Flowers advance as steadily as a clock. Nature loses not a moment, takes no vacation.

 

April 6.

6 A. M. – To Cliffs.

April 6, 2021

The robin is the singer at present, such is its power and universality, being found both in garden and wood. Morning and evening it does not fail, perched on some elm or the like, and in rainy days it is one long morning or evening.

The song sparrow is still more universal but not so powerful.

The lark, too, is equally constant, morning and evening, but confined to certain localities, as is the blackbird to some extent.

The bluebird, with feebler but not less sweet warbling, helps fill the air, and the pheobe does her part.

The tree sparrow, F. hyemalis, and fox-colored sparrows make the meadow-sides or gardens where they are flitting vocal, the first with its canary-like twittering, the second with its lively ringing trills or jingle. The third is a very sweet and more powerful singer, which would be memorable if we heard him long enough.

The woodpecker's tapping, though not musical, suggests pleasant associations in the cool morning,-is inspiriting, enlivening.

I hear no hylas nor croakers in the morning. Is it too cool for them?

The gray branches of the oaks, which have lost still more of their leaves, seen against the pines when the sun is rising and falling on them, how rich and interesting! 

From Cliffs see on the still water under the hill, at the outlet of the pond, two ducks sailing, partly white.

Hear the faint, swelling, far-off beat of a partridge.

Saw probably female red-wings (?), grayish or dark ashy-brown, on an oak in the woods, with a male (?) whose red shoulder did not appear.

How many walks along the brooks I take in the spring! What shall I call them? Lesser riparial excursions? Prairial? rivular?

When I came out there was not a speck of mist in the sky, but the morning without a cloud is not the fairest.

Now, 8.30 A. M., it rains. Such is April.

A male willow, apparently same with that at H.'s Bridge, or No. 2, near end of second track on west. Another male by ring-post on east side, long cylindrical catkins, now dark with scales, which are generally more rounded than usual and reddish at base and not lanceolate, turning backwards in blossom and exposing their sides or breasts to the sun, from which side burst forth fifty or seventy-five long white stamens like rays, tipped with yellow anthers which at first were reddish above, spears to be embraced by invisible Arnold Winkelrieds; — reddish twigs and clear gray beneath.

These last colors, especially, distinguish it from Nos. 1 and 2. Also a female, four or five rods north of last, just coming into bloom, with very narrow tapering catkins, lengthening already, some to an inch and a half, ovaries conspicuously stalked; very downy twigs, more reddish and rough than last below.

If we consider the eagle as a large hawk, how he falls in our estimation! 

Our new citizen Sam Wheeler has a brave new weathercock all gilt on his new barn. This morning at sunrise it reflected the sun so brightly that I thought it was a house on fire in Acton, though I saw no smoke, but that might well be omitted.

The flower-buds of the red maple have very red inner scales, now being more and more exposed, which color the tree-tops a great distance off.

P. M.-To Second Division Brook.

Near Clamshell Hill, I scare up in succession four pairs of good-sized brown or grayish-brown ducks. They go off with a loud squeaking quack. Each pair is by itself. One pair on shore some rods from the water.  Is not the object of the quacking to give notice of danger to the rest who cannot see it? 

All along under the south side of this hill on the edge of the meadow, the air resounds with the hum of honey-bees, attracted by the flower of the skunk cabbage. I first heard the fine, peculiarly sharp hum of the honey-bee before I thought of them. Some hummed hollowly within the spathes, perchance to give notice to their fellows that plant was occupied, for they repeatedly looked in, and backed out on finding another.

It was surprising to see them, directed by their instincts to these localities, while the earth has still but a wintry aspect so far as vegetation is concerned, buzz around some obscure spathe close to the ground, well knowing what they were about, then alight and enter. As the cabbages were very numerous for thirty or forty rods, there must have been some hundreds of bees there at once, at least.

I watched many when they entered and came out, and they all had little yellow pellets of pollen at their thighs.

As the skunk-cabbage comes out before the willow, it is probable that the former is the first flower they visit. It is the more surprising, as the flower is for the most part invisible within the spathe.

Some of these spathes are now quite large and twisted up like cows ' horns, not curved over as usual. Commonly they make a pretty little crypt or shrine for the flower, like the overlapping door of a tent.

It must be bee-bread (?), then, they are after. Lucky that this flower does not flavor their honey.

I have noticed for a month or more the bare ground sprinkled here and there with several kinds of fungi, now conspicuous, — the starred kind, puffballs, etc. 

Now it is fair, and the sun shines, though it shines and rains with short intervals to-day.

I do not see so much greenness in the grass as I expected, though a considerable change. No doubt the rain exaggerates a little by showing all the greenness there is ! The thistle is now ready to wear the rain-drops.

I see, in J. P. Brown's field, by Nut Meadow Brook, where a hen has been devoured by a hawk probably. The feathers whiten the ground. They cannot carry a large fowl very far from the farmyard, and when driven off are frequently baited and caught in a trap by the remainder of their quarry.

The gooseberry has not yet started.

I cannot describe the lark's song.

I used these syllables in the morning to remember it by, -- heetar-su-e-00.

