The month of chickadees and new-swollen buds.

November 2.


Tall buttercups, red clover, houstonias, Polygonum aviculare, still.

Those handsome red buds on often red-barked twigs, with some red leaves still left, appear to be blueberry buds.

The prinos berries also now attract me in the scarcity of leaves, its own all gone; its berries are apparently a brighter red for it.

The month of chickadees and new-swollen buds.

At long intervals I see or hear a robin still.

To Walden.

In the latter part of October the skaters and water bugs entirely disappear from the surface of the pond, and then and in November, when the weather is perfectly calm, it is almost absolutely as smooth as glass.

This afternoon a three-days' rain-storm is drawing to an end, though still overcast.

The air is quite still but misty, from time to time mizzling, and the pond is very smooth, and its surface difficult to distinguish, though it no longer reflects the bright tints of autumn but sombre colors only, — calm at the end of a storm, except here and there a slight glimmer or dimple, as if a few skaters which had escaped the frosts were still collected there, or a faint breeze there struck, or a few rain-drops fell there, or perchance the surface, being remarkably smooth, betrayed by circling dimples where a spring-welled up from below.

I paddled gently toward one of these places and was surprised to find myriads of small perch about five inches long sporting there, one after another rising to the surface and dimpling it, leaving bubbles on it. They were very handsome as they surrounded the boat, with their distinct transverse stripes, a rich brown color.

There were many such schools in the pond, as it were improving the short season before the ice would close their window. When I approached them suddenly with noise, they made a sudden plash and rippling with their tails in fright, and then took refuge in the depths. Suddenly the wind rose, the mist increased, and the waves rose, and still the perch leaped, but much higher, half out of water, a hundred black points, three inches long, at once above the surface.

The pond, dark before, was now a glorious and indescribable blue, mixed with dark, perhaps the opposite side of the wave, a sort of changeable or watered-silk blue, more cerulean if possible than the sky itself, which was now seen overhead. It required a certain division of the sight, however, to discern this. Like the colors on a steel sword-blade.

Slate - colored snowbirds (?) with a faint note.

The leaves which are not withered, whose tints are still fresh and bright, are now remarked in sheltered places. Plucked quite a handsome nosegay from the side of Heywood's Peak, - white and blue-stemmed goldenrods, asters (undulatus and ?).

I do not know whether the perch amuse themselves thus more in the fall than at any other time. In such transparent and apparently bottomless water their swimming impresses the beholder as a kind of flight or hovering, like a compact flock of birds passing be low one, just beneath his level on the right or left. What a singular experience must be theirs in their winter quarters, their long night, expecting when the sun will open their shutters! 

November 2, 2017

If you look discerningly, so as to see the reflection only, you see a most glorious light blue, in comparison with which the original dark green of the opposite side of the waves is but muddy.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 2, 1852

Tall buttercups, red clover, houstonias.  See October 26, 1855 ("I see a houstonia in bloom."); November 5, 1855 ("I see the shepherd’s-purse, hedge-mustard, and red clover, — November flowers."); November 14, 1852 ("Still yarrow, tall buttercup, and tansy."); November 23, 1852 ("Among the flowers which may be put down as lasting thus far, as I remember, in the order of their hardiness: yarrow, tansy (these very fresh and common) . . . and perhaps tall buttercup, etc."

Those handsome red buds on often red-barked twigs, with some red leaves still left, appear to be blueberry buds. See November 6, 1853 (“The remarkable roundish, plump red buds of the high blueberry.”); November 23, 1857 (“You distinguish it by its gray spreading mass; its light-gray bark, rather roughened; its thickish shoots, often crimson; and its plump, roundish red buds.”); November 25, 1858 ("See a few high blueberry buds which have fairly started, expanded into small red leaves, apparently within a few weeks.")

 

The month of chickadees and new-swollen buds. 

The chickadee

Hops near to me.

