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”)

My shoes and hat are covered with the greenish-yellow pollen of the white pines, which is now being shed abundantly.

June 20. 

P. M. – By boat to Holden Swamp. 

I heard that snapping sound against a pad on the surface, and at the same time saw a pad knocked up several inches, and a ripple in the water there as when a pickerel darts away. I should say without doubt some fish had darted there against the pad, perhaps at an insect on the under side. 

Got the marsh hawk's egg, which was addled. I noticed on the 17th that the hawk (my marsh hawk) was off her nest and soaring above the wood late in the afternoon, as I was returning. 

I notice that when turtles are floating dead their necks and legs are stretched out. I have seen them this year of every kind but the meleagris and cistudo, including a snapping turtle with shell some nine inches long, floating or lying dead. What kills them?

I wade about Holden Swamp, looking for birds’ nests. The spruce there are too thin-foliaged for nests, though I hear a pepe expressing anxiety, and also song sparrows. See the redstart and hear many; also hear the blue yellow-backs. 

Walking in the white pine wood there, I find that my shoes and, indeed, my hat are covered with the greenish-yellow pollen of the white pines, which is now being shed abundantly and covers like a fine meal all the plants and shrubs of the forest floor. I never noticed it in such abundance before. My shoes are green-yellow, or yellow-green, even the next day with it.

Dangle-berry well out, how long? 

Potentilla Norvegica, how long? 

What is that sedge with a long beak, some time out of bloom, now two feet high, common just north of new stone bridge? Vide pressed one.

I see that the French have a convenient word, aunaie, also spelt aulnaie and aulnage, etc., signifying a grove of alders. It reminds me of their other convenient word used by Rasle, cabanage.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 20, 1858

I noticed on the 17th that the hawk (my marsh hawk) was off her nest and soaring. See May 30, 1858 ("Edward Emerson shows me the nest which he and another discovered. . . .There are two dirty, or rather dirtied, white eggs left (of four that were),"); June 8, 1858 (“The marsh hawk's eggs are not yet hatched. ”); June 17, 1858 ("P. M. – To hawk's nest. One egg is hatched since the 8th") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Marsh Hawk


I wade about Holden Swamp, looking for birds’ nests. The spruce there are too thin-foliaged for nests, though I hear a pepe expressing anxiety. See June 10, 1855 ("Nest of the Muscicapa Cooperi, or pe pe, on a white spruce in the Holden Swamp.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Olive-sided flycatcher or pe-pe

The greenish-yellow pollen of the white pines is now being shed abundantly and covers like a fine meal all the plants and shrubs of the forest floor. See June 21, 1850 ("The flowers of the white pine are now in their prime, but I see none of their pollen on the pond."); June 21, 1856 ("Much pine pollen is washed up on the northwest side of the pond. Must it not have come from pines at a distance?"); June 22, 1858 (" I notice, after tipping the water out of my boat under the willows, much evidently pine pollen adhering to the inside of the boat along the water-line. Did it fall into it during my excursion to Holden’s Swamp the 20th, or has it floated through the air thus far? "); June 21, 1860 ("The air must be full of this fine dust at this season, that it must be carried to great distances, and its presence might be detected remote from pines by examining the edges of bodies of water ... the lakes detect for us thus the presence of the pine pollen in the atmosphere. They are our pollinometers. "); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The White Pines

Potentilla Norvegica, how long? See June 20, 1856 ("Potentilla Norvegicea; apparently petals blown away.")

Other convenient word used by Rasle. See March 4, 1858 ("Father Rasle’s dictionary of the Abenaki language amounts to a very concentrated and trustworthy natural history of that people.")

June 20. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 20

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

A very wild sight.

May 20. 

P. M. – Up Assabet. 

A cloudy afternoon, with a cool east wind, producing a mist. 

May 20, 2018

Hundreds of swallows are now skimming close over the river, at its broadest part, where it is shallow and runs the swiftest, just below the Island, for a distance of twenty rods. There are bank, barn, cliff, and chimney swallows, all mingled together and continually scaling back and forth, – a very lively sight. 