The willow in Miles's Swamp which resembles No. 2 not fairly in blossom yet.

Heard unusual notes from, I think, a chickadee in the swamp, elicited, probably, by the love season, -- che che vet, accent on last syllable, and vissa viss a viss, the last sharp and fine.

Yet the bird looked more slender than the common titmouse, with a longer tail, which jerked a little, but it seemed to be the same bird that sang phebe and he-phebe so sweetly. The woods rang with this.

Nuttall says it is the young that phebe in winter.

I noticed some aspens (tremuliformis) of good size there, which have no flowers! 

The first lightning I remember this year was in the rain last evening, quite bright; and the thunder followed very long after. A thunder-shower in Boston yesterday.

One cowslip, though it shows the yellow, is not fairly out, but will be by to-morrow. How they improve their time ! Not a moment of sunshine lost.

One thing I may depend on : there has been no idling with the flowers. They advance as steadily as a clock. Nature loses not a moment, takes no vacation.

These plants, now protected by the water, just peeping forth. I should not be surprised to find that they drew in their heads in a frosty night.

Returning by Harrington's, saw a pigeon woodpecker flash away, showing the rich golden under side of its glancing wings and the large whitish spot on its back, and presently I heard its familiar long-repeated loud note, almost familiar as that of a barn-door fowl, which it somewhat resembles.

The robins, too, now toward sunset, perched on the old apple trees in Tarbell's orchard, twirl forth their evening lays unweariedly.

Is that a willow, the low bush from the fireplace ravine which from the lichen oak, fifty or sixty rods distant, shows so red in the westering sun light? More red, I find, by far than close at hand.

To-night for the first time I hear the hylas in full blast.

Is that pretty little reddish-leaved star-shaped plant by the edge of water a different species of hypericum from the perforatum?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 6, 1853

The robin is the singer at present, such is its power and universality, . . .The song sparrow is still more universal but not so powerful . . .and the pheobe does her part. See April 6, 1856 ("the note of the first pewee! If there is one within half a mile, it will be here, and I shall be sure to hear its simple notes from those trees, borne over the water") see also April 1, 1854 (" The robin now begins to sing sweet powerfully"); April 2, 1852 ("The air is full of the notes of birds, - song sparrows, red-wings, robins (singing a strain), bluebirds, - and I hear also a lark, - as if all the earth had burst forth into song."); April 9, 1855 ("At sunset after the rain, the robins and song sparrows fill the air along the river with their song.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia); A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Robins in Spring

 

The air resounds with the hum of honey-bees, attracted by the flower of the skunk cabbage. See April 6, 1854 ("I am surprised to find so much of the white maples already out. The light-colored stamens show to some rods. They resound with the hum of honey-bees, ").  See also   March 18, 1860 ("The first sunny and warmer day in March the honeybee leaves its home. . .There is but one flower in bloom in the town, and this insect knows where to find it. . . . it knows a spot a mile off under a warm bank-side where the skunk-cabbage is in bloom. No doubt this flower, too, has learned to expect its winged visitor knocking at its door in the spring. ");  April 7, 1855  ("At six this morn to Clamshell. The skunk-cabbage open yesterday, — the earliest flower this season") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau , the Skunk Cabbage; A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Earliest Flower

To-night for the first time I hear the hylas in full blast. See April 6, 1858 ("I hear hylas in full blast 2.30 P. M.") See also  March 26, 1857 ("The notes of the croaking frog and the hylodes are not only contemporary with, but analogous to, the blossoms of the skunk-cabbage and white maple."); March 31, 1855 ("I go listening for the croak of the first frog, or peep of a hylodes."); March 31, 1857 ("The shrill peeping of the hylodes locates itself nowhere in particular.");  April 1, 1860 ("I hear the first hylodes by chance, but no doubt they have been heard some time"); April 2, 1852 ("I hear a solitary hyla for the first time."). April 5, 1854("Hark! while I write down this field note, the shrill peep of the hylodes is borne to me from afar through the woods") and  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The first frogs to begin calling

Flowers advance as steadily as a clock. See April 6, 1860 ("Vegetation thus comes forward rather by fits and starts than by a steady progress. . . .The spring thus advances and recedes repeatedly, — its pendulum oscillates, — while it is carried steadily forward.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Nature

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

Flowers advance as

steadily as a clock. Nature

loses no moment.

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 © 2009-2024

Elm bud-scales strew the ground, and the trees look richly in flower.

April 12.  

White-bellied swallows. 

Elm bud-scales have begun to strew the ground, and the trees look richly in flower

60° at 2 P. M.