November 8, 1857

See November 9, 1850 (" The chickadees, if I stand long enough, hop nearer and nearer inquisitively, from pine bough to pine bough, till within four or five feet, occasionally lisping a note."); November 26, 1859 ("The chickadee is the bird of the wood the most unfailing.. . . At this season it is almost their sole inhabitant."); November 2, 1853 ("Among the buds, etc., etc., to be noticed now, remember the alder and birch catkins, so large and conspicuous, — on the alder, pretty red catkins dangling in bunches of three or four, — the minute red buds of the panicled andromeda, the roundish plump ones of the common hazel, the longish sharp ones of the witch-hazel, etc.") See also October 30, 1853 ("Now, now is the time to look at the buds.”); November 1, 1853 ("I notice the shad-bush conspicuously leafing out. Those long, narrow, pointed buds, prepared for next spring, have anticipated their time."); November 4, 1854 ("The shad-bush buds have expanded into small leaflets already.”); November 6, 1863 ( Noticing Buds); December 1, 1852 (“At this season I observe the form of the buds which are prepared for spring the large bright yellowish and reddish buds of the swamp-pink, the already downy ones of the Populus tremuloides and the willows, the red ones of the blueberry, the long, sharp ones of the amelanchier, the spear-shaped ones of the viburnum; also the catkins of the alders and birches."); January 12, 1855 ("Well may the tender buds attract us at this season, no less than partridges, for they are the hope of the year, the spring rolled up. The summer is all packed in them.,")

The pond, dark before, was now a glorious and indescribable blue, mixed with dark, . . .more cerulean if possible than the sky itself. See June 26, 1852 ("the smooth reflecting surface of woodland lakes in which the ice is just melted . . .blue or black or even hazel, deep or shallow, clear or turbid; green next the shore,");  August 27, 1852("Viewed from a hilltop, it is blue in the depths and green in the shallows, but from a boat it is seen to be a uniform dark green.”); September 1, 1852 ("Viewed from the hilltop, [Walden] reflects the color of the sky. Beyond the deep reflecting surface, near the shore, it is a vivid green."); October 9, 1858 ("The mountains are darker and distincter, and Walden, seen from this hill, darker blue. It is quite Novemberish."); and Walden ("Walden is blue at one time and green at another, even from the same point of view. Lying between the earth and the heavens, it partakes of the color of both. Viewed from a hill top it reflects the color of the sky, but near at hand it is of a yellowish tint next the shore where you can see the sand, then a; light green, which gradually deepens to a uniform dark green in the body of the pond. In some lights, viewed even from a hilltop, it is of a vivid green next the shore.”); Walden , The Pond in Winter ("Like the water, the Walden ice, seen near at hand, has a green tint, but at a distance is beautifully blue,") See also  January 24, 1852 (Walden and White Ponds are a vitreous greenish blue, like patches of the winter sky seen in the west before sundown)

In the latter part of October the skaters and water bugs entirely disappear from the surface of the pond [but I]  find myriads of small perch about five inches long sporting there See September 1, 1852 ("Paddling over it, I see large schools of perch only an inch long, yet easily distinguished by their transverse bars. This is a very warm and serene evening, and the surface of the pond is perfectly smooth except where the skaters dimple it, for at equal intervals they are scattered over its whole extent, and, looking west, they make a fine sparkle in the sun.")

The white pines in Hubbard's Grove have now a pretty distinct parti-colored look.

September 28.

September 28, 2014

A considerable part of the last two nights and yesterday, a steady and rather warm rain, such as we have not had for a long time. This morning it is still completely overcast and drizzling a little.

Flocks of small birds — apparently sparrows, bobolinks (or some bird of equal size with a pencilled breast which makes a musical clucking), and piping goldfinches 

— are flitting about like leaves and hopping up on to the bent grass stems in the garden, letting themselves down to the heavy heads, either shaking or picking out a seed or two, then alighting to pick it up.

I am amused to see them hop up on to the slender, drooping grass stems; then slide down, or let themselves down, as it were foot over foot, with great fluttering, till they can pick at the head and release a few seeds; then alight to pick them up. They seem to prefer a coarse grass which grows like a weed in the garden between the potato-hills, also the amaranth.

It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. They say that this has been a good year to raise turkeys, it has been so dry. So that we shall have something to be thankful for.

Hugh Miller, in his “Old Red Sandstone,” speaking of  “the consistency of style which obtains among the ichthyolites of this formation” and the “microscopic beauty of these ancient fishes,” says: 

“The artist who sculptured the cherry stone consigned it to a cabinet, and placed a microscope beside it; the microscopic beauty of these ancient fish was consigned to the twilight depths of a primeval ocean.

There is a feeling which at times grows upon the painter and the statuary, as if the perception and love of the beautiful had been sublimed into a kind of moral sense.

Art comes to be pursued for its own sake; the exquisite conception in the mind, or the elegant and elaborate model, becomes all in all to the worker, and the dread of criticism or the appetite of praise almost nothing.

