The bark of the striped squirrel is a first sure sign of decided spring weather.

March 9. 

Wednesday. Rain, dissolving the snow and raising the river.

I do not perceive that the early elm or the white maple buds have swollen yet.

So the relaxed and loosened (?) alder catkins and the extended willow catkins and poplar catkins are the first signs of reviving vegetation which I have witnessed.

Minott thinks, and quotes some old worthy as authority for saying, that the bark of the striped squirrel is the, or a, first sure sign of decided spring weather.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 9, 1853

I do not perceive that the early elm or the white maple buds have swollen yet.  See March 23, 1853 (“The white maple may perhaps be said to begin to blossom to-day, — the male, — for the stamens, both anthers and filament, are conspicuous on some buds. It has opened unexpectedly, and a rich sight it is, looking up through the expanded buds to the sky.”); March 29,  1853 ("The female flowers of the white maple , crimson stig mas from the same rounded masses of buds with the male , are now quite abundant. I think they have not come out more than a day or two.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, White Maple Buds and Flowers

The relaxed and loosened (?) alder catkins and the extended willow catkins and poplar catkins are the first signs of reviving vegetation. See March 7, 1853 ("The dark chocolate-colored alder catkins — what I have called A. incana — are not only relaxed, but there is an obvious looseness and space between the scales. ");March 10, 1853 (".Methinks the first obvious evidence of spring is the pushing out of the swamp willow catkins, then the relaxing of the earlier alder catkins, then the pushing up of skunk-cabbage spathes (and pads at the bottom of water). This is the order I am inclined to, though perhaps any of these may take precedence of all the rest in any particular case . . . The early poplars are pushing forward their catkins , though they make not so much display as the willows . . . ");  March 29, 1853 ("The catkins of the Populus tremuloides  are just beginning to open, — to curl over and downward like caterpillars. Yesterday proved too cold, undoubtedly, for the willow to open, and unless I learn better, I shall give the poplar the precedence, dating both, however, from to-day.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Alders

The bark of the striped squirrel is the, or a, first sure sign of decided spring weather. See  March 4, 1855 ("May not this season of springlike weather between the first decidedly springlike day and the first blue bird, already fourteen days long, be called the striped squirrel spring?"); March 7, 1855 ("In a sheltered and warmer place, we heard a rustling amid the dry leaves on the hillside and saw a striped squirrel eying us from its resting-place on the bare ground. It sat still till we were within a rod, then suddenly dived into its hole, which was at its feet, and disappeared. The first pleasant days of spring come out like a squirrel and go in again."); March 17, 1859 ("I hear rustling amid the oak leaves above that new water-line, and, there being no wind, I know it to be a striped squirrel, and soon see its long-unseen striped sides flirting about the instep of an oak. Its lateral stripes, alternate black and yellowish, are a type which I have not seen for a long time, or rather a punctuation-mark, the character to indicate where a new paragraph commences in the revolution of the seasons. ").See also Walden ("I am on the alert for the first signs of spring, to hear the chance note of some arriving bird, or the striped squirrel's chirp, for his stores must be now nearly exhausted, or see the woodchuck venture out of his winter quarters."); A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, the striped squirrel comes out

When the woodpeckers visit your woods in great numbers.

March 3

Wednesday. 

Moore's larch trees beyond Sleepy Hollow cut this winter. They were much decayed. 

The woodpeckers had stripped many of bark in pursuit of grubs. When the woodpeckers visit your woods in great numbers, you may suspect that it is time to cut them. 

The chopper does not complain of cutting the larch, but when he comes to the splitting there's the rub. The grain runs almost round a four-foot stick sometimes. They make good posts.

 

Are those poplars whose buds I have seen so much expanded for a week or more a new species to me ? The river poplar ? [No.]

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 3, 1852

Cut this winter. December 14, 1851 ("I hear the small woodpecker whistle as he flies to ward the leafless wood on Fair Haven, doomed to be cut this winter."); January 21, 1852 ("This winter they are cutting down our woods more seriously than ever,--Fair Haven hill, Walden, Linnaea, Borealis Wood, etc., etc. Thank God, they cannot cut down the clouds!"); January 22, 1852 ("It concerns us all whether these proprietors choose to cut down all the woods this winter or not"); March 11, 1852 (The woods I walked in in my youth are cut off. Is it not time that I ceased to sing?")