They keep descending or stooping to within a few inches of the water on a curving wing, without quite touching it, and I suppose are attracted by some small insects which hover close over it. They also stoop low about me as I stand on the flat island there, but I do not perceive the insects. They rarely rise more than five feet above the surface, and a general twittering adds to the impression of sociability. 

The principal note is the low grating sound of the bank swallow, and I hear the vit vit of the barn swallow. The cliff swallow, then, is here. 

Are the insects in any measure confined to that part of the river? Or are they congregated for the sake of society? I have also in other years noticed them over another swift place, at Hubbard's Bath, and also, when they first come, in smaller numbers, over the still and smooth water under the lee of the Island wood. They are thick as the gnats which perhaps they catch. 

Swallows are more confident and fly nearer to man than most birds. It may be because they are more protected by the sentiment and superstitions of men. 

The season is more backward on account of the cloudy and rainy weather of the last four or five days and some preceding. 

The Polygonatum pubescens, not quite. 

The red oak is not out. 

Hear a quail whistle. 

I notice that the sugar maple opposite Barrett's does not bloom this year, nor does the canoe birch by the Hemlocks bear sterile catkins. Perhaps they more or less respect the alternate years. 

3.30 P. M. — To Brister's Hill. 

Going along the deep valley in the woods, just before entering the part called Laurel Glen, I heard a noise, and saw a fox running off along the shrubby side-hill. It looked like a rather small dirty-brown fox, and very clumsy, running much like a wood chuck. It had a dirty or dark brown tail, with very little white to the tip. A few steps further I came upon the remains of a woodchuck, yet warm, which it had been eating. Head, legs, and tail, all remained, united by the skin, but the bowels and a good part of the flesh were eaten. This was evidently a young fox, say three quarters grown, or perhaps less, and appeared as full as a tick. 

There was a fox-hole within three rods, with a very large sand-heap, several cartloads, before it, much trodden. Hearing a bird of which I was in search, I turned to examine it, when I heard a bark behind me, and, looking round, saw an old fox on the brow of the hill on the west side of the valley, amid the bushes, about ten rods off, looking down at me. 

At first it was a short, puppy-like bark, but afterward it began to bark on a higher key and more prolonged, very unlike a dog, a very ragged half-screaming bur ar-r-r. I proceeded along the valley half a dozen rods after a little delay (the fox being gone), and then looked round to see if it returned to the woodchuck. 

I then saw a full-grown fox, perhaps the same as the last, cross the valley through the thin low wood fifteen or twenty rods behind me, but from east to west, pausing and looking at me anxiously from time to time. It was rather light tawny (not fox-colored) with dusky-brown bars, and looked very large, wolf-like. The full-grown fox stood much higher on its legs and was longer, but the body was apparently not much heavier than that of the young. 

Going a little further, I came to another hole, and ten feet off was a space of a dozen square feet amid some little oaks, worn quite bare and smooth, apparently by the playing of the foxes, and the ground close around a large stump about a rod from the hole was worn bare and hard, and all the bark and much of the rotten wood was pawed or gnawed off lately. They had pawed a deep channel about one and in between the roots, perhaps for insects. There lay the remains of another woodchuck, now dry, the head, skin, and legs being left, and also part of the skin of a third, and the bones of another animal, and some partridge feathers. The old foxes had kept their larder well supplied. 

Within a rod was another hole, apparently a back door, having no heap of sand, and five or six rods off another in the side of the hill with a small sand-heap, and, as far down the valley, another with a large sand-heap and a back door with none. There was a well-beaten path from the one on the side hill five or six rods long to one in the valley, and there was much blackish dung about the holes and stump and the path. By the hole furthest down the valley was another stump, which had been gnawed (?) very much and trampled and pawed about like the other. I suppose the young foxes play there. 

There were half a dozen holes or more, and what with the skulls and feathers and skin and bones about, I was reminded of Golgotha. These holes were some of them very large and conspicuous, a foot wide vertically, by eight or ten inches, going into the side-hill with a curving stoop, and there was commonly a very large heap of sand before them, trodden smooth. It was a sprout-land valley, cut off but a year or two since. 