And thus, through the influence of a power somewhat akin to conscience, but whose province is not the just and the good, but the fair, the refined, the exquisite, have works prosecuted in solitude, and never intended for the world, been found fraught with loveliness."

The hesitation with which this is said — to say nothing of its simplicity betrays a latent infidelity more fatal far than that of the “Vestiges of Creation,” which in another work this author endeavors to correct.

He describes that as an exception which is in fact the rule.

The supposed want of harmony between “the perception and love of the beautiful” and a delicate moral sense betrays what kind of beauty the writer has been conversant with. He speaks of his work becoming all in all to the worker, his rising above the dread of criticism and the appetite of praise, as if these were the very rare exceptions in a great artist's life, and not the very definition of it.

2 P. M. – To Conantum.

A warm, damp, mistling day, without much wind.

The white pines in Hubbard's Grove have now a pretty distinct parti-colored look, — green and yellow mottled, — reminding me of some plants like the milkweed, expanding with maturity and pushing off their downy seeds. They have a singularly soft look.

For a week or ten days I have ceased to look for new flowers or carry my botany in my pocket.

The fall dandelion is now very fresh and abundant in its prime.

I see where the squirrels have carried off the ears of corn more than twenty rods from the corn-field into the woods. A little further on, beyond Hubbard's Brook, I saw a gray squirrel with an ear of yellow corn a foot long sitting on the fence, fifteen rods from the field. He dropped the corn, but continued to sit on the rail, where I could hardly see him, it being of the same color with himself, which I have no doubt he was well aware of.

He next took to a red maple, where his policy was to conceal himself behind the stem, hanging perfectly still there till I passed, his fur being exactly the color of the bark. When I struck the tree and tried to frighten him, he knew better than to run to the next tree, there being no continuous row by which he might escape; but he merely fled higher up and put so many leaves between us that it was difficult to discover him.

When I threw up a stick to frighten him, he disappeared entirely, though I kept the best watch I could, and stood close to the foot of the tree.

They are wonderfully cunning.

The Eupatorium purpureum is early killed by frost and stands now all dry and brown by the sides of other herbs like the goldenrod and tansy, which are quite green and in blossom.

The railroads as much as anything appear to have unsettled the farmers. Our young Concord farmers and their young wives, hearing this bustle about them, seeing the world all going by as it were, — some daily to the cities about their business, some to California, — plainly cannot make up their minds to live the quiet, retired, old-fashioned, country-farmer's life. They are impatient if they live more than a mile from a railroad.

While all their neighbors are rushing to the road, there are few who have character or bravery enough to live off the road. He is too well aware what is going on in the world not to wish to take some part in it. I was reminded of this by meeting S. Tuttle in his wagon.

The pontederia, which apparently makes the mass of the weeds by the side of the river, is all dead and brown and has been for some time; the year is over for it.

The mist is so thin that it is like haze or smoke in the air, imparting a softness to the landscape.

Sitting by the spruce swamp in Conant's Grove, I am reminded that this is a perfect day to visit the swamps, with its damp, mistling, mildewy air, so solemnly still.  There are the spectre-like black spruces hanging with usnea moss, and in the rear rise the dark green pines and oaks on the hillside, touched here and there with livelier tints where a maple or birch may stand, this so luxuriant vegetation standing heavy, dark, sombre, like mould in a cellar. The peculiar tops of the spruce are seen against this.

I hear the barking of a red squirrel, who is alarmed at something, and a great scolding or ado among the jays, who make a great cry about nothing.

The swamp is bordered with the red-berried alder, or prinos, and the button-bush. The balls of the last appear not half grown this season,-probably on account of the drought, and now they are killed by frost.

This swamp contains beautiful specimens of the sidesaddle-flower (Sarracenia purpurea), better called pitcher-plant.  They ray out around the dry scape and flower, which still remain, resting on rich uneven beds of a coarse reddish moss, through which the small flowered andromeda puts up, presenting altogether a most rich and luxuriant appearance to the eye. 

Though the moss is comparatively dry, I cannot walk without upsetting the numerous pitchers, which are now full of water, and so wetting my feet. I once accidentally sat down on such a bed of pitcher-plants, and found an uncommonly wet seat where I expected a dry one. 

These leaves are of various colors from plain green to a rich striped yellow or deep red. No plants are more richly painted and streaked than the inside of the broad lips of these.  Old Josselyn called this "Hollow-leaved Lavender." No other plant, methinks, that we have is so remarkable and singular.