Hear a pigeon woodpecker's prolonged cackle.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  April 12, 1860

White-bellied swallows . . . a pigeon woodpecker' s prolonged cackle.  See April 8, 1855 ("Hear and see a pigeon woodpecker, something like week-up week-up. The robins now sing in full blast"); April 15, 1855 ("Robins sing now at 10 A. M. as in the morning, and the phoebe; and pigeon woodpecker’s cackle is heard, and many martins (with white—bellied swallows) are skimming and twittering above the water,"); April 15, 1859 ("I see and hear white-bellied swallows as they are zigzagging through the air with their loud and lively notes"). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,,The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The White-bellied Swallow

Elm bud-scales have begun to strew the ground, and the trees look richly in flower. See  April 12, 1855  ("I hear a purple finch . . . on an elm, steadily warbling and uttering a sharp chip from time to time"); April 13, 1859 ("The streets are strewn with the bud-scales of the elm, which they, opening, have lost off, and their tops present a rich brown already. I hear a purple finch on one, and did I not hear a martin's rich warble also?"); April 21, 1858 ("The puddles have dried off along the road and left thick deposits or water-lines of the dark-purple anthers of the elm, coloring the ground like sawdust. You could collect great quantities of them."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Elms and the Purple Finch

April 12. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April 12

Elm bud-scales start to

strew the ground and the trees look

richly in flower.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Elm bud-scales strew the ground

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 ©  2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-600412

Like the note of an alarm-clock set last fall so as to wake Nature up at exactly this date.

March 23. 

March 23, 2019

P. M. — Walk to Cardinal Shore and sail to Well Meadow and Lee's Cliff. 

It clears up at 2 p. m. The Lycoperdon stellatum are numerous and blossomed out widely in Potter's Path by Bare Hill, after the rain of the night. 

As we sail upward toward the pond, we scare up two or three golden-eyes, or whistlers, showing their large black heads and black backs, and afterward I watch one swimming not far before us and see the white spot, amid the black, on the side of his head. I have now no doubt that I saw some on the 21st flying here, and it is very likely that Rice saw them here on the 17th, as he says. 

The pond may be said to be open to-day. There is, however, quite a large mass of ice, which has drifted, since the east wind arose yesterday noon, from the east side over to the north of the Island. 

This ice, of which there may be eight or ten acres, is so very dark, almost black, that it is hard to discern till you are just upon it, though some little pieces which we broke off and left on its edge were very visible for half a mile. When at the edge of this field of ice, it was a very dark gray in color, had none of the usual whiteness of ice. It was about six inches thick, but was most completely honeycombed. The upper surface was not only thus dark, dusky, or blackish, but full of little hollows three to six inches across, and the whole mass undulated with the waves very much, irregular cracks alternately opening and closing in it, yet it was well knitted together. 

With my paddle I could depress it six inches on the edge, and cause it to undulate like a blanket for a rod or more, and yet it bore us securely when we stepped out upon it, and it was by no means easy to break off or detach a piece a foot wide. In short, it was thoroughly honeycombed and, as it were, saturated with water. The masses broken off reminded me of some very decayed and worm-eaten interiors of trees. Yet the small cakes into which it visibly cracked when you bent it and made it undulate were knitted together or dovetailed somewhat like the plates of a tortoise-shell, and immediately returned to their places.  

Though it would bear you, the creaking of one such part on another was a quite general and considerable noise, and one detached mass, rubbed in your hand upon the edge of the field, yielded a singular metallic or ringing sound, evidently owing to its hollowness or innumerable perforations. It had a metallic ring. The moment you raised a mass from the water, it was very distinctly white and brilliant, the water running out from it. This was the relic of that great mass which I saw on the 21st on the east side. 

There was a great quantity of bayonet rush, also, drifted over here and strewn along the shore. This and the pontederia are the coarsest of the wrack. 

Now is the time, then, that it is added to the wrack, probably being ripped up by the ice. It reminds you of the collections of seaweed after a storm, — this river-weed after the spring freshets have melted and dispersed the ice. The ice thus helps essentially to clear the shore. 

I am surprised to see one of those sluggish ghost-horses alive on the ice. It was probably drifted from the shore by the flood and here lodged. 

That dark, uneven ice has a peculiarly coarse-grained appearance, it is so much decomposed. The pieces are interlocked by the irregularities of the perpendicular combing. The underside presents the most continuous surface, and it is held together chiefly on that side. One piece rings when struck on another, like a trowel on a brick, and as we rested against the edge of this ice, we heard a singular wheezing and grating sound, which was the creaking of the ice, which was undulating under the waves and wind. 

As we entered Well Meadow, we saw a hen-hawk perch on the topmost plume of one of the tall pines at the head of the meadow. Soon another appeared, probably its mate, but we looked in vain for a nest there. It was a fine sight, their soaring above our heads, presenting a perfect outline and, as they came round, showing their rust-colored tails with a whitish rump, or, as they sailed away from us, that slight teetering or quivering motion of their dark-tipped wings seen edgewise, now on this side, now that, by which they balanced and directed themselves. 

These are the most eagle-like of our common hawks. They very commonly perch upon the very topmost plume of a pine, and, if motionless, are rather hard to distinguish there. 

The cowslip and most of the skunk-cabbage there have been and are still drowned by flood; else we should find more in bloom. As it is, I see the skunk- cabbage in bloom, but generally the growth of both has been completely checked by the water. 

While reconnoitring there, we hear the peep of one hylodes somewhere in this sheltered recess in the woods. And afterward, on the Lee side, I hear a single croak from a wood frog. 

We cross to Lee's shore and sit upon the bare rocky ridge overlooking the flood southwest and northeast. It is quite sunny and sufficiently warm. I see one or two of the small fuzzy gnats in the air. The prospect thence is a fine one, especially at this season, when the water is high. 