As I stood by the last hole, I heard the old fox bark, and saw her (?) near the brow of the hill on the north west, amid the bushes, restless and anxious, overlooking me a dozen or fourteen rods off. I was, on doubt, by the hole in which the young were. She uttered at very short intervals a prolonged, shrill, screeching kind of bark, beginning lower and rising to a very high key, lasting two seconds; a very broken and ragged sound, more like the scream of a large and angry bird than the bark of a dog, trilled like a piece of vibrating metal at the end. 

It moved restlessly back and forth, or approached nearer, and stood or sat on its haunches like a dog with its tail laid out in a curve on one side, and when it barked it laid its ears flat back and stretched its nose forward. Sometimes it uttered a short, puppy like, snappish bark. It was not fox-colored now, but a very light tawny or wolf-color, dark-brown or dusky beneath in a broad line from its throat; its legs the same, with a broad dusky perpendicular band on its haunches and similar ones on its tail, and a small whitish spot on each side of its mouth. There it sat like a chieftain on his hills, looking, methought, as big as a prairie wolf, and shaggy like it, anxious and even fierce, as I peered through my glass. 

I noticed, when it withdrew, – I too withdrawing in the opposite direction, — that as it had descended the hill a little way and wanted to go off over the pinnacle without my seeing which way it went, it ran one side about ten feet, till it was behind a small white pine, then turned at a right angle and ascended the hill directly, with the pine between us. The sight of it suggested that two or three might attack a man. The note was a shrill, vibrating scream or cry; could easily be heard a quarter of a mile. 

How many woodchucks, rabbits, partridges, etc., etc., they must kill, and yet how few of them are seen! A very wolfish color. It must have been a large fox, and, if it is true that the old are white on the sides of the face, an old one. They evidently used more than a half dozen holes within fifteen rods. I withdrew the sooner for fear by his barking he would be betrayed to some dog or gunner. 

It was a very wild sight to see the wolf-like parent circling about me in the thin wood, from time to time pausing to look and bark at me. 

This appears to be nearest to the cross fox of Audubon, and is considered a variety of the red by him and most others, not white beneath as the red fox of Harlan. Emmons says of the red fox, “In the spring the color appears to fade,” and that some are “pale yellow,” but does not describe minutely. This was probably a female, for Bell says of the English fox that the female “loses all her timidity and shyness when suckling her young;” also that they are a year and a half in attaining their full size.

[I find afterward three or four more fox-holes near by, and see where they have sat on a large upturned stump, which had heaved up earth with it. Many large pieces of woodchuck's skin about these holes. They leave the head and feet. A scent of carrion about the holes.]

Hear the pepe. 

See tanagers, male and female, in the top of a pine, one red, other yellow, from below. We have got to these high colors among birds. 

Saw in the street a young cat owl, one of two which Skinner killed in Walden Woods yesterday. It was almost ready to fly, at least two and a half feet in alar extent; tawny with many black bars, and darker on wings. Holmes, in Patent Office Report, says they “pair early in February.” 

So I visited the nest. It was in a large white pine close on the north side of the path, some ten rods west of the old Stratton cellar in the woods. This is the largest pine thereabouts, and the nest is some thirty-five feet high on two limbs close to the main stem, and, according to Skinner, was not much more than a foot across, made of small sticks, nearly flat, “without fine stuff!” There were but two young. This is a path which somebody travels every half-day, at least, and only a stone's throw from the great road. There were many white droppings about and large rejected pellets containing the vertebrae and hair of a skunk. 

As I stood there, I heard the crows making a great noise some thirty or forty rods off, and immediately suspected that they were pestering one of the old owls, which Skinner had not seen. It proved so, for, as I approached, the owl sailed away from amidst a white pine top, with the crows in full pursuit, and he looked very large, stately, and heavy, like a seventy-four among schooners. I soon knew by the loud cawing of the crows that he had alighted again some forty rods off, and there again I found him perched high on a white pine, the large tawny fellow with black dashes and large erect horns. Away he goes again, and the crows after him.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 20, 1858

Hundreds of swallows are now skimming close over the river. See note to May 16, 1857 (“An unusual number of swallows are flying low over [the meadows].”)