Here was a large hornets' nest, which when I went to take and first knocked on it to see if anybody was at home, out came the whole swarm upon me lively enough. I do not know why they should linger longer than their fellows whom I saw the other day, unless because the swamp is warmer. They were all within and not working, however.

I picked up two arrowheads in the field beyond.

What honest, homely, earth-loving, unaspiring houses they used to live in! Take that on Conantum for instance, so low you can put your hand on the eaves behind. There are few whose pride could stoop to enter such a house to-day. And then the broad chimney, built for comfort, not for beauty, with no coping of bricks to catch the eye, no alto or basso relievo.

The mist has now thickened into a fine rain, and I retreat.



H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 28, 1851

The white pines in Hubbard's Grove have now a pretty distinct parti-colored look, — green and yellow mottled.  See September 28, 1854 ("R. W. E.’s pines are parti-colored, preparing to fall, some of them. ,")  See also September 29, 1857 ("Pines have begun to be parti-colored with yellow leaves."); October 1, 1857 ("The pines now half turned yellow, the needles of this year are so much the greener by contrast."); October 3, 1852 ("The pine fall, i.e. change, is commenced, and the trees are mottled green and yellowish."); October 3, 1856 ("The white pines are now getting to be pretty generally parti-colored, the lower yellowing needles ready to fall.") and also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall

The fall dandelion is now very fresh and abundant in its prime. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Autumnal Dandelion

The pontederia is all dead and brown and has been for some time; the year is over for it. See August 22, 1860 ("Now, when the mikania is conspicuous, the bank is past prime, - for lilies are far gone the pontederia is past prime, willows and button-bushes begin to look the worse for the wear thus early"); September 2, 1859 ("The pontederia leaves are now decidedly brown or brownish"); September 5, 1860 ("The pontederia is extensively crisped and blackened"); September 13, 1859 ("The pontederia spike is now generally turned downward beneath the water"); September 17, 1852 ("The pontederia leaves are sere and brown along the river."); September 18, 1858 ("I see one pontederia spike rising blue above the surface. Elsewhere the dark withered pontederia leaves show themselves, and at a distance look like ducks,  and so help conceal them."); September 26, 1859 ("The pontederia is fast shedding its seeds of late. . . . Many are long since bare. "); October 16, 1859 ("This may not be an annual phenomenon to you.. . ., but it has an important place in my Kalendar. So surely as the sun appears to be in Libra or Scorpio, I see the conical winter lodges of the musquash rising above the withered pontederia")

I hear the barking of a red squirrel, who is alarmed at something, and a great scolding or ado among the jays.                                                 

The red squirrels scold

and the jays scream while you are

clubbing and shaking trees.

October 11, 1852

See also September 21, 1854 ("I hear many jays since the frosts began.”); September 24, 1857 ("A red squirrel chiding you from his concealment in some pine-top. It is the sound most native to the locality."); September 25, 1851 ("In these cooler, windier, crystal days the note of the jay sounds a little more native."); September 25, 1855 ("The scream of the jay is heard from the wood-side."); September 25, 1857 ("Stopping in my boat under the Hemlocks, I hear singular bird-like chirruping from two red squirrels."); October 5, 1857 ("I hear the alarum of a small red squirrel."); December 1, 1857 (" I hear a red squirrel barking at me amid the pine and oak tops, and now I see him coursing from tree to tree. ") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Squirrel; A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Blue Jay

The swamp is bordered with the red-berried alder, or prinos, See September 28, 1856 ("How many fruits are scarlet now! — barberries, prinos, etc."); See also August 20, 1854 ("Prinos berries have begun to redden."); August 23, 1853 ("Barberries have begun to redden, and the prinos, — some of the last quite red."); September 2, 1852 ("The red prinos berries ripe in sunny places.");September 5, 1858 ("To Walden. Prinos verticillatus berries reddening."); September 11, 1859 ("The prinos berries are now seen, red (or scarlet), clustered along the stems, amid the as yet green leaves. A cool red."); September 12, 1851 ("The prinos berries are pretty red."); September 21, 1856 ("Prinos berries."); September 23, 1854 ("Very brilliant and remarkable now are the prinos berries, so brilliant and fresh when most things -- flowers and berries -- have withered. "); September 25, 1859 ("Prinos berries are fairly ripe for a few days"); October 10, 1857 ("To Walden over Fair Haven Hill. Some Prinos verticillatus yellowing and browning at once, and in low ground just falling and leaving the bright berries bare");  October 23, 1853 ("The prinos is bare, leaving red berries."); November 2, 1853 ("The prinos berries are almost gone."); November 25, 1858 ("The prinos berries on their light-brown twigs are quite abundant and handsome.") and note to October 2, 1856 (“The prinos berries are in their prime.”):

The fresh bright scarlet

prinos berries seen in prime

amid fresh green leaves.