Moore's larch trees beyond Sleepy Hollow. See June 6, 1853 ("The larch grows in both Moore's and Pedrick’s swamps. Do not the trees that grow there indicate the depth of the swamp?")

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

Fully blossomed cone —

winged black seeds half fill my hand

like tiny fishes.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,

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

Nature begins to strip herself in earnest for her contest with her great antagonist Winter.

October 29. 

In the bare trees and twigs what a display of muscle! 

6.30 A. M. — Very hard frost these mornings; the grasses, to their finest branches, clothed with it. 

The cat comes stealthily creeping towards some prey amid the withered flowers in the garden, which being disturbed by my approach, she runs low toward it with an unusual glare or superficial light in her eye, ignoring her oldest acquaintance, as wild as her remotest ancestor; and presently I see the first tree sparrow hopping there. I hear them also amid the alders by the river, singing sweetly, —but a few notes. 

Notwithstanding the few handsome scarlet oaks that may yet be found, and the larches and pitch pines and the few thin-leaved Populus grandidentata, the brightness of the foliage, generally speaking, is past. 

P. M. — To Baker Farm, on foot. 

The Salix Torreyana on the right has but few leaves near the extremities (like the S. sericea of the river), and is later to fall than the S. rostrata near by. Its leaves turn merely a brownish yellow, and not scarlet like the cordata, so that it is not allied to that in this respect. (In S. tristis path about Well Meadow Field the S. tristis is mostly fallen or withered on the twigs, and the curled leaves lie thickly like ashes about the bases of the shrubs.) 

Notice the fuzzy black and reddish caterpillars on ground. 

I look north from the causeway at Heywood’s meadow. How rich some scarlet oaks imbosomed in pines, their branches (still bright) intimately intermingled with the pine! They have their full effect there. The pine boughs are the green calyx to its  petals. Without these pines for contrast the autumnal tints would lose a considerable part of their effect. 

The white birches being now generally bare, they stand along the east side of Heywood’s meadow slender, parallel white stems, revealed in a pretty reddish maze produced by their fine branches. It is a lesser and denser smoke (?) than the maple one. The branches must be thick, like those of maples and birches, to give the effect of smoke, and most trees have fewer and coarser branches, or do not grow in such dense masses. 

Nature now, like an athlete, begins to strip herself in earnest for her contest with her great antagonist Winter. In the bare trees and twigs what a display of muscle! 

Looking toward Spanish Brook, I see the white pines, a clear green, rising amid and above the pitch pines, which are parti-colored, glowing internally with the warm yellow of the old leaves. Of our Concord evergreens, only the white and pitch pines are interesting in their change, for only their leaves are bright and conspicuous enough. 

I notice a barberry bush in the woods still thickly clothed, but merely thickly clothed, but merely yellowish-green, not showy. Is not this commonly the case with the introduced European plants? Have they not European habits? And are they not also late to fall, killed before they are ripe ?— e. g. the quince, apple, pear(?), barberry, silvery abele, privet, plum(?), white willow, weeping willow, lilac, hawthorn (the horse-chestnut and European mountain-ash are distincter yellow, and the Scotch larch is at least as bright as ours at same time; the Lombardy poplar is a handsome yellow (some branches early), and the cultivated cherry is quite handsome orange, often yellowish), which, with exceptions in parenthesis, are inglorious in their decay. 

As the perfect winged and usually bright-colored insect is but short-lived, so the leaves ripen but to fall. 

I go along the wooded hillside southwest of Spanish Brook. With the fall of the white pine, etc., the Pyrola umbellata and the lycopodiums, and even evergreen ferns, suddenly emerge as from obscurity. If these plants are to be evergreen, how much they require this brown and withered carpet to be spread under them for effect. Now, too, the light is let in to show them. Cold(?)-blooded wood frogs hop about amid the cool ferns and lycopodiums. 

Am surprised to see, by the path to Baker Farm, a very tall and slender large Populus tremuliformis still thickly clothed with leaves which are merely yellowish greén, later than any P. grandidentata I know. It must be owing to its height above frosts, for the leaves of sprouts are fallen and withered some time, and of young trees commonly. 