I heard the old fox bark, a prolonged, shrill, screeching kind of bark, beginning lower and rising to a very high key, lasting two seconds; a very broken and ragged sound. See January 23, 1858 ("What a smothered, ragged, feeble, and unmusical sound is the bark of the fox! ")

Hear the pepe. See May 18,  1857 ("Hear the pepe, how long?”) ; 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.”); June 10, 1855 ("Nest of the Muscicapa Cooperi, or pe pe, on a white spruce in the Holden Swamp . . .”)

Tanagers, male and female, in the top of a pine, one red, other yellow . . . these high colors among birds. See May 23, 1853 ("I hear and see a tanager. How he enhances the wildness and wealth of the woods! That contrast of a red bird with the green pines and the blue sky! ...”); May 24, 1860 ("You can hardly believe that a living creature can wear such colors.”); May 28, 1855 (" I see a tanager, the most brilliant and tropical-looking bird we have, bright-scarlet with black wings, the scarlet appearing on the rump again between wing-tips. . . .A remarkable contrast with the green pines.”)

It was a very wild sight. See November 27, 1857 (“Returning, I see a fox run across the road in the twilight . . . I feel a certain respect for him, . . ., he still maintains himself free and wild in our midst.”)  and note to January 21, 1857 (“It is remarkable how many tracks of foxes you will see . . . yet a regular walker will not glimpse one oftener than once in eight or ten years.”)

This appears to be nearest to the cross fox of Audubon; Emmons says of the red fox that some are “pale yellow.” See January 30, 1855 ("Minott to-day enumerates the red, gray, black, and what he calls the Sampson fox.”) and Z. Thompson, Natural History of Vermont 35 (“A blackish stripe passing from the neck down the back and another crossing it alright angles over the shoulders . . . Instead of considering the Cross Fox a distinct species, I have concluded to adopt the opinion of Dr. Richardson, who regards it merely as a variety of the common fox.”)

Now I am ice, now I am sorrel

June 6

8 a. m. — To Lee's Cliff by river. 

Salix pedicellaris off Holden's has been out of bloom several days at least. So it is earlier to begin and to end than our S. lucida. 

This is June, the month of grass and leaves. The deciduous trees are investing the evergreens and revealing how dark they are. 

Already the aspens are trembling again, and a new summer is offered me. I feel a little fluttered in my thoughts, as if I might be too late. 

June 6, 2012

Each season is but an infinitesimal point. It no sooner comes than it is gone. It has no duration. It simply gives a tone and hue to my thought. Each annual phenomenon is a reminiscence and prompting. Our thoughts and sentiments answer to the revolutions of the seasons, as two cog-wheels fit into each other. We are conversant with only one point of contact at a time, from which we receive a prompting and impulse and instantly pass to a new season or point of contact. A year is made up of a certain series and number of sensations and thoughts which have their language in nature. Now I am ice, now I am sorrel. Each experience reduces itself to a mood of the mind. 

I see a man grafting, for instance. What this imports chiefly is not apples to the owner or bread to the grafter, but a certain mood or train of thought to my mind. That is what this grafting is to me. Whether it is anything at all, even apples or bread, to anybody else, I cannot swear, for it would be worse than swearing through glass. 

For I only see those other facts as through a glass darkly. 

Crataegus Crus-Galli, maybe a day. 

Early iris. 

Viburnum-Lentago, a day or more. 

Krigias, with their somewhat orange yellow, spot the dry hills all the fore noon and are very common, but as they are closed in the afternoon, they are but rarely noticed by walkers. 

The long mocker-nut on Conantum not yet out, and the second, or round, one will be yet later. Its catkins are more grayish. 

I see many great devil's-needles in an open wood, — and for a day or two, — stationary on twigs, etc., standing out more or less horizontally like thorns, holding by their legs and heads(?). They do not incline to move when touched, and their eyes look whitish and opaque, as if they were blind. 