October 2, 1856

This swamp contains beautiful specimens of the sidesaddle-flower. See note to June 12, 1856 ("Sidesaddle flower numerously out now.")  See also e.g.  June 12, 1852 ("The petals of the sidesaddle-flower, fully expanded, hang down. How complex it is, what with flowers and leaves! It is a wholesome and interesting plant to me, the leaf especially."); September 11, 1851("We have had no rain for a week, and yet the pitcher-plants have water in them. Are they ever quite dry? Are they not replenished by the dews always, and, being shaded by the grass, saved from evaporation?"); November 11, 1858 (“In the meadows the pitcher-plants are bright-red. ); November 16, 1852 ("At Holden's Spruce Swamp. The water is frozen in the pitcher-plant leaf."). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Purple Pitcher Plant

I do not know why they should linger longer than their fellows whom I saw the other day. See September 25, 1851 ("The hornets' nest not brown but gray, two shades, whitish and dark, alternating on the outer layers or the covering, giving it a waved appearance."); . October 4, 1858 ("Hornets are still at work in their nests") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. Wasps and Hornets

September 28.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September 28

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Scarlet berry season.

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/HDT510928

August has been a month of berries and melons, small fruits.

September  2. 

P. M. – To Walden.

The seringo, too, has long been silent like other birds.

The red prinos berries ripe in sunny places.

Rose hips begin to be handsome.

Small flocks of pigeons are seen these days. Distinguished from doves by their sharper wings and bodies.

August has been a month of berries and melons, small fruits.

First in the descent from summer's culminating-point.

There is a stillness in nature for want of singing birds, commenced a month or more ago; only the crickets’ louder creak to supply their place.

I have not heard a bullfrog this long time.

The small cornel, or bunch-berry, is in bloom now (!!) near the pond.

What great tuft-like masses the cow-wheat makes now in sprout-lands! 

As I look over the pond now from the eastern shore, I am obliged to employ both my hands to defend my eyes against the reflected as well as the true sun, for they appear equally bright; and between my hands I look over the smooth and glassy surface of the lake.

The skaters make the finest imaginable sparkle.

Otherwise it is literally as smooth as glass, except where a fish leaps into the air or a swallow dips beneath its surface.

Sometimes a fish describes an arc of three or four feet in the air, and there is a bright flash where it emerges and another where it strikes the water.

A slight haze at this season makes the shore-line so much the more indistinct.

Looking across the pond from the Peak toward Fair Haven, which I seem to see, all the earth beyond appears insulated and floated, even by this small sheet of water, the heavens being seen reflected, as it were beneath it, so that it looks thin.

The scenery of this small pond is humble though very beautiful, and does not approach to grandeur, nor can it much concern one who has not long frequented it, or lived by its shore.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  September 2, 1852 

August has been a month of berries and melons. See August 10, 1853 ("August, royal and rich. Green corn now, and melons have begun. That month, surely, is distinguished when melons ripen.");August 12, 1854 ("It takes all the heat of the year to produce these yellow flowers. It is the 3 o'clock p. m. of the year when they begin to prevail, — when the earth has absorbed most heat, when melons ripen and early apples and peaches. It is already the yellowing year.")