The landscape is very agreeably diversified with hill and vale and meadow and cliff. As we look southwest, how attractive the shores of russet capes and peninsulas laved by the flood! Indeed, that large tract east of the bridge is now an island. How fair that low, undulating russet land! 

At this season and under these circumstances, the sun just come out and the flood high around it, russet, so reflecting the light of the sun, appears to me the most agreeable of colors, and I begin to dream of a russet fairyland and elysium. How dark and terrene must be green! but this smooth russet surface reflects almost all the light. 

That broad and low but firm island, with but few trees to conceal the contour of the ground and its outline, with its fine russet sward, firm and soft as velvet, reflecting so much light, — all the undulations of the earth, its nerves and muscles, revealed by the light and shade, and even the sharper ridgy edge of steep banks where the plow has heaped up the earth from year to year, — this is a sort of fairyland and elysium to my eye. 

The tawny couchant island! Dry land for the Indian's wigwam in the spring, and still strewn with his arrow-points. The sight of such land reminds me of the pleasant spring days in which I have walked over such tracts, looking for these relics. How well, too, this smooth, firm, light-reflecting, tawny earth contrasts with the darker water which surrounds it, — or perchance lighter sometimes! 

At this season, when the russet colors prevail, the contrast of water and land is more agreeable to behold. What an inexpressibly soft curving line is the shore! Or if the water is perfectly smooth and yet rising, you seem to see it raised an eighth of an inch with swelling up above the immediate shore it kisses, as in a cup or the of [sic] a saucer. Indian isles and promontories. 

Thus we sit on that rock, hear the first wood frog's croak, and dream of a russet elysium. Enough for the season is the beauty thereof. Spring has a beauty of its own which we would not exchange for that of summer, and at this moment, if I imagine the fairest earth I can, it is still russet, such is the color of its blessed isles, and they are surrounded with the phenomena of spring. 

The qualities of the land that are most attractive to our eyes now are dryness and firmness. It is not the rich black soil, but warm and sandy hills and plains which tempt our steps. We love to sit on and walk over sandy tracts in the spring like cicindelas. 

These tongues of russet land tapering and sloping into the flood do almost speak to one. They are alternately in sun and shade. When the cloud is passed, and they reflect their pale-brown light to me, I am tempted to go to them. 

I think I have already noticed within a week how very agreeably and strongly the green of small pines contrasts with the russet of a hillside pasture now. Perhaps there is no color with which green contrasts more strongly. 

I see the shadow of a cloud — and it chances to be a hollow ring with sunlight in its midst — passing over the hilly sprout-land toward the Baker house, a sprout-land of oaks and birches; and, owing to the color of the birch twigs, perhaps, this shadow turns all from russet to a decided dark-purplish color as it moves along. 

And then, as I look further along eastward in the horizon, I am surprised to see strong purple and violet tinges in the sun, from a hillside a mile off densely covered with full-grown birches. It is the steep old corn-field hillside of Jacob Baker's. 

I would not have believed that under the spring sun so many colors were brought out. 

It is not the willows only that shine, but, under favorable circumstances, many other twigs, even a mile or two off. 

The dense birches, so far that their white stems are not distinct, reflect deep, strong purple and violet colors from the distant hillsides opposite to the sun.

Can this have to do with the sap flowing in them? 

As we sit there, we see coming, swift and straight, northeast along the river valley, not seeing us and therefore not changing his course, a male goosander, so near that the green reflections of his head and neck are plainly visible. He looks like a paddle-wheel steamer, so oddly painted up, black and white and green, and moves along swift and straight like one. Ere long the same returns with his mate, the red-throated, the male taking the lead. 

The loud peop (?) of a pigeon woodpecker is heard in our sea [?], and anon the prolonged loud and shrill cackle, calling the thin-wooded hillsides and pastures to life. It is like the note of an alarm-clock set last fall so as to wake Nature up at exactly this date. Up up up up up up up up up ! What a rustling it seems to make among the dry leaves! 

You can now sit on sunny sheltered sprout-land hillsides and enjoy the sight and sound of rustling dry leaves. 

Then I see come slowly flying from the southwest a great gull, of voracious form, which at length by a sudden and steep descent alights in Fair Haven Pond, scaring up a crow which was seeking its food on the edge of the ice. This shows that the crows get along the meadow's edge also what has washed up.