October 29, 1852

Afterwards, when on the Cliff, I perceive that, birches being bare (or as good as bare), one or two poplars — I am not sure which species — take their places on the Shrub Oak Plain, and are brighter than they were, for they hold out to burn longer than the birch.

The birch has now generally dropped its golden spangles, and those oak sprout-lands where they glowed are now an almost uniform brown red. Or, strictly speaking, they are pale-brown, mottled with dull red where the small scarlet oak stands.

I find the white pine cones, which have long since opened, hard to come off. 

The thickly fallen leaves make it slippery in the woods, especially climbing hills, as the Cliffs. 

The late wood tortoise and squirrel betrayed. 

Apple trees, though many are thick-leaved, are in the midst of their fall. Our English cherry has fallen. The silvery abele is still densely leaved, and green, or at most a yellowish green. The lilac still thickly leaved; a yellowish green or greenish yellow as the case may be. Privet thickly leaved. yellowish-green. 

If these plants acquire brighter tints in Europe, then one would say that they did not fully ripen their leaves here before they were killed. The orchard trees are not for beauty, but use. English plants have English habits here: they are not yet acclimated; they are early or late as if ours were an English spring or autumn; and no doubt in course of time a change will be produced in their constitutions similar to that which is observed in the English man here.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 29, 1858

Notice the fuzzy black and reddish caterpillars on ground. See November 29, 1857 ("One of those fuzzy caterpillars, black at each end and rust-colored in middle, curled up in a ring, — the same kind that I find on the ice and snow, frozen, in winter."); January 5, 1858 ("I see one of those fuzzy winter caterpillars, black at the two ends and brown-red in middle, crawling on a rock by the Hunt's Bridge causeway."); January 8, 1857 ("I picked up on the bare ice of the river, opposite the oak in Shattuck's land, on a small space blown bare of snow, a fuzzy caterpillar, black at the two ends and red-brown in the middle, rolled into a ball.”); March 8, 1855 ("I see of late more than before of the fuzzy caterpillars, both black and reddish—brown.”)

How rich some scarlet oaks imbosomed in pines. See  October 26, 1858 ("The scarlet oak generally is not in prime till now, or even later."); October 30, 1855 ("Going to the new cemetery, I see that the scarlet oak leaves have still some brightness; perhaps the latest of the oaks."); October 30, 1858 ("The scarlet oak especially withers very slowly and gradually, and retains some brightness to the middle of November.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Scarlet Oak

Am surprised to see, by the path to Baker Farm, a very tall and slender large Populus tremuliformis still thickly clothed with leaves which are merely yellowish greén. See October 31, 1858 ("T o my surprise, the only yellow that I see amid the universal red and green and chocolate is one large tree top in the forest, a mile off in the east, across the pond, which by its form and color I know to be my late acquaintance the tall aspen (tremuliformis) of the 29th. It, too, is far more yellow at this distance than it was close at hand . . . It seemed the obscurest of trees. Now it was seen to be equally peculiar for its distinctness and prominence. . . . It is as if it recognized me too, and gladly, coming half-way to meet me, and now the acquaintance thus propitiously formed will, I trust, be permanent."); November 13, 1858 ("Now, on the advent of much colder weather, the last Populus tremuliformis has lost its leaves") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Tallest Aspen

The birch has now generally dropped its golden spangles. See October 22, 1855("I see at a distance the scattered birch-tops, like yellow flames amid the pines,"); October 26, 1857 (“Yellowish leaves still adhere to the very tops of the birches.”); October 26, 1860 (“The season of birch spangles, when you see afar a few clear-yellow leaves left on the tops of the birches.”); October 28, 1854 (“Birches, which began to change and fall so early, are still in many places yellow.”)

Nature now, like an athlete, begins to strip herself in earnest for her contest with her great antagonist Winter. See November 14, 1853 ("Now for the bare branches of the oak woods, where hawks have nested and owls perched, the sinews of the trees, and the brattling of the wind in their midst. For, now their leaves are off, they've bared their arms, thrown off their coats, and, in the attitude of fencers, await the onset of the wind.")

I find the white pine cones, which have long since opened, hard to come off. See October 13, 1860 ("So far as I have observed, if pines or oaks bear abundantly one year they bear little or nothing the next year. This year, so far as I observe, there are scarcely any white pine cones (were there any ?)"); October 15, 1855 ("Go to look for white pine cones, but see none.”); October 19, 1855 ("I see at last a few white pine cones open on the trees, but almost all appear to have fallen.")

https://tinyurl.com/HDT581029

The large sugar maples on the Common are in the midst of their fall to-day.