They were evidently just escaped from the slough. I often see the slough on plants and, I think, the pupa in the water, as at Callitriche Pool. 

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. Regularly, at short intervals, it utters its monotonous note like till-till-till, or pe-pe-pe. Looking round for its prey and occasionally changing its perch, it every now and then darts off (phoebe-like), even five or six rods, to ward the earth to catch an insect, and then returns to its favorite perch. If I lose it for a moment, I soon see it settling on the dead twigs again and hear its till, till, till. It appears through the glass mouse-colored above and head (which is perhaps darker), white throat, and narrow white beneath, with no white on tail. 

There is a thorn now in its prime, i. e. near the beaked hazel, Conantum, with leaves more wedge-shaped at base than the Cratcegus coccinea; apparently a variety of it, between that and Crus-Galli. (In press.) 

A kingbird's nest, with two of its large handsome eggs, very loosely set over the fork of a horizontal willow by river, with dried everlasting of last year, as usual, just below Garfield's boat. Another in black willow south of long cove (east side, north of Hubbard's Grove) and another north of said cove. 

A brown thrasher's nest, with two eggs, on ground, near lower lentago wall and toward Bittern Cliff. 

The Ranunculus Purshii is in some places abundantly out now and quite showy. It must be our largest ranunculus (flower).

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 6, 1857

Salix pedicellaris off Holden's has been out of bloom several days at least. See May 4, 1858 (“Salix pedicellaris at Holden's Swamp, staminate, out apparently two days.”); May 28, 1858 ("The Salix pedicellaris, which abounds in the Great Meadows, is a peculiar and rather interesting willow, some fifteen inches high and scarcely rising above the grass even now."); May 28, 1859 ("S. pedicellaris long out of bloom.")

Already the aspens are trembling again, and a new summer is offered me. I feel a little fluttered in my thoughts. Compare Walden ("Solitude") ("Sympathy with the fluttering alder and poplar leaves almost takes away my breath; yet, like the lake, my serenity is rippled but not ruffled")

Each annual phenomenon is a reminiscence and prompting. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reminiscence and Prompting

Each season is but an infinitesimal point. See  May 23, 1841 ("All nature is a new impression every instant");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. If you are not out at the right instant, the summer may go by and you not see it.”); January 26, 1852 (" The moment always spurs us. The spurs of countless moments goad us incessantly into life."); Walden:  Where I lived and what I lived for ("God Himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages.") and Economy, ("In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line.”); Walden ("To effect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”);  April 24, 1859 ("The moods and thoughts of man are revolving just as steadily and incessantly as nature's. Nothing must be postponed. Take time by the forelock. Now or never! You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.") December 8, 1859 ("Only the poet has the faculty to see present things as if also past and future, as if universally significant.”)

I see many great devil's-needles in an open wood, They were evidently just escaped from the slough. See June 10, 1857 ("Many creatures — devil's- needles, etc., etc. — cast their sloughs now. Can't I?") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau.the Devil's-needle

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. See June 10, 1855 ("Nest of the Muscicapa Cooperi, or pe pe, on a white spruce in the Holden Swamp . . ."); June 5, 1856 ("The Muscicapa Cooperi sings pe pe pe’, sitting on the top of a pine . . .”); June 8, 1856 ("At Cedar Swamp, saw the pe-pe catching flies like a wood pewee, darting from its perch on a dead cedar twig from time to time and returning to it. “); 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.”).

A brown thrasher's nest, with two eggs, on ground. See May 23, 1858 ("Brown thrasher's nest on ground, under a small tree, with four eggs."); ,June 5, 1856 ("A brown thrasher’s nest with four eggs . . . under a small white pine"): See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Brown Thrasher

June 6.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 6.

The trembling aspens

offer me a new summer –

fluttering my thoughts.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Now I am ice, now I am sorrel

 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 ©  2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-570606

This is the time and place to hear the new-arriving warblers, the first fine days after the May storm.

May 23. 

May 23, 2017
(avesong)

P. M. — To Holden Swamp by boat. 

River still high generally over the meadows. Can sail across the Hubbard meadow. 