 It is suggested that the blue is darkest when reflected from the most agitated water, because of the shadow (occasioned by the inequalities) mingled with it. Some Indians of the north have but one word for blue and black, and blue is with us considered the darkest color, though it is the color of the sky or air. Light, I should say, was white; the absence of it, black. Hold up to the light a perfectly opaque body and you get black, but hold up to it the least opaque body, such as air, and you get blue. Hence you may say that blue is light seen through a veil.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 23, 1859

A male goosander, so near that the green reflections of his head and neck are plainly visible. He looks like a paddle-wheel steamer, so oddly painted up, black and white and green, and moves along swift and straight like one. See March 17, 1860 (“See a large flock of sheldrakes . . . flying with great force and rapidity over my head in the woods. Now I hear the whistling of their wings, and in a moment they are lost in the horizon. Like swift propellers of the air.”); April 6, 1855 (“I am near enough to see its green head and neck. I am delighted to find a perfect specimen of the Mergus merganser, or goosander, undoubtedly shot yesterday by the Fast-Day sportsmen”); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Merganser, Goosander)

A single croak from a wood frog . . . Thus we sit on that rock, hear the first wood frog's croak. See March 15, 1860 ("Am surprised to hear, from the pool behind Lee's Cliff, the croaking of the wood frog. . . . As Walden opens eight days earlier than I have known it, so this frog croaks about as much earlier.."); March 24, 1859 ("I am sitting in Laurel Glen, listening to hear the earliest wood frogs croaking . . . Now, when the leaves get to be dry and rustle under your feet, dried by the March winds, the peculiar dry note, wurrk wurrk wur-r-r-k wurk of the wood frog is heard faintly by ears on the alert, borne up from some unseen pool in a woodland hollow which is open to the influences of the sun. ")

An alarm-clock set

as to wake Nature up at

exactly this date.

Spring has a beauty –

beauty we would not exchange

for that of summer.

Birches reflect deep 

strong purple and violet 

colors from the hillsides.

Sitting on this rock

we hear the first wood frog’s croak

and begin to dream.

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 ©  2009-2024

 

At New Bedford.

December 9. 

At New Bedford. 

See a song sparrow and a pigeon woodpecker. Dr. Bryant tells of the latter picking holes in blinds, and also in his barn roof and sides in order to get into it; holes in the window sashes or casings as if a nail had been driven into them. 

Asked a sailor at the wharf how he distinguished a whaler. He said by the “davits,” large upright timbers with sheaves curving over the sides to hold up the boats (a merchantman has only a few and small at the stern); also by the place for the man to stand at masthead (crosstrees, I should say they were) and look out for whales, which you do not see on a merchant-ship; i. e., the crosstrees of the latter are very slight . . .

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 9, 1858

See a song sparrow.  See January 15, 1857 ("I saw, to my surprise, that it must be a song sparrow, . . taken refuge in this shed”); January 28, 1857("Am again surprised to see a song sparrow sitting for hours on our wood-pile in the yard.”). Also January 22, 1857 ("Minott tells me that Sam Barrett told him once when he went to mill that a song sparrow took up its quarters in his grist-mill and stayed there all winter.”) See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia)

Asked a sailor at the wharf. See December 25, 1854 (“At New Bedford see casks of oil covered with seaweed to prevent fire. The weed holds moisture. Town not lively; whalers abroad at this season.”)

Woodchuck mittens

March 11. 

I see and talk with Rice, sawing off the ends of clapboards which he has planed, to make them square, for an addition to his house. He has got a fire in his shop, and plays at house-building there. His life is poetic. He does the work himself. 

He combines several qualities and talents rarely combined. Though he owns houses in the city, whose repair he attends to, finds tenants for them, and collects the rent, he also has his Sudbury farm and bean-fiolds. Though he lived in a city, he would still be natural and related to primitive nature around him. 

Though he owned all Beacon Street, you might find that his mittens were made of the skin of a woodchuck that had ravaged his bean-field, which he had cured. I noticed a woodchuck’s skin tacked up to the inside of his shop. He said it had fatted on his beans, and William had killed and expected to get another to make a pair of mittens of, one not being quite large enough. It was excellent for mittens. You could hardly wear it out. 

Spoke of the cuckoo, which was afraid of the birds, was easily beaten; would dive right into the middle of a poplar, then come out on to some bare twig and look round for a nest to rob of young or eggs. 

Had noticed a pigeon woodpecker go repeatedly in a straight line from his nest in an apple tree to a distant brook-side in a meadow, dive down there, and in a few minutes return.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 11, 1857

Revisiting nests.

July 19.

P. M. — Marlborough Road via railroad and Dugan wood-lot. 

A box tortoise, killed a good while, on the railroad, at Dogwood Swamp; quite dry now. This the fourth I have ever found: first one, alive, in Truro; second one, dead, on shore of Long Pond, Lakeville; third one, alive, under Fair Haven Hill; and fourth, this. 

This appeared to have been run over, but both upper and under shells were broken into several pieces each, in no case on the line of the serrations or of the edges of the scales (proving that they are as strong one way as the other), but at various angles across them, which, I think, proves it to have been broken while the animal was alive or fresh and the shell not dry. I picked up only the after half or two thirds and one foot. The upper shell was at the widest place four and three eighths inches. It was broken irregularly across the back, from about the middle of the second lateral scale from the front on the left to the middle of the third lateral on the right, and was, at the angle of the marginal scales, about sixteen fortieths to seventeen fortieths of an inch thick, measured horizontally. The sides under the lateral scales and half the dorsal were from four to five fortieths of an inch thick. The thinnest part was about three eighths of an inch from middle of back on each side, directly between the spring of the sides [?], where it was but little more than two fortieths thick. So nature makes an arch. 