October 21. 

Cooler to-day, yet pleasant. 

October 21, 2018

6 A. M. — Up Assabet. 

Most leaves now on the water. They fell yesterday, — white and red maple, swamp white oak, white birch, black and red oak, hemlock (which has begun to fall), hop-hornbeam, etc., etc. They cover the water thickly, concealing all along the south side for half a rod to a rod in width, and at the rocks, where they are met and stopped by the easterly breeze, form a broad and dense crescent quite across the river. 

On the hilltop, the sun having just risen, I see on my note-book that same rosy or purple light, when contrasted with the shade of another leaf, which I saw on the evening of the 19th, though perhaps I can detect a little purple in the eastern horizon. 

The Populus grandidentata is quite yellow and leafy yet,— the most showy tree thereabouts. 

P. M. — Up Assabet, for a new mast, the old being broken in passing under a bridge. 

Talked with the lame Haynes, the fisherman. He feels sure that they were not “suckers” which I saw rise to the shad-flies, but chivin, and that suckers do not rise to a fly nor leap out. 

He has seen a great many little lamprey eels come down the rivers, about as long as his finger, attached to shad. But never knew the old to come down. Thinks they die attached to roots. Has seen them half dead thus. Says the spawn is quite at the bottom of the heap. Like Witherell, he wonders how the eels increase, since he could never find any spawn in them. 

The large sugar maples on the Common are in the midst of their fall to-day. 

H. D.. Thoreau, Journal, October 21, 1858

Up Assabet. Most leaves now on the water. They cover the water thickly See October 12, 1855 ("The leaves fallen last night now lie thick on the water next the shore, concealing it, “); October 15, 1856 ("Large fleets of maple and other leaves are floating on its surface as I go up the Assabet. . ."); October 17, 1856 ("Countless leafy skiffs are floating on pools and lakes and rivers and in the swamps and meadows, often concealing the water quite from foot and eye."); October 17, 1857("The swamp floor is covered with red maple leaves, many yellow with bright-scarlet spots or streaks. Small brooks are almost concealed by them”) ; October 17, 1858 (" Up Assabet. There are many crisped but colored leaves resting on the smooth surface of the Assabet,”); October 19, 1853 ("The leaves have fallen so plentifully that they quite conceal the water along the shore, and rustle pleasantly when the wave which the boat creates strikes them.”)


The Populus grandidentata is quite yellow and leafy yet. See October 16, 1857 (“The large poplar (P. grandidentata) is now at the height of its change, – clear yellow, but many leaves have fallen.”); Also October 18, 1853 (“clear, rich yellow.”); October 25, 1858 (“The leaves of the Populus grandidentata, though half fallen and turned a pure and handsome yellow, are still wagging as fast as ever. .. . I do not think of any tree whose leaves are so fresh and fair when they fall.”); October 28, 1858 (“Its leaves are large and conspicuous on the ground, and from their freshness make a great show there”); November 22, 1853 ("I was just thinking it would be fine to get a specimen leaf from each changing tree and shrub and plant in autumn, in September and October, when it had got its brightest characteristic color . . . I remember especially the beautiful yellow of the Populus grandidentata...”)

The large sugar maples on the Common are in the midst of their fall to-day. See. October 6, 1858 ("only one of the large maples on the Common is yet on fire. "); October 18, 1856 ("The sugar maples are now in their glory, all aglow with yellow, red, and green.”);  October 18, 1858 ("The large sugar maples on the Common are now at the height of their beauty. “);  October 24, 1855 (“The rich yellow and scarlet leaves of the sugar maple on the Common now thickly cover the grass in great circles about the trees, and, half having fallen, look like the reflection of the trees ")

Black ducks rise at once and often circle about to reconnoitre.

April 13.

April 13, 2024

A clear and pleasant morning.

Walked down as far as Moore's at 8 A. M. and returned along the hill.

Heard the first chip-bird, sitting on an apple, with its head up and bill open, jingling tche tche-tche-tche-tche, etc., very fast. Hear them in various parts of the town.

