkable. Does not this very motion of the wings keep a bird cool in hot weather? 

The only indigenous willow I noticed yesterday on the Shawsheen — a mile below Fitch's mill — was the small sericea, such as by Assabet white maple. 

What was that loud but distant note of a bird, apparently in the low land, somewhat like the guinea-hen note, also reminding me a little of the plover about Truro light, but apparently a hawk? 

Got quite a view down the valley of the Shawsheen below the junction of Vine Brook, northeast, from a hill in the extreme northeast of Bedford.

P. M. – To Uvularia perfoliata at Flint's Pond. 

See again the warbler of yesterday. All bright yellow beneath and apparently bluish-slate above, but I do not see it well. Its note, with little variation, is like twit twit, twit twit, twitter twitter twe. It must be the parti-colored warbler.

Sat down in the sun in the path through Wright's wood-lot above Goose Pond, but soon, hearing a slight rustling, I looked round and saw a very large black snake about five feet long on the dry leaves, about a rod off. 

When I moved, it vibrated its tail very rapidly and smartly, which made quite a loud rustling or rattling sound, reminding me of the rattlesnake, as if many snakes obeyed the same instinct as the rattle snake when they vibrate their tails. Once I thought I heard a low hiss. 

It was on the edge of a young wood of oaks and a few white pines from ten to eighteen feet high, the oaks as yet bare of leaves. 

As I moved toward the snake, I thought it would take refuge in some hole, but it appeared that it was out on a scout and did not know of any place of refuge near. Suddenly, as it moved along, it erected itself half its length, and when I thought it was preparing to strike at me, to my surprise it glided up a slender oak sapling about an inch in diameter at the ground and ten feet high. 

It ascended this easily and quickly, at first, I think, slanting its body over the lowest twig of the next tree. There were seven little branches for nine feet, averaging about the size of a pipe-stem. It moved up in a somewhat zig zag manner, availing itself of the branches, yet also in part spirally about the main stem. It finds a rest (or hold if necessary) for its neck or forward part of its body, moving crosswise the small twigs, then draws up the rest of its body. From the top of this little oak it passed into the top of a white pine of the same height an inch and a half in diameter at the ground and two feet off; from this into another oak, fifteen feet high and three feet from the pine; from this to another oak, three feet from the last and about the same height; from this to a large oak about four feet off and three or four inches in diameter, in which it was about fourteen feet from the ground; thence through two more oaks, a little lower, at intervals of four feet, and so into a white pine; and at last into a smaller white pine and thence to the ground. 

The distance in a straight line from where it left the ground to where it descended was about twenty-five feet, and the greatest height it reached, about fourteen feet. It moved quite deliberately for the most part, choosing its course from tree to tree with great skill, and resting from time to time while it watched me, only my approach compelling it to move again. 

It surprised me very much to see it cross from tree to tree exactly like a squirrel, where there appeared little or no support for such a body. It would glide down the proper twig, its body resting at intervals of a foot or two, on the smaller side twigs, perchance, and then would easily cross an interval of two feet, sometimes in an ascending, sometimes a descending, direction. If the latter, its weight at last bent the first twig down nearer to the opposite one. It would extend its neck very much, as I could see by the increased width of the scales exposed, till its neck rested across the opposite twig, hold on all the while tightly to some part of the last twig by the very tip of its tail, which was curled round it just like a monkey's. 

I have hardly seen a squirrel rest on such slight twigs as it would rest on in mid-air, only two or three not bigger than a pipe-stem, while its body stretched clear a foot at least between two trees. It was not at all like creeping over a coarse basket work, but suggested long practice and skill, like the rope dancer's. There were no limbs for it to use comparable for size with its own body, and you hardly noticed the few slight twigs it rested on, as it glided through the air. 

When its neck rested on the opposite twig, it was, as it were, glued to it. It helped itself over or up them as surely as if it grasped with a hand. There were, no doubt, rigid kinks in its body when they were needed for support. It is a sort of endless hook, and, by its ability to bend its body in every direction, it finds some support on every side. Perhaps the edges of its scales give it a hold also. 

It is evident that it can take the young birds out of a sapling of any height, and no twigs are so small and pliant as to prevent it. Pendulous sprays would be the most difficult for it, where the twigs are more nearly parallel with the main one, as well as nearly vertical, but even then it might hold on by its tail while its head hung below. I have no doubt that this snake could have reached many of the oriole-nests which I have seen. 