I have about half the sternum, the rear of it at one point reaching to the hinge. It is thickest vertically just at the side hinges, where it is one fourth thick; thinnest three eighths from this each side, where it is one eighth thick; and thence thickens to the middle of the sternum, where it [is] seven and a half fortieths thick. 

The upper shell in this case (vide May 17, 1856) is neither pointed nor notched behind, but quite straight. The sternum and the lower parts of the marginal scales are chiefly dark-brown. The marking above is sufficiently like that of the Cape Cod specimen, with a still greater proportion of yellow, now faded to a yellowish brown. 

On Linnaea Hills, sarsaparilla berries. 

Lobelia inflata, perhaps several days; little white glands (?) on the edges of the leaves. On the under side of a Lobelia spicata leaf, a sort of loose-spun cocoon, about five eighths of an inch long, of golden-brown silk, beneath which silky mist a hundred young spiders swarm. 

Examined painted tortoise eggs of June 10th. One of those great spider(?)-holes made there since then, close to the eggs. The eggs are large and rather pointed, methinks at the larger end. The young are half developed. 

Fleets of yellow butterflies on road. 

Small white rough-coated puffballs (?) in pastures. Appear not to have two coats like that of Potter's Path, q. v. 

As I come by the apple tree on J. P. B.'s land, where I heard the young woodpeckers hiss a month or so ago, I now see that they have flown, for there is a cobweb over the hole. 

Plucked a handful of gooseberries at J. P. B.'s bush, probably ripe some time. It is of fair size, red-purple and greenish, and apparently like the first in garden, except it is not slightly bristly like that, nor has so much flavor and agreeable tartness. Also the stalk is not so prickly, but for the most part has one small prickle where ours has three stout ones. Our second gooseberry is more purple (or dark-purple with bloom) and the twig less prickly than the wild. Its flavor is insipid and in taste like the wild. 

It is the Hypericum ellipticum and Canadense (linear- leaved) whose red pods are noticed now. 

On the sand thrown out by the money-diggers, I found the first ripe blackberries thereabouts. The heat reflected from the sand had ripened them earlier than elsewhere. It did not at first occur to me what sand it was, nor that I was indebted to the money-diggers, or their Moll Pitcher who sent them hither, for these blackberries. I am probably the only one who has got any fruit out of that hole. It 's an ill wind that blows nobody any good. 

Looking up, I observed that they had dug another hole a rod higher up the hill last spring (for the blackberries had not yet spread over it), and had partly filled it up again. So the result of some idler's folly and some spiritualist's nonsense is that I get my blackberries a few days the earlier. 

The downy woodpecker's nest which I got July 8th was in a dead and partly rotten upright apple bough four and three quarters inches [in] diameter. Hole perfectly elliptical (or oval) one and two sixteenths by one and five sixteenths inches ; whole depth below it eight inches. It is excavated directly inward about three and a half inches, with a conical roof, also arching at back, with a recess in one side on level with the hole, where the bird turns. Judging from an old hole in the same bough, directly above, it enlarges directly to a diameter of two and one fourth to two and one half inches, not in this case descending exactly in the middle of the bough, but leaving one side not a quarter of an inch thick. At the hole it is left one inch thick. At the nest it is about two and three eighths inches [in] diameter. 

I find nothing in the first but bits of rotten wood, remains of insects, etc., when I tip it up, — for I cannot see the bottom, — yet in the old one there is also quite a nest of fine stubble (?), bark shred (?), etc., mixed with the bits of rotten wood.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 19, 1856

Where I heard the young woodpeckers hiss a month or so ago . . . See June 10, 1856 ("In a hollow apple tree, hole eighteen inches deep, young pigeon woodpeckers, large and well feathered. They utter their squeaking hiss whenever I cover the hole with my hand, apparently taking it for the approach of the mother. A strong, rank fetid smell issues from the hole.")

Examined painted tortoise eggs of June 10th. See June 10, 1856 ("A painted tortoise laying her eggs ten feet from the wheel-track on the Marlborough road.")

The downy woodpecker's nest which I got July 8th was in a dead and partly rotten upright apple . . .  See July 8, 1856 ("Got the downy woodpecker’s nest, some days empty.”)

Lobelia inflata, perhaps several days; little white glands (?) on the edges of the leaves. See July 17, 1852 ("Lobelia inflata, Indian-tobacco""); ; August 20, 1851 ("The Lobelia inflata, Indian-tobacco, meets me at every turn. At first I suspect some new bluish flower in the grass, but stooping see the inflated pods. Tasting one such herb convinces me that there are such things as drugs which may either kill or cure")

Fleets of yellow butterflies on road. See July 26, 1854 ("Today I see in various parts of the town the yellow butterflies in fleets in the road, on bare damp sand, twenty or more collected within a diameter of five or six inches in many places.") and July 14, 1852 ("See to-day for the first time this season fleets of yellow butterflies in compact assembly in the road...")

It is the Hypericum ellipticum and Canadense (linear- leaved) whose red pods are noticed now. See July 24, 1853 ("The small linear leaved hypericum (H. Canadense) shows red capsules.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

A painted tortoise laying her eggs ten feet from the wheel-track on the Marlborough road.

June 10. 