On the hill near Moore's hear the F. juncorum, -- phẽ- phẽ- phẽ- phẽ- phẽ-, pher-phẽ-ē-ē-ē-ē-ē-ē-ē-ē. How sweet it sounds in a clear warm morning in a wood-side pasture amid the old corn-hills, or in sprout-lands,  clear and distinct, “like a spoon in a cup,” the last part very fast and ringing.

Hear the pine warbler also, and think I see a female red wing flying with some males.

Did I see a bay-wing?

Heard a purple finch on an elm, like a faint robin.

P. M. — Sail to Bittern Cliff. 

The surface of the water, toward the sun, reflecting the light with different degrees of brilliancy, is very exhilarating to look at.

The red maple in a day or two. I begin to see the anthers in some buds. So much more of the scales of the buds is now uncovered that the tops of the swamps at a distance are reddened.

A couple of large ducks, which, because they flew low over the water and appeared black with a little white, I thought not black ducks, — possibly velvet or a merganser.

The black ducks rise at once to a considerable height and often circle about to reconnoitre.

The golden-brown tassels of the alder are very rich now.

The poplar (tremuloides) by Miles's Swamp has been out - the earliest catkins maybe two or three days.

On the evening of the 5th the body of a man was found in the river between Fair Haven Pond and Lee's, much wasted. How these events disturb our associations and tarnish the landscape! It is a serious injury done to a stream.

One or two crowfoots Lee's Cliff, fully out, surprise me like a flame bursting from the russet ground.

The saxifrage is pretty common, ahead of the crowfoot now, and its peduncles have shot up.

The slippery elm is behind the common, which is fully out beside it. It will open apparently in about two days of pleasant weather. I can see the anthers plainly in its great rusty, fusty globular buds.

A small brown hawk with white on rump I think too small for a marsh hawk sailed low over the meadow. [May it have been a young male harrier?]

Heard now, at 5.30 P.M., that faint bullfrog like note from the meadows, er- er-er.

Many of the button-bushes have been broken off about eighteen inches above the present level of the water (which is rather low), apparently by the ice.

Saw a piece of meadow, twelve feet in diameter, which had been dropped on the northwest side of Willow Bay on a bare shore, thickly set with button-bushes five feet high, perfectly erect, which will no doubt flourish there this summer. Thus the transplanting of fluviatile plants is carried on on a very large and effective scale. Even in one year a considerable plantation will thus be made on what had been a bare shore, and its character changed. The meadow cannot be kept smooth.

The winter-rye fields quite green, contrasting with the russet.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 13, 1854

Heard the first chip-bird, sitting on an apple, with its head up and bill open, jingling tche tche-tche-tche-tche, etc. See April 9, 1853 ("The chipping sparrow, with its ashy-white breast and white streak over eye and undivided chestnut crown, holds up its head and pours forth its che che che che che che."); April 12, 1858 ("Hear the huckleberry-bird and, I think, the Fringilla socialis.") See alsoo A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau The Chipping Sparrow (Fringilla socialis).)

On the hill near Moore's hear the F. juncorum. See April 15, 1856; ("Not till I gain the hilltop do I hear the note of the Fringilla juncorum (huckleberry-bird) from the plains beyond."); April 16, 1856 ("The F. juncorum says, phe phe phe phe ph-ph-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p, faster and faster.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Field Sparrow (Fringilla juncorum aka Spizella pusilla)

Hear the pine warbler also. See April 12, 1858 ("The woods are all alive with pine warblers now. Their note is the music to which I survey."); April 15, 1859 ("The warm pine woods are all alive this afternoon with the jingle of the pine warbler, the for the most part invisible minstrel. . . . Its jingle rings through the wood at short intervals, as if, like an electric shock, it imparted a fresh spring life to them.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Pine Warbler

Did I see a bay-wing? See April 13, 1855 ("See a sparrow without marks on throat or breast, running peculiarly in the dry grass in the open field beyond, and hear its song, and then see its white feathers in tail; the bay-wing. "); April 13, 1856 ("I hear a bay-wing on the railroad fence sing . . .Two on different posts are steadily singing the same, as if contending with each other, notwithstanding the cold wind.") See also April 7, 1856 ("See . . . a bay wing sparrow. It has no dark splash on throat and has a light or gray head."); April 8, 1859 ("See the first bay-wing hopping and flitting along the railroad bank, but hear no note as yet."); April 12, 1857 ("I think I hear the bay-wing here. "); April 15, 1859 ("The bay-wing now sings — the first I have been able to hear — . . .just before noon, when the sun began to come out, and at 3 p. m., singing loud and clear and incessantly") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bay-Wing Sparrow

