A chickadee nest with seven eggs, each a perfect oval, five eighths inch long,

June 3 

Surveying for John Hosmer beyond pail-factory.

Hosmer says that seedling white birches do not grow larger than your arm, but cut them down and they spring up again and grow larger. 

R. Hoar, I believe, bought that (formerly) pine lot of Loring’s which is now coming up shrub oak. Hosmer says that he will not see any decent wood there as long as he lives. H. says he had a lot of pine in Sudbury, which being cut, shrub oak came up. He cut and burned and raised rye, and the next year (it being surrounded by pine woods on three sides) a dense growth of pine sprang up. 

As I have said before, it seems to me that the squirrels, etc., disperse the acorns, etc., amid the pines, they being a covert for them to lurk in, and when the pines are cut the fuzzy shrub oaks, etc., have the start. If you cut the shrub oak soon, probably pines or birches, maples, or other trees which have light seeds will spring next, because squirrels, etc., will not be likely to carry acorns into open land. 

If the pine wood had been surrounded by white oak, probably that would have come up after the pine. 

June 3, 1856

While running a line in the woods, close to the water, on the southwest side of Loring’s Pond, I observe a chickadee sitting quietly within a few feet. Suspecting a nest, I look and find it in a small hollow maple stump about five inches in diameter and two feet high. I look down about a foot and can just discern the eggs. 

Breaking off a little, I manage to get my hand in and take out some eggs. There are seven, making by their number an unusual figure as they lay in the nest, a sort of egg rosette, a circle around with one (or more) in the middle. 

The eggs are a perfect oval, five eighths inch long, white with small reddish-brown or rusty spots, especially about larger end, partly developed. 

In the meanwhile the bird sits silent, though rather restless, within three feet. The nest is very thick and warm, of average depth, and made of the bluish-slate rabbit’s (?) fur.

The bird sat on the remaining eggs next day. I called off the boy in another direction that he might not find it. 

Plucked a white lily pad with rounded sinus and lobes in Loring’s Pond, a variety.

Picked up a young wood tortoise, about an inch and a half long, but very orbicular. Its scales very distinct, and as usual very finely and distinctly sculptured, but there was no orange on it, only buff or leather-color on the sides beneath. 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.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 3, 1856

A chickadee nest in a small hollow maple stump made of the bluish-slate rabbit’s fur.. See January 21, 1855 ("Saw in an old white pine stump, about fifteen inches from the ground, a hole peeked about an inch and a half in diameter. It was about six inches deep downward in the rotten stump and was bottomed with hypnum, rabbit’s fur, and hair, and a little dry grass. Was it a mouse-nest? or a nuthatch’s, creeper’s, or chickadee’s nest?") Compare December 12, 1859 ("The roosting-place of a chickadee")

That (formerly) pine lot of Loring’s which is now coming up shrub oak. See April 28, 1856 ("George Hubbard remarked that if they were cut down oaks would spring up, and sure enough, looking across the road to where Loring’s white pines recently stood so densely, the ground was all covered with young oaks.”); May 13, 1856 ("I suspect that I can throw a little light on the fact that when a dense pine wood is cut down oaks, etc., may take its place. . . .There is a good example at Loring’s lot.”)

Picked up a young wood tortoise, about an inch and a half long. See May 14, 1858 ("Agassiz says he could never obtain a specimen of the insculpta only one year old. . . I have seen them frequently."); June 15, 1854 ("Saw a wood tortoise, about two inches and a half.") See also  A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau The Wood Turtle (Emys insculpta)

June 3. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, June 3

A chickadee nest

 in a hollow maple stump – 

seven tiny eggs.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A chickadee nest

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 ©  2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560603

How daring, even rash, Nature appears, who sends out butterflies so early!

April 28. 

Surveying the Tommy Wheeler farm.

April 28, 2017

Again, as so many times, I am reminded of the advantage to the poet, and philosopher, and naturalist, and whomsoever, of pursuing from time to time some other business than his chosen one, — seeing with the side of the eye. 

The poet will so get visions which no deliberate abandonment can secure. The philosopher is so forced to recognize principles which long study might not detect. And the naturalist even will stumble upon some new and unexpected flower or animal. 

Mr. Newton, with whom I rode, thought that there was a peculiar kind of sugar maple which he called the white; knew of a few in the middle of Framingham and said that there was one on our Common. 