Off Staples wood-lot, hear the ah tche tche chit-i-vet of the redstart. 

Tortoises out again abundantly. Each particularly warm and sunny day brings them out on to every floating rail and stump. I count a dozen within three or four feet on a rail. It is a tortoise day. 

I hear one regular bullfrog trump, and as I approach the edge of the Holden Swamp, the tree-toads. 

Hear the pepe there, and the redstarts, and the chestnut-sided warbler. It appears striped slate and black above, white beneath, yellow-crowned with black side-head, two yellow bars on wing, white side-head below the black, black bill, and long chestnut streak on side. Its song lively and rather long, about as the summer yellowbird, but not in two bars; tse tse tse \ te tsah tsah tsah \ te sak yer se is the rhythm. 

Kalmia glauca yesterday. Rhodora, on shore there, a little before it. 

Nemopanthes, a day or two. 

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, and the deciduous trees are hoary with them, — a silvery hoari-ness, — then, 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. 

I wade in the swamp for the kalmia, amid the water andromeda and the sphagnum, scratching my legs with the first and sinking deep in the last. The water is now gratefully cool to my legs, so far from being poisoned in the strong water of the swamp. It is a sort of baptism for which I had waited. 

At Miles Swamp, the carpinus sterile catkins, apparently a day or two, but I see no fertile ones, unless that is one (pressed) at the southeast edge of swamp near grafted apple, and its catkins are effete! 

Hear the first veery strain. 

The small twigs of the carpinus are singularly tough, as I find when I try to break off the flowers. They bend without breaking. 

Sand cherry at Lupine Bank, possibly a day. Sassafras, a day or two. Fringed polygala, I hear of.

The first goldfinch twitters over, and at evening I hear the spark of a nighthawk.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 23, 1857

Off Staples wood-lot, hear the ah tche tche chit-i-vet of the redstart. See May 29, 1855 (“But what is that bird I hear much like the first part of the yellowbird’s strain, only two thirds as long and varied at end, and not so loud, — a-che che che, che-a, or tche tche tche, tche-a, or ah tche tche tche, chit-i-vet? ”); June 4, 1855 ("Redstarts still very common in the Trillium Woods (yesterday on Assabet also). Note tche, tche, tche vit, etc.”); June 6, 1855 ("On the Island I hear still the redstart—tsip tsip tsip tsip, tsit-i-yet, or sometimes tsip tsip tsip tsip, tse vet. A young male.”)  See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The American Redstart

The chestnut-sided warbler. See May 20, 1856 ("I now see distinctly the chestnut-sided warbler (of the 18th and 17th), by Beck Stow’s. It is very lively on the maples, birches, etc., over the edge of the swamp. Sings eech eech eech | wichy wichy | tchea or itch itch itch | witty witty | tchea  ");  May 24, 1854 ("In woods the chestnut-sided warbler, with clear yellow crown and yellow on wings and chestnut sides. It is exploring low trees and bushes, often along stems about young leaves, and frequently or after short pauses utters its somewhat summer-yellowbird like note, say, tchip tchip, chip chip (quick), tche tche ter tchéa, —— sprayey and rasping and faint.")

Kalmia glauca yesterday. Rhodora, on shore there, a little before it. See May 27, 1856 ("Kalmia in prime, and rhodora. . . ."); May 26, 1855 ("To my surprise the Kalmia glauca almost all out; perhaps began with rhodora. A very fine flower, the more interesting for being early."); January 9, 1855 ("Make a splendid discovery this afternoon. Walking through Holden’s white spruce swamp, I see peeping above the snow-crust some slender delicate evergreen shoots . . . the Kalmia glauca var.rosmarinifolia.") Note: the Kalmia glauca var. rosmarinifolia is known as rosemary-leaf laurel or alpine bog laurel (Andromeda Polifolia) H. Peter Loewer, Thoreau's Garden: Native Plants for the American Landscape 32-33

This is the time and place to hear the new-arriving warblers. See note to 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. They swarm like gnats now. They fill the air with their little tshree tshree sprayey notes.")