I noticed that in its anger its rigid neck was very much flattened or compressed vertically. At length it coiled itself upon itself as if to strike, and, I presenting a stick, it struck it smartly and then darted away, running swiftly down the hill toward the pond. 

Yellow butterflies. 

Nabalus leaves are already up and coming up in the wood-paths. 

Also the radical leaves of one variety of Solidago arguta, and apparently of S. altissima, are conspicuously up. 

A golden-crowned thrush hops quite near. It is quite small, about the size of the creeper, with the upper part of its breast thickly and distinctly pencilled with black, a tawny head; and utters now only a sharp cluck for a chip. 

See and hear a redstart, the rhythm of whose strain is tse'-tse, tse'-tse, tse', emphasizing the last syllable of all and not ending with the common tsear. 

Hear the night-warbler. 

The Uvularia perfoliata, which did not show itself at all on the 3d, is now conspicuous, and one is open but will not shed pollen before to-morrow. It has shot up about ten inches in one case and bloomed within thirteen days!! 

Ranunculus repens at Brister's Spring; how long? Was that R. repens at the Everett Spring on the 3d? [Yes.]

The whip-poor-will heard. 

E. Hoar detected the other day two ovaries under one scale of a Salix rostrata, and, under another, a stamen and another stamen converted into an ovary.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 16, 1858

To Uvularia perfoliata at Flint's Pond. See May 30, 1857 ("By the path near the northeast shore of Flint's Pond. . .  am surprised to find it the Uvularia perfoliata, which I have not found hereabouts before.");  May 3, 1858 ("See no signs of the Uvularia perfoliata yet; apparently will not bloom within ten days") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Bellworts

A hummingbird in some lights the shade the throat was a clear bright scarlet, but in the sun it glowed with splendid metallic, fiery reflections. See  May 17, 1856 (" A splendid male hummingbird . . . This golden-green gem. Its burnished back looks as if covered with green scales dusted with gold. . . . turning toward me that splendid ruby on its breast, that glowing ruby.") May 15, 1855("Hear a hummingbird in the garden."); May 16, 1852 ("I hear a hummingbird about the columbines.").

At Natural History Rooms, Boston.

January 15.

January 15, 2018

At Natural History Rooms, Boston. 

Looked at the little grebe. Its feet are not webbed with lobes on the side like the coot, and it is quite white beneath. 

Saw the good-sized duck—velvet duck, with white spot on wing — which is commonly called “coot” on salt water. 

They have a living young bald eagle in the cellar. 

Talked with Dr. Kneeland. They have a golden eagle from Lexington, which K. obtained two or three years since, the first Dr. Cabot has heard of in Massachusetts. 

Speaking to him of my night warbler, he asked if it uttered such a note, making the note of the myrtle-bird, ah, te-te-te te-te-te te-te-te, exactly, and said that that was the note of the white throated sparrow, which he heard at Lake Superior, at night as well as by day. Vide his report, July 15, 1857. 

Same afternoon, saw Dr. Durkee in Howard Street. He has not seen the common glow-worm, and called his a variety of Lampyris noctiluca. Showed to Agassiz, Gould, and Jackson, and it was new to them. They thought it a variety of the above. His were luminous throughout, mine only in part of each segment. 

Saw some beautiful painted leaves in a shop window, - maple and oak.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 15, 1858

Looked at the little grebe. Its feet are not webbed with lobes on the side like the coot, and it is quite white beneath. See note to December 26, 1857 ("The little dipper must, therefore, be different from a coot. Is it not a grebe?”) Also November 27, 1857 (“Mr. Wesson . . . appears not to know a coot, and did not recognize the lobed feet when I drew them.”); April 24, 1856 (“Goodwin shot, about 6 P. M., and brought to me a cinereous coot . . .Lobes chiefly on the inner side of the toes.”); June 17, 1856 (“Went to Rev. Horace James’s reptiles (Orthodox). He had, set up, . . .a large lobe-footed bird which I think must have been a large grebe, killed in Fitchburg. ”);  December 26, 1853 ("Saw in it a small diver, probably a grebe or dobchick, dipper, or what-not, with the markings, as far as I saw, of the crested grebe, but smaller. It had a black head, a white ring about its neck, a white breast, black back, and apparently no tail.”)