Heard a purple finch on an elm, like a faint robin. See 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,") See also April 11, 1853 ("I hear the clear, loud whistle of a purple finch, somewhat like and nearly as loud as the robin, from the elm by Whiting's") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Elms and the Purple Finch

The golden-brown tassels of the alder are very rich now. See April 21, 1854 ("These are those early times when the rich golden-brown tassels of the alders tremble over the brooks — and not a leaf on their twigs.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Alders

The poplar (tremuloides) by Miles's Swamp has been out – the earliest catkins maybe two or three days. See April 6, 1858 ("The very earliest aspens, such as grow in warm exposures on the south sides of hills or woods, have begun to be effete. Others are not yet out."); April 8, 1853 ("The male Populus grandidentata appears to open very gradually, beginning sooner than I supposed. It shows some of its red anthers long before it opens. There is a female on the left, on Warren's Path at Deep Cut. Is not the pollen of the P. tremuliformis like rye meal ? Are not female flowers of more sober and modest colors, as the willows for instance?"); April 9, 1853 ("The Populus tremuliformis, just beyond, resound with the hum of honey-bees, flies, etc. These male trees are frequently at a great distance from the females. Do not the bees and flies alone carry the pollen to the latter? "); April 9, 1856 ("Early aspen catkins have curved downward an inch, and began to shed pollen apparently yesterday."); April 14, 1855 ("The Populus tremuloides by the Island shed pollen — a very few catkins — yesterday at least; for some anthers are effete and black this morning, though it is hardly curved down yet an is but an inch and a half long at most.");April 15, 1852 ("The aspen on the railroad is beginning to blossom, showing the purple or mulberry in the terminal catkins, though it droops like dead cats' tails in the rain. It appears about the same date with the elm"); April 17, 1855 ("The early aspen catkins are now some of them two and a half inches long and white, dangling in the breeze.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Aspens

The black ducks rise at once to a considerable height and often circle about to reconnoitre. See April 14, 1856 (" I scare up two black ducks which make one circle around me, reconnoitring and rising higher and higher, then go down the river. Is it they that so commonly practice this manoeuvre? ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Black Duck

One or two crowfoots on Lee's Cliff, fully out, surprise me like a flame bursting from the russet ground. The saxifrage is pretty common.  See January 9, 1853 ("On the face of the Cliff the crowfoot buds lie unexpanded just beneath the surface. I dig one up with a stick, and, pulling it to pieces, I find deep in the centre of the plant, just beneath the ground, surrounded by all the tender leaves that are to precede it, the blossom-bud, about half is big as the head of a pin, perfectly white. There it patiently sits, or slumbers, how full of faith, informed of a spring which the world has never seen.”); April 11, 1858 ("Crowfoot (Ranunculus fascicularis) at Lee's since the 6th, apparently a day or two before this"); April 18, 1856 ("Common saxifrage and also early sedge I am surprised to find abundantly out. . .Crowfoot, apparently two or three days."); April 30, 1855 ("Crowfoot and saxifrage are now in prime at Lee’s; they yellow and whiten the ground."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Crowfoot (Ranunculus fascicularis) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Saxifrage in Spring (Saxifraga vernalis

Heard now, at 5.30 P.M., that faint bullfrog like note from the meadows, er- er-er.  See April 13, 1856 ("As I go by the Andromeda Ponds, I hear the tut tut of a few croaking frogs, and at Well Meadow I hear once or twice a prolonged stertorous sound, as from river meadows a little later usually, which is undoubtedly made by a different frog from the first."); April 13, 1859  ("I hear the stuttering note of probably the Rana halecina (see one by shore) come up from all the Great Meadow, especially the sedgy parts, or where the grass was not cut last year and now just peeps above the surface. There is something soothing and suggestive of halcyon days in this low but universal breeding-note of the frog. . . . this note marks what you may call April heat (or spring heat).") See also  April 3, 1858 ("We hear the stertorous tut tut tut of frogs from the meadow, with an occasional faint bullfrog-like er er er intermingled . . . Both these sounds, then, are made by one frog [Rana halecina], and what I have formerly thought an early bullfrog note was this. This, I think, is the first frog sound I have heard from the river meadows or anywhere, except the croaking leaf-pool frogs and the hylodes.");   April 15, 1855  ("That general tut tut tut tut, or snoring, of frogs on the shallow meadow heard first slightly the 5th. There is a very faint er er er now and then mixed with it."); May 2, 1858 ("At mouth of the Mill Brook, I hear, I should say, the true R. halecina croak, i. e. with the faint bullfrog-like er-er-er intermixed. Are they still breeding? ") and  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  the Leopard Frog (Rana Halecina) in Spring