I wade in the swamp for the kalmia, . . . a sort of baptism for which I had waited. Compare May 13, 1860 ("The swamp is so dry that I walk about it in my shoes").

The first goldfinch twitters over. See May 4, 1856 ("Hear and see a goldfinch, on the ground."); May 5, 1854 ("Hear what I should call the twitter and mew of a goldfinch and see the bird go over with ricochet flight"); May 13, 1854 ("Goldfinch heard pretty often."); May 17, 1856 ("A goldfinch twitters over. ")

See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau May 23

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

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 great flight of ephemera over the water.

June 8 

We have had six days either rain-threatening or rainy, the last two somewhat rainy or mizzling. 

P. M. -— To Cedar Swamp.

Pulled up a yellow lily root, four feet long and branching, two and a half inches diameter and about same size at each end where it had broken off, tree-like. Broken off, it floats. Great white rootlets put out all along it. 

I find no Andromeda racemosa in flower. It is dead at top and slightly leafed below. Was it the severe winter, or cutting off the protecting evergreens? It grows four or five rods from knoll near a sawed stump between two large red maple clumps. 

The three-leaved Solomon’s-seal has almost entirely done, while the two leaved is quite abundant.

Stellaria longrfolia opposite Barbarea Shore not yet out. It is obviously different from what I call S. borealis, much more tall (one foot high) and upright, with branches ascending (not spreading) (the other grows in a dense mass at Corner Spring); leaves longer and more linear, and not at all ciliate like the other; stem much sharper-angled, almost winged; flower-buds more long and slender; and grows in high grass and is later. 

I observe in a mass of damp shavings and leaves and sand there, in the shade, a little prostrate willow just coming into flower, perhaps a black willow. Pulling it up, I find it to be a twig about sixteen inches long, two thirds buried in the damp mass. This was probably broken off by the ice, brought down, washed up, and buried like a layer there; and now, for two thirds its length, it has put out rootlets an inch or two long abundantly, and leaves and catkins from the part above ground. 

So vivacious is the willow, availing itself of every accident to spread along the river’s bank. The ice that strips it only disperses it the more widely. It never says die. May I be as vivacious as a willow.

Some species are so brittle at the base of the twigs that they break on the least touch, but they are as tough above as tender at base, and these twigs are only thus shed like seeds which float away and plant themselves in the first bank on which they lodge. I commonly litter my boat with a shower of these black willow twigs whenever I run into them. 

A kingbird’s nest on a black cherry, above Barbarea Shore. loosely constructed, with some long white rags dangling; one egg. 

At Cedar Swamp, saw the pe-pe catching flies like a wood pewee, darting from its perch on a dead cedar twig from time to time and returning to it. It appeared to have a black crown with some crest, yellowish (?) bill, gray-brown back, black tail, two faint whitish bars on wings, a dirty cream-white throat, and a gray or ash white breast and beneath, whitest in middle.

I had noticed when coming up the river two or three dead suckers, one with a remarkable redness about the anal fins; and this reminded me of the ephemera. It was the 2d of June, 1854, that I observed them in such numbers. 

When I returned to my boat, about five, the weather being mizzling enough to require an umbrella, with an easterly wind-and dark for the hour, my boat being by chance at the same place where it was in ’54, I noticed a great flight of ephemera over the water, though not so great as that. 

The greater part were flying down-stream against the wind, but if you watched one long enough you would see him suddenly turn at length and fly swiftly back up the stream. They advanced against the wind faster than I floated along. They were not coupled nor coupling, — I only noticed two coupled, — but flew, most of them, with their bodies curved, and from time to time each one descended to the water and touched it, or rested on it a second or two, sometimes several minutes. 

They were generally able to rise, but very often before it arose, or not being able to rise, it was seized by a fish. While some are flying down they are met by others coming up. The water was dimpled with the leaping fish. They reach about ten or fifteen feet high over the water, and I also saw a stream of them about as thick over a narrow meadow a dozen rods from the water in the woods. The weather was evidently unfavorable, what with the wind and the rain, and they were more or less confined to the shore, hovering high over the bushes and trees, where the wind was strong over the river. I had not noticed any on leaves.