How promising a simple, unpretending, quiet, some what reserved man, whether among generals or scholars or farmers! How rare an equanimity and serenity which are an encouragement to all observers! Some youthfulness, some manliness, some goodness. Like Tarbell, a man apparently made a deacon on account of some goodness, and not on account of some hypocrisy and badness as usual. 

Is not the Hubbard Ditch plant the same I see in a Nut Meadow pool, and a remarkable evergreen? with much slime and many young snails on it? 

I hear to-day frequently the seezer seezer seezer of the black and white creeper, or what I have referred to that, from J. P. Brown’s wood bounding on Dugan. It is not a note, nor a bird, to attract attention; only suggesting still warmer weather, —that the season has revolved so much further. 

See, but not yet hear, the familiar chewink amid the dry leaves amid the underwood on the meadow’s edge.  

Many Anemone nemorosa in full bloom at the further end of Yellow Thistle Meadow, in that warm nook by the brook, some probably a day or two there. I think that they are thus early on account of Miles’s dam having broken away and washed off all the snow for some distance there, in the latter part of the winter, long before it melted elsewhere. - It is a warm corner under the south side of a wooded hill, where they are not often, if ever before, flooded. 

As I was measuring along the Marlborough road, a fine little blue-slate butterfly fluttered over the chain. Even its feeble strength was required to fetch the year about. How daring, even rash, Nature appears, who sends out butterflies so early! Sardanapalus-like, she loves extremes and contrasts.

I began to survey the meadow there early, before Miles’s new mill had been running long this Monday morning and flooded it, but a great stream of water was already rushing down the brook, and it almost rose over our boots in the meadow before we had done. 

Observing the young pitch pines by the road south of Loring’s lot that was so heavily wooded, George Hubbard remarked that if they were cut down oaks would spring up, and sure enough, looking across the road to where Loring’s white pines recently stood so densely, the ground was all covered with young oaks. 

Mem. — Let me look at the site of some thick pine woods which I remember, and see what has sprung up; e. g. pitch pines on Thrush Alley and the white pines on Cliffs, also at Baker’s chestnuts, and the chestnut lot on the Tim. Brooks farm. 

This was a very pleasant or rather warm day, looking a little rainy, but on our return the wind changed to easterly, and I felt the cool, fresh sea-breeze. 

This has been'a remarkably pleasant, and I think warm, spring. We have not had the usual sprinklings of snow, having had so much in the winter, — none since I can remember. There is none to come down out of the air.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 28, 1856

Pursuing from time to time some other business than his chosen one, —seeing with the side of the eye. See April 28, 1858 ("While standing by my compass over the supposed town bound . . ., I saw with the side of my eye some black creature crossing the road,"); See also, e.g. September 13, 1852 ("Go not to the object; let it come to you. What I need is not to look at all, but a true sauntering of the eye.”); March 23, 1853 ("Man cannot afford to be a naturalist, to look at Nature directly, but only with the side of his eye.”); June 14, 1853 (". . . you are in that favorable frame of mind described by De Quincey, open to great impressions, and you see those rare sights with the unconscious side of the eye, which you could not see by a direct gaze before.”); December 11, 1855 (" It is only necessary to behold thus the least fact or phenomenon, however familiar, from a point a hair’s breadth aside from our habitual path or routine, to be overcome, enchanted by its beauty and significance. To perceive freshly, with fresh senses, is to be inspired.”); April 13, 1860 ("It distinctly occurred to me that, perhaps, if I came . . .to look at the sweet-gale as a matter of business, I might discover something else interesting.")

A fine little blue-slate butterfly fluttered over the chain. Even its feeble strength was required to fetch the year about. See April 24, 1855 ("That fine slaty-blue butterfly, bigger than the small red, in wood-paths."); See April 30, 1859 ("That interesting small blue butterfly (size of small red) is apparently just out, fluttering over the warm dry oak leaves within the wood in the sun."); See also March 23, 1856 ("By their various movements and migrations they fetch the year about to me."); March 10, 1855; ("You are always surprised by the sight of the first spring bird or insect; they seem premature, and there is no such evidence of spring as themselves, so that they literally fetch the year about. . . . But you think, They have come, and Nature cannot recede.") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The  Blue Butterfly in Spring