First in the descent from summer's culminating-point. See June 6, 1857 ("Each season is but an infinitesimal point. It no sooner comes than it is gone. It has no duration."); July 5, 1852 ("We have become accustomed to the summer. It has acquired a certain eternity.") July 15, 1854 ("We seem to be passing a dividing line between spring and autumn, and begin to descend the long slope toward winter"); July 19, 1851 ("Yesterday it was spring, and to-morrow it will be autumn."); July 24, 1852 ("When the first crop of grass is off, and the aftermath springs, the year has passed its culmination."); July 26, 1853 ("This the afternoon of the year. How apt we are to be reminded of lateness, even before the year is half spent!");; July 28, 1854 ("Methinks the season culminated about the middle of this month, — . . . and, having as it were attained the ridge of the summer, commenced to descend the long slope toward winter, the afternoon and down-hill of the year"); August 5, 1854 ("It is one long acclivity from winter to midsummer and another long declivity from midsummer to winter."); August 6, 1852 ("Methinks there are few new flowers of late. An abundance of small fruits takes their place. Summer gets to be an old story. Birds leave off singing, as flowers blossoming."); August 6, 1852 ("Has not the year grown old ? . . . It is the signs of the fall that affect us most. It is hard to live in the summer content with it."); August 7, 1854 ("There is a light on the earth and leaves, as if they were burnished. It is the glistening autumnal side of summer."); August 7, 1854 (" Do you not feel the fruit of your spring and summer beginning to ripen?") August 18, 1853 ("What means this sense of lateness that so comes over one now, — as if the rest of the year were down-hill.") August 19, 1851("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.”); August 23, 1858 ("There is no plateau on which Nature rests at midsummer, but she instantly commences the descent to winter."); August 28, 1858 ("When. . . I see these bright leaves strewing the moist ground . . .I am reminded that I have crossed the summit ridge of the year and have begun to descend the other slope."

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

We come home in the autumn twilight, which lasts long and is remarkably light, — clear white light.

November 2


What is Nature unless there is an eventful human life passing within her?

Many joys and many sorrows are the lights and shadows in which she shows most beautiful.

P. M. – To Walden and Flint’s.

What are those sparrows in loose flocks which I have seen two or three weeks, — some this afternoon on the railroad causeway, — with small heads and rather long necks in proportion to body, which is longish and slender, yellowish-white or olivaceous breast, striped with dark, ashy sides of neck, whitish over and beneath the eye, and some white observed in tail when they fly ? I think a dark bill and legs.

They utter a peculiar note, not heard here at other seasons, somewhat like the linarias, a sort of shuffling or chuckling iche-tche tche-tche, quickly uttered.

Can they be the grass-bird ? They resemble it in marking. They are much larger than the tree sparrows. Methinks it is a very common fall bird.

C. says he saw succory yesterday, and a loon on the pond the 30th ult.

The prinos berries are almost gone.

I am somewhat surprised to find that the Aster undulatus at Walden is killed by the frost; only one low and obscure one has any flowers left.

Therefore, though it is the latest aster that is abundant, I am not sure that it lasts absolutely longer than the A. puniceus, or even Tradescanti.

I see no other flowers on the Peak.

Poke berries there are still partly green, partly ripe, as usual.

The leaves of the umbelled pyrola are as glossy as in the spring, which proves that they do not owe their glossiness in the spring to the influence of that season.

Two ducks on Walden.

The Canada snap dragon is still fresh and in flower by roadside near pond, and a sprig from root of Solidago nemoralis.

I gather some fine large pignuts by the wall (near the beech trees) on Baker's land. It is just the time to get these, and this seems to be quite early enough for most pignuts.

I find that there have been plenty of beechnuts, and there are still some empty burs on the trees and many nuts on the ground, but I cannot find one with meat in it.

The beech leaves have all fallen except some about the lower part of the trees, and they make a fine thick bed on the ground.  They are very beautiful, firm, and perfect leaves, unspotted and not eaten by insects, of a handsome, clear leather color, like a book bound in calf. Crisp and elastic; no wonder they make beds of them.

Of a clear [space left in manuscript ] or leather-color, more or less dark and remarkably free from stains and imperfections.

They cover the ground so perfectly and cleanly as to tempt you to recline on it and admire the beauty of their smooth boles from that position, covered with lichens of various colors-green, etc. — which you think you never see elsewhere.

They impress you as full of health and vigor, so that their bark can hardly contain their spirits but lies in folds or wrinkles about their ankles like a sock, with the embonpoint of infancy, wrinkles of fat.

The pollen [sic] of the Lycopodium dendroideum falls in showers or in clouds when my foot strikes it. How long? 

The witch-hazel appears to be nearly out of bloom, most of the flowers withering or frost-bitten.

The shrub oak cups which I notice to-day have lost their acorns.

I examined a squirrel's nest in a tree which suggested to me(it having a foundation of twigs, coarse basketwork; above, shreds or fibres of bark and a few leaves) that perchance the squirrel, like the mouse, sometimes used a deserted bird's nest,-a crow's or hawk' .