June 10, 2016

8 A. M. — Getting lily pads opposite Badger’s.

Already the pads are much eaten before they are grown, and underneath, on the under side of almost every one, are the eggs of various species of insect, some so minute as to escape detection at first, in close, flat, straight-sided nests. 

The yellow lily and kalmiana are abundantly out. The under sides of the pads, their stems, and the Ranunculus Purshii and other water-plants are thickly covered and defiled with the sloughs, perhaps of those little fuzzy gnats (in their first state) which have so swarmed over the river. It is quite difficult to clean your specimens of them. 

P. M. — To Dugan Desert.

Cornus alternifolia a day or two, up railroad; maybe longer elsewhere. 

Spergularia rubra by railroad, it having been dug up last year, and so delayed. 

The cuckoo of June 5th has deserted her nest, and I find the fragments of egg-shells in it; probably because I found it. 

Oxalis freshly out: how long? Apparently but two or three days. 

I find some linnaea well out, after all, within a rod of the top of the hill, apparently two or three days. If it flowered more abundantly, probably it would be earlier. 

Chewink’s nest with four young in the dry sprout-land of Loring’s thick wood that was, under a completely overarching tuft of dry sedge grass. 

I hear the huckleberry-bird now add to its usual strain a-tea tea tea tea tea. 

A painted tortoise laying her eggs ten feet from the wheel-track on the Marlborough road. She paused at first, but I sat down within two feet, and she soon resumed her work. Had excavated a hollow about five inches wide and six long in the moistened sand, and cautiously, with long intervals, she continued her work, resting always on the same spot her fore feet, and never looking round, her eye shut all but a narrow slit. 

Whenever I moved, perhaps to brush off a mosquito, she paused. A wagon approached, rumbling afar off, and then there was a pause, till it had passed and long, long after, a tedious, naturlangsam pause of the slow-blooded creature, a sacrifice of time such as those animals are up to which slumber half a year and live for centuries. 

It was twenty minutes before I discovered that she was not making the hole but filling it up slowly, having laid her eggs. She drew the moistened sand under herself, scraping it along from behind with both feet brought together, the claws turned inward. In the long pauses the ants troubled her (as mosquitoes me) by running over her eyes, which made her snap or dart out her head suddenly, striking the shell. She did not dance on the sand, nor finish covering the hollow quite so carefully as the one observed last year. 

She went off suddenly (and quickly at first), with a slow but sure instinct through the wood toward the swamp.

The clustered blackberry of Dugan Desert not yet out, nor apparently for two or three days. 

Sweet Viburnum apparently two or three days at most, by Warren Miles’s, Nut Meadow Pond. 

In a hollow apple tree, hole eighteen inches deep, young pigeon woodpeckers, large and well feathered. They utter their squeaking hiss whenever I cover the hole with my hand, apparently taking it for the approach of the mother. A strong, rank fetid smell issues from the hole. 

Ripe strawberries, even in a meadow on sand thrown out of a ditch, hard at first to detect amid the red radical leaves. The flower-buds of late there have now that rank smell. 

Lambkill out, at Clamshell. 

The Cratoegus Crus-Galli is out of bloom. 

Arenaria serpyllifolia is out of bloom at Clamshell.

Side-flowering sandwort abundantly out this side of Dugan Spring. 

Solanum well out, by Wood’s Bridge.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 10, 1856

I find some linnaea well out. See June 1, 1855 ("I find the Linnaea borealis."); June 4, 1855 ("The Linnæa borealis has grown an inch"); June 6, 1853 ("The linnæa just out.");and  note to June 9, 1851 ("Gathered the Linnæa borealis.")

The one [laying painted tortoise] observed last year.  See June 18, 1855 ("after a slight pause it proceeds in its work, directly under and within eighteen inches of my face.”). See also June 10, 1858 (“See a painted turtle digging her nest in the road at 5.45 P. M.”) and A Book of the Seasons,    by Henry Thoreau, The Painted Turtle (Emys Picta)

Sweet Viburnum apparently two or three days at most . . . See June 10, 1854 ("The Viburnum lentago is just out of bloom now that the V. nudum is fairly begun.”); June 10, 1857 (“At R.W.E.'s a viburnum, apparently nudum var. cassinoides (?)”)

Warren Miles's, Nut Meadow Pond . . . See May 7, 1856 ("The brook below is full of fishes,--suckers, pouts, eels, trouts,-- endeavoring to get up, but his dam prevents."); April 28, 1856 ("I began to survey the meadow there early, . . .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.”); April 25, 1856 ("Warren Miles had caught three more snapping turtles since yesterday, at his mill, . . . These turtles have been disturbed or revealed by his operations.”); April 24 1856 (Warren Miles at his new mill tells me eels can’t get above his mill now, in the spring.”); February 28, 1856 ("Miles is repairing the damage done at his new mill by the dam giving way.”)

Lambkill out, at Clamshell. See June 9, 1855 ("Lambkill out."); June 10, 1855 ("The Kalmia glauca is done before the lambkill is begun here"); June 13, 1854 ("How beautiful the solid cylinders of the lamb-kill now just before sunset . . .”).