Thus the transplanting of fluviatile plants is carried on on a very large and effective scale. Even in one year a considerable plantation will thus be made on what had been a bare shore, and its character changed. See April 12, 1859 ("Such revolutions can take place and none but the proprietor of the meadow notice it, for the traveller passing within sight does not begin to suspect that the bushy island which he sees in the meadow has floated from elsewhere"); February 25, 1851 ("The crust of the meadow afloat, . . . another agent employed in the distribution of plants."); February 28, 1855 ("This is a powerful agent at work.”); June 22, 1859 ("One who is not almost daily on the river will not perceive the revolution constantly going on.”); July 9, 1859 ("We are accustomed to refer changes in the shore and the channel to the very gradual influence of the current washing away and depositing matter which was held in suspension, but certainly in many parts of our river the ice which moves these masses of bushes and meadow is a much more important agent. It will alter the map of the river in one year.")

Black ducks rise at once 

and often circle about

to reconnoitre.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Black ducks rise at once

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

tinyurl.com/hdt-540413

The turning-point between winter and summer is reached.

May 18.

MAY 18, 2013

Sunday.

Lady’s-slipper almost fully blossomed.

The log of a canoe birch on Fair Haven, cut down the last winter, more than a foot in diameter at the stump; one foot in diameter at ten feet from the ground. I observed that all parts of the epidermis exposed to the air and light were white, but the inner surfaces  freshly exposed, were a buff or salmon-color. Sinclair says that in winter it is white throughout. But this was cut before the sap flowed? ? ! Was there any sap in the log? I counted about fifty rings.

The shrub oaks are now blossoming.

The scarlet tanagers are come.

The oak leaves of all colors are just expanding, and are more beautiful than most flowers.

The hickory buds are almost leaves.

The landscape has a new life and light infused into it.

The deciduous trees are springing, to countenance the pines, which are evergreen.

It seems to take but one summer day to fetch the summer in. The turning-point between winter and summer is reached.

The birds are in full blast.

There is a peculiar freshness about the landscape; you scent the fragrance of new leaves, of hickory and sassafras, etc. And to the eye the forest presents the tenderest green.

The blooming of the apple trees is becoming general.

I think that I have made out two kinds of poplar, the Populus tremuloides, or American aspen, and the P. grandidentata, or large American aspen , whose young leaves are downy. 

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, May 18, 1851

There is a peculiar freshness about the landscape. Lady's-slipper almost fully blossomed. The scarlet tanagers are come. The oak leaves of all colors are just expanding, and are more beautiful than most flowers. The hickory buds are almost leaves. The birds are in full blast. The blooming of the apple trees is becoming general. You scent the fragrance of new leaves.The turning-point between winter and summer is reached. The landscape has a new life and light infused into it. And to the eye the forest presents the tenderest green

The turning-point between winter and summer is reached. Compare March 30, 1860 ("[Y]ou seem to be crossing the threshold between winter and summer. As I walk the street I realize that a new season has arrived.”)

The landscape has a new life and light infused into it. And to the eye the forest presents the tenderest green. See May 18, 1852 ("This tender foliage, putting so much light and life into the landscape, is the remarkable feature at this date. The week when the deciduous trees are generally and conspicuously expanding their leaves.”); May 17, 1854 (“The wooded shore is all lit up with the tender, bright green of birches fluttering in the wind and shining in the light”); see also  May 19, 1860 (“See a green snake, a very vivid yellow green, of the same color with the tender foliage at present, and as if his colors had been heightened by the rain.”);

The scarlet tanagers are come. See A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Scarlet Tanager