A red-tailed hawk.

Among the buds, etc., etc., to be noticed now, remember the alder and birch catkins, so large and conspicuous, — on the alder, pretty red catkins dangling in bunches of three or four, — the minute red buds of the panicled andromeda, the roundish plump ones of the common hazel, the longish sharp ones of the witch-hazel, etc.

The sun sets.

We come home in the autumn twilight, which lasts long and is remarkably light, the air being purer, — clear white light, which penetrates the woods,-is seen through the woods, — the leaves being gone.

When the sun is set, there is no sudden contrast, no deep darkening, but a clear, strong white light still prevails, and the west finally glows with a generally diffused and moderate saffron-golden (?).

Coming home by boat the other evening, I smelled a traveller's pipe very strongly a third of a mile distant. He was crossing Wood ' s Bridge.

The evening star is now very bright; and is that Jupiter near it?

 I might put by themselves the November flowers, — flowers which survive severe frosts and the fall of the leaf.

I see hedge-mustard very fresh.

Those plants which are earliest in the spring have already made the most conspicuous preparation for that season. The skunk-cabbage spathes have started, the alder catkins, as I have said, hazel, etc.; and is there anything in the double scales of the maples, the prominent scales of willow and other catkins, sometimes burst (?) ? 

A part of the lambkill is turned dull-reddish.

The last two, this and yesterday, fine days, but not gossamer ones. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 2, 1853

Can they be the grass-bird? See October 3, 1860 ("I have seen and heard sparrows in flocks, more as if flitting by, within a week, or since the frosts began.); October 11, 1856 ("Bay-wing sparrows numerous."); October 12, 1859 ("I see scattered flocks of bay-wings amid the weeds and on the fences."); October 16, 1855 ("I look at a grass-bird on a wall in the dry Great Fields. There is a dirty-white or cream-colored line above the eye and another from the angle of the mouth beneath it and a white ring close about the eye. The breast is streaked with this creamy white and dark brown in streams, as on the cover of a book"); October 23, 1853 ("And many birds flit before me along the railroad, with faint notes, too large for linarias. . . .Probably the white-in-tail [i. e. vesper sparrow, or grass finch.]")

We come home in the autumn twilight, which lasts long and is remarkably light, the air being purer, — clear white light, which penetrates the woods. See October 25, 1858 (“Also I notice, when the sun is low, the light reflected from the parallel twigs of birches recently bare, etc., like the gleam from gossamer lines. This is another Novemberish phenomenon. Call these November Lights. Hers is a cool, silvery light.”); October 27, 1858 (“the cool, white twilights of that season which is itself the twilight of the year.”); November 1, 1858 ("The November twilights just begun!"); November 14, 1853 (" This [October] light fades into the clear, white, leafless twilight of November.")  November 17, 1858 ("The setting sun, too, is reflected from windows more brightly than at any other season. “November Lights" would be a theme for me.");   November 20, 1858 ("The glory of November is in its silvery, sparkling lights”) See also  note to November 10, 1858 ("The warmer colors are now rare. A cool and silvery light is the prevailing one; all the light of November may be called an afterglow.")

Among the buds, etc., etc., to be noticed now, remember the alder and birch catkins, so large and conspicuous, — on the alder, pretty red catkins dangling in bunches of three or four, See November 6, 1853 ("The plump, roundish, club-shaped, well-protected buds of the alders, and rich purplish or mulberry catkins, three, four, or five together.")

The Canada snap dragon is still fresh and in flower by roadside near pond. See August 21, 1851 ("Canada snap dragon by roadside (not conspicuous).")

The last two, this and yesterday, fine days, but not gossamer ones. See November 1, 1860 ("A perfect Indian-summer day, and wonderfully warm. 72+ at 1 P. M. . . .Gossamer on the withered grass is shimmering in the fields, and flocks of it are sailing in the air."); November 19, 1853 ('This is a very pleasant and warm Indian-summer afternoon. Methinks we have not had one like it since October.