At one place, against Dodge’s Brook, where they were driven back by a strong head wind at a bend, more than usual were wrecked on the water and the fishes were leaping more numerously than elsewhere. The river was quite alive with them, and I had not thought there were so many in it, — great black heads and tails continually thrust up on all sides of my boat. You had only to keep your eye on a floating fly a minute to see some fishy monster rise and swallow it with more or less skill and plashing. 

Some skillfully seized their prey without much plashing, rising in a low curve and just showing their backs; others rose up perpendicularly, half their length out of water, showing their black backs or white bellies or gleaming sides; others made a noisy rush at their prey and leaped entirely out of water, falling with a loud plash. You saw twenty black points at once. They seemed to be suckers; large fish, at any rate, and probably various kinds. What a sudden surfeit the fishes must have! 

They are of various sizes, but generally their solid bodies about three quarters of an inch long or less, yellowish tinge, transparent, with rows of brown spots; wings gauze-like, with a few opaque brown spots.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  June 8, 1856

I find no Andromeda racemosa in flower. See April 24, 1854 ("New plant (Racemed andromeda) flower-budded at Cedar Swamp . . . — upright dense racemes of reddish flower-buds on reddish terminal shoots.”)   See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cedar Swamps

The three-leaved Solomon’s-seal has almost entirely done, while the two leaved is quite abundant. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Three-leaved  false Solomon's-seal (Smilacina trifolia);  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Two-leaved Solomon's Seal (Canada mayflower or false lily-of-the-valley)

Stellaria longrfolia opposite Barbarea Shore not yet out. It is obviously different from what I call S. borealis See May 15, 1856 ("Just on the brink of this Heywood Spring, I find what may be the Stellaria borealis [boreal starwort/stitchwort](if it is not the longifolia [long-leaved stitchwort], ”); See also June 6, 1854 ("The Stellaria longifolia has been out, apparently, a day or two.");  May 19, 1858  ("Stellaria borealis well out, apparently several days."); June 6, 1859 ("Stellaria longifolia, at Well Meadow Head, how long?")

So vivacious is the willow, availing itself of every accident to spread along the river’s bank.See  June 3, 1857 ("I see a large branch of S. lucida, which has been broken off probably by the ice in the winter and come down from far up-stream and lodged, butt downward, amid some bushes, where it has put forth pink fibres from the butt end in the water, and is growing vigorously. "); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Propogation of the Willow.

A kingbird’s nest on a black cherry . . . loosely constructed, with some long white rags dangling; one egg. See  June 8, 1858 ("A kingbird's nest with three eggs, lined with some hair, in a fork – or against upright part – of a willow") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Kingbird

At Cedar Swamp, saw the pe-pe catching flies like a wood pewee, darting from its perch on a dead cedar twig from time to time and returning to it.  See June 5, 1856. ("The Muscicapa Cooperi sings pe pe pe’, sitting on the top of a pine . . .”); 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, was whitish, streaked with dark, beneath, darker tail and wings, and maybe olivaceous shoulders; bright yellow within bill. Probably M. Cooperi.”). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Olive-sided flycatcher or pe-pe

I had noticed when coming up the river two or three dead suckers. See June 8, 1858 ("In several places I see where dead suckers have been at last partly devoured by some animal. "); May 23, 1854 ("How many springs shall I continue to see the common sucker (Catostomus Bostoniensis) floating dead on our river!"); May 30, 1853 ("Whence came all those dead suckers, a dozen at least, which we saw floating to-day.")

By chance at the same place where it was in ’54, I noticed a great flight of ephemera over the water . . . See June 2, 1854 ( "The whole atmosphere over the river was full of shad-flies."); May 9, 1854 (" [Professor Harris ] says . . . the shad-flies (with streamers and erect wings ) are ephemeræ. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Insect Hatches in Spring (millers, perla, shad-flies or ephemera)

June 8. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 8

Something reminds me

 of the ephemera – now I 

notice a great flight.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A great flight of ephemera 

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

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