Ripe strawberries . . .amid the red radical leaves.  See June 14, 1859 ("Early strawberries begin to be common. The lower leaves of the plant are red, concealing the fruit."); June 15, 1853 ("Strawberries in the meadow now ready for the picker. They lie deep at the roots of the grass in the shade. You spread aside the tall grass, and deep down in little cavities by the roots of the grass you find this rich fruit.”)

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

Sailing is much like flying

April 29. 

April 29, 2016

Was awakened early this morning by thunder and some rain, — the second thunder-shower of the season, —but it proved a fair day. 

At mid forenoon saw a fish hawk flying leisurely over the house northeasterly. 

P. M. — To Cedar Swamp. 

J Monroe’s larch staminate buds have now erected and separated their anthers, and they look somewhat withered, as if they had shed a part of their pollen. If so, they began yesterday. 

It was quite warm when I first came out, but about 3 P. M. I felt a fresh easterly wind, and saw quite a mist in the distance produced by it, a sea-turn. There was the same phenomenon yesterday at the same hour, and on the 24th, later in the day. Yet to-day the air was not much cooled. Your first warning of it may be the seeing a thick mist on all the hills and in the horizon. The wind is southeast. 

I see great devil’s-needles whiz by, coupled.

Do not sail well till I reach Dove Rock, then glide swiftly up the stream. I move upward against the current with a moderate but fair wind, the waves somewhat larger, probably because the wind contends with the current. 

The sun is in my face, and the waves look particularly lively and sparkling. I can steer and write at the same time. They gurgle under my stern, in haste to fill the hollow which I have created. The waves seem to leap and roll like porpoises, with a slight surging sound when their crests break, and I feel an agreeable sense that I am swiftly gliding over and through them, bound on my own errands, while their motion is chiefly but an undulation, and an apparent one. 

It is pleasant, exhilarating, to feel the boat tossed up a little by them from time to time. Perhaps a wine-drinker would say it was like the effect of wine. It is flattering to a sense of power to make the wayward wind our horse and sit with our hand on the tiller. Sailing is much like flying, and from the birth of our race men have been charmed by it. 

Near the little larch, scared a small dark-brown hawk from an apple tree, which flew off low to another apple tree beside Barrett’s Pond. Just before he flew again I saw with my glass that his tail was barred with white. Must it not be a pigeon hawk then? He looked a dark slate as he sat, with tawny-white thighs and under head, —far off. He soon started a third time, and a crow seemed to be in chase of him. I think I have not described this white—barred hawk before, but for the black-barred vide May 8, 1854, and April 16, 1855. 

The white cedar now sheds pollen abundantly. Many flowers are effete, though many are not open. Probably it began as much as three days ago. I strike a twig, and its peculiar pinkish pollen fills the air.

Sat on the knoll in the swamp, now laid bare. How pretty a red maple in bloom (they are now in prime), seen in the sun against a pine wood, like these little ones in the swamp against the neighboring wood, they are so light and ethereal, not a heavy mass of color impeding the passage of the light, and they are of so cheerful and lively a color. 

The pine warbler is heard very much now at mid day, when already most birds are quiet. It must be the female which has so much less yellow beneath. 

Do not the toads ring most on a windy day like this? I heard but few on the still 27th. 

A pigeon woodpecker alights on a dead cedar top near me. Its cackle, thus near, sounds like eh eh eh eh eh, etc., rapidly and emphatically repeated. 

Some birch sprouts in the swamp are leafed as much as any shrub or tree. 

Barn swallows and chimney, with white-bellied swallows, are flying together over the river. I thought before that I distinguished the twitter of the chimney swallow.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 29, 1856

J. Monroe’s larch staminate buds have now erected and separated their anthers. See April 29, 1855 ("A few of the cones within reach on F. Monroe’s larches shed pollen; say, then, yesterday. The
crimson female flowers are now handsome but small.");April 23, 1855 ("The anthers of the larch are conspicuous, but I see no pollen. White cedar to-morrow.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Larch in Spring


The white cedar now sheds pollen abundantly. Probably it began as much as three days ago. I strike a twig, and its peculiar pinkish pollen fills the air. See April 26, 1857 ("The white cedar is apparently just out.") ; April 26, 1856 ("The white cedar gathered the 23d does not shed pollen in house till to-day, and I doubt if it will in swamp before to-morrow."); April 24, 1855 ("The [pollen] of the white cedar is very different, being a faint salmon.”)

Must it not be a pigeon hawk then?  I think I have not described this white-barred hawk before. See April 27, 1860 ("Saw yesterday, and see to-day, a small hawk which I take to be a pigeon hawk. This one skims low along over Grindstone Meadow, close to the edge of the water, and I see the blackbirds rise hurriedly from the button bushes and willows before him. I am decided by his size (as well as color) and his low, level skimming.") See also A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Hawk (Merlin)

. . . to make the wayward wind our horse and sit with our hand on the tiller. Sailing is much like flying, and from the birth of our race men have been charmed by it. See July 29, 1851 ("The sailboat is an admirable invention, by which you compel the wind to transport you even against itself. It is easier to guide than a horse; the slightest pressure on the tiller suffices. I think the inventor must have been greatly surprised, as well as delighted, at the success of his experiment.”)