Speaking to him of my night warbler. According to Emerson,  the night warbler is "a bird he had never identified, had been in search of twelve years, which always, when he saw it, was in the act of diving down into a tree or bush.” See May 9, 1852 “Heard the night warbler.”); May 9, 1853 ("Again I think I heard the night-warbler.”); May 10, 1854("Heard the night-warbler. “); May 28, 1854 ("The night-warbler, after his strain, drops down almost perpendicularly into a tree-top and is lost.”); May 19, 1858 ("Heard the night-warbler begin his strain just like an oven-bird! I have noticed that when it drops down into the woods it darts suddenly one side to a perch when low.” See also May 12, 1855 (“We sit about half an hour, and it is surprising what various distinct sounds we hear there deep in the wood, as if the aisles of the wood were so many ear trumpets,-- the cawing of crows, the peeping of hylas in the swamp and perhaps the croaking of a tree-toad, the oven-bird, the yorrick of Wilson’s thrush, a distant stake-driver, the night-warbler and black and white creeper, the lowing of cows, the late supper horn, the voices of boys, the singing of girls, -- not all together but separately, distinctly, and musically, from where the partridge and the red-tailed hawk and the screech owl sit on their nests.”)

His glowworms were luminous throughout, mine only in part of each segment. See September 16, 1857 (“Watson gave me three glow-worms which he found by the roadside in Lincoln last night. They exhibit a greenish light, only under the caudal extremity, and intermittingly, or at will. As often as I touch one in a dark morning, it stretches and shows its light for a moment, only under the last segment.”) Also August 8, 1857 (“B. M. Watson sent me from Plymouth, July 20th, six glow-worms, . . . Knapp, in “Journal of a Naturalist,” speaks of “the luminous caudal spot” of the Lampyris noctiluca")

Birding in July

July 10

July 10.

This is what I think about birds now generally : —

See a few hawks about.
Have not heard owls lately, not walking at night.
Crows are more noisy, probably anxious about young.
Hear phoebe note of chickadee occasionally; otherwise inobvious.
Partridge, young one third grown.
Lark not very common, but sings still.
Have not heard conqueree of blackbird for about a month, methinks.
Robin still sings, and in morning; song sparrow and bay-wing.
See no downy woodpeckers nor nuthatches.
Crow blackbirds occasionally chatter.
Hear flicker rarely Rush sparrow, common and loud.
Saw a snipe within two or three days.
Woodcock seen within two or three days.
Think I have heard pine warbler within a week.
Cuckoo and quail from time to time.
Barn swallow, bank swallow, etc., numerous with their young for a week or two.
I hear the plaintive note of young bluebirds.
Chip-sparrow in morning.
Purple finch about and sings.
Martin lively.
Warbling vireo still, and wood thrush, and red-eye, and tanager, all at midday.Catbird's rigmarole still.
Chewink sings; and veery trill from out shade.
Whip-poor-will at evening.
Summer yellowbird and yellow-throat rarely.Goldfinch oftener twitters over.
Oven-bird still.
Evergreen-forest note, I think, still.
Night-warbler of late.
Hardly a full bobolink.
Kingbird lively. Cherry-bird commonly heard.
Think I saw turtle dove within a day or two.

 The singing birds at present are: —

Villageous: Robin, chip-bird, warbling vireo, swallows. 
Rural: Song sparrow, seringos, flicker, kingbird, goldfinch, link of bobolink, cherry-bird. 
Sylvan: Red-eye, tanager, wood thrush, chewink, veery, oven-bird, — all even at midday. Catbird full strain, whip-poor-will, crows.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 10, 1854

Birding in July. See A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau:

• The American Crow
• The American Woodcock
• The Barred Owl
• The Bay-Wing Sparrow
• The Bobolink
• The Brown Creeper 
• The Cherry-bird (cedar waxwing)
• The Chipping Sparrow
• The Dark-eyed Junco
• The Downy Woodpecker
• The Eastern Kingbird
• The Field Sparrow
• The Nuthatch
• The Oven-bird
• The Partridge
• The Pigeon Woodpecker
• The Pine Warbler
• The Red-eyed Vireo
• The Wood  Thrush

See also Thoreau's Bird-Lore

July 10. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 10

  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

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