This, too, is a gossamer day, though it is not particularly calm.") See also note to November 3, 1857 ("It is a phenomenon peculiar to this season, when the twigs are bare and the air is clear.")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days

The November flowers, — flowers which survive severe frosts and the fall of the leaf. See November 10, 1858 (" Look for these late flowers —November flowers — on hills, above frost."); November 5, 1855 (“I see the shepherd’s-purse, hedge-mustard, and red clover, — November flowers. ”); November 9, 1850 ("I found many fresh violets (Viola pedata) to-day (November 9th) in the woods.”).; November 23, 1852 ("Among the flowers which may be put down as lasting thus far, as I remember, in the order of their hardiness: yarrow, tansy (these very fresh and common), cerastium, autumnal dandelion, dandelion, and perhaps tall buttercup, etc., the last four scarce. The following seen within a fortnight: a late three-ribbed goldenrod of some kind, blue-stemmed goldenrod (these two perhaps within a week), Potentilla argentea, Aster undulatus, Ranunculus repens, Bidens connata, shepherd's-purse, etc.,")

November 2. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  November 2 

November twilight,

clear white light seen through the woods —

the leaves being gone.

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

It is the season of fuzzy seeds.

October 23. 

Sunday. P. M. — Down railroad to chestnut wood on Pine Hill. 

October 23, 2022

A pleasant day, but breezy. 

I see a downy woodpecker tapping an apple tree, and hear, when I have passed, his sharp, metallic note.

 I notice these flowers still along the railroad causeway: 

• fresh sprouts from the root of the Solidago nemoralis in bloom,
• one or two fall dandelions,
• red clover and white,
• yarrow, 
• Trifolium arvense (perhaps not fresh),
• one small blue snapdragon,
• fresh tansy in bloom on the sunny sand bank. 

There are green leaves on the ends of elder twigs; blackberry vines still red; apple trees yellow and brown and partly bare; white ash bare (nearly); golden willows yellow and brown; white birches, exposed, are nearly bare; some pines still parti-colored. 

White, black, and red oaks still hold most of their leaves. What a peculiar red has the white! And some black have now a rich brown. 

The Populus grandidentata near railroad, bare; the P. tremuloides, half bare.

The hickories are finely crisped, yellow, more or less browned. 

Several yellow butterflies in the meadow. 

And many birds flit before me along the railroad, with faint notes, too large for linarias. Can they be tree sparrows ? Some weeks. [Probably the white-in-tail [i. e. vesper sparrow, or grass finch].] 

Many phenomena remind me that now is to some extent a second spring, — not only the new-springing and blossoming of flowers, but the peeping of the hylodes for some time, and the faint warbling of their spring notes by many birds. 

Everywhere in the fields I see the white, hoary (ashy-colored) sceptres of the gray goldenrod. Others are slightly yellowish still. The yellow is gone out of them, as the last flake of sunshine disappears from a field when the clouds are gathering. But though their golden hue is gone, their reign is not over. Compact puffed masses of seeds ready to take wing. They will send out their ventures from hour to hour the winter through. 

The Viola pedata looking up from so low in the wood-path makes a singular impression. 

I go through Brooks's Hollow. 

The hazels bare, only here and there a few sere, curled leaves on them. 

The red cherry is bare. 

The blue flag seed-vessels at Walden are bursting, — six closely packed brown rows. 

I find my clothes all bristling as with a chevaux-de-frise of beggar-ticks, which hold on for many days. A storm of arrows these weeds have showered on me, as I went through their moats. How irksome the task to rid one's self of them! We are fain to let some adhere. Through thick and thin I wear some; hold on many days. In an instant a thousand seeds of the bidens fastened themselves firmly to my clothes, and  I carried them for miles, planting one here and another there. They are as thick on my clothes as the teeth of a comb. 

The prinos is bare, leaving red berries. 

The pond has gone down suddenly and surprisingly since I was here last, and this pool is left, cut off at a higher level, stagnant and drying up. This is its first decided going down since its going up a year or two ago. 

The red-looking water purslane is left bare, and the water-target leaves are turned brown and drying up on the bare mud. 

The clethra partly bare, crisped, yellowish and brown, with its fruit with persistent styles (?) in long racemes. 

Here are dense fields of light-colored rattlesnake grass drooping with the weight of their seeds. 

The high blueberries about the pond have still a few leaves left on, turned bright scarlet red. These it is adorn the shore so, seen at a distance, small but very bright. 

The panicled andromeda is thinly clad with yellow and brown leaves, not sere. 

Alders are green. 

Smooth sumach bare. 

Chestnuts commonly bare. 

I now notice the round red buds of the high blueberry. 

The blue-stemmed, and also the white, solidago on Walden bank. 

Small sassafras trees bare. 

The Aster undulatus is still quite abundant and fresh on this high, sunny bank, — far more so than the