A bird suggesting still warmer weather, —that the season has revolved so much further.  See  April 27, 1854  ("I hear the black and white creeper's note, — seeser seeser seeser se.  . . . Hear a faint sort of oven-bird's note"); April 27, 1855 ("The black and white creepers running over the trunks or main limbs of red maples and uttering their fainter oven-bird—like notes.");  See also August 19, 1851 ("The seasons do not cease a moment to revolve, and therefore Nature rests no longer at her culminating point than at any other.”); September 17, 1857 (“How perfectly each plant has its turn! – as if the seasons revolved for it alone.!”); March 23, 1856 ("By their various movements and migrations they fetch the year about to me.") See also A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, The Black and White Creeper

See, but not yet hear, the familiar chewink amid the dry leaves amid the underwood on the meadow’s edge. See April 26, 1854  ("Hear the first chewink hopping and chewinking among the shrub oaks."); April 26, 1855 ("See and hear chewinks, — all their strains; the same date with last year, by accident"): April 26, 1858 (" See a chewink (male) in the Kettell place woods."). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Chewink  (Rufous-sided Towhee)

Let me look at the site of some thick pine woods. . .and see what has sprung up. . . . See October 27, 1860 ("I have now examined many dense pine woods, both pitch and white, and several oak woods, and I do not hesitate to say that oak seedlings under one foot high are very much more abundant under the pines than under the oaks. They prevail and are countless under the pines, while they are hard to find under the oaks.")

I hear first to-day

the seezer seezer of the

black and white creeper.

Oak seedlings seek the Pines

October 27

October 27, 2013

I have come out this afternoon to get ten seedling oaks out of a purely oak wood, and as many out of a purely pine wood, and then compare them. I look for trees one foot or less in height, and convenient to dig up. I could not find one in the small wood-lot of oak and hickory on the Lee farm, west of hill.  I then searched in the large Woodis Park, the most oaken parts of it, wood some twenty-five or thirty years old, but I found only three.

After searching here more than half an hour I went into the new pitch and white pine lot just southwest, toward the old Lee cellar, and there were thousands of the seedling oaks only a foot high and less, quite reddening the ground now in some places, and these had perfectly good roots.  

I have now examined many dense pine woods, both pitch and white, and several oak woods, and I do not hesitate to say that oak seedlings under one foot high are very much more abundant under the pines than under the oaks. They prevail and are countless under the pines, while they are hard to find under the oaks.

As I am coming out of the white pine wood not far north of railroad I see a jay, screaming at me, fly to a white oak eight or ten rods from the wood in the pasture and directly alight on the ground, pick up an acorn, and fly back into the woods with it. This was one, perhaps the most effectual, way in which pine woods are stocked with the numerous little oaks.

By looking to see what oaks grow in the open land near by or along the edge where the wood is extensively pine, I can tell surely what kinds of oaks I shall find under the pines.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  October 27, 1860 

I have now examined many dense pine woods, both pitch and white, and several oak woods, and I do not hesitate to say that oak seedlings under one foot high are very much more abundant under the pines than under the oaks.See June 3, 1856 (“As I have said before, it seems to me that the squirrels, etc., disperse the acorns, etc., amid the pines, . . . If the pine wood had been surrounded by white oak, probably that would have come up after the pine.”) and The succession of forest trees (“If a pine wood is surrounded by a white-oak one chiefly, white-oaks may be expected to succeed when the pines are cut.”)

Indian-summer-like and gossamer.

October 19

I examine that oak lot of Rice's next to the pine strip of the 16th. The oaks (at the southern end) are about a dozen years old. As I expected, I find the stumps of the pines which stood there before quite fresh and distinct, not much decayed, and I find by their rings that they were about forty years old when cut, while the pines that sprang from them are now about twenty-five or thirty.

But further, and unexpectedly, I find the stumps in great numbers, now much decayed, of an oak wood that stood there more than sixty years ago. They are mostly shells, the sap-wood rotted off and the inside turned to mould. Thus I distinguished four successions of trees.

I can easily find in countless numbers in our forests, frequently in the third succession, the stumps of the oaks that were cut near the end of the last century. Perhaps I can recover thus generally the oak
woods of the beginning of the last century.  

I have an advantage over the geologist, for I can not only detect the order of events but also the time during which they elapsed, by counting the rings on the stumps. 

Thus I unroll the rotten papyrus on which the history of the Concord forest is written.

It is easier far to recover the history of the trees which stood here a century or more ago than it is to recover the history of the men who walked beneath them. How much do we know - how little more can we know - of these two centuries of Concord life?
 
H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  October 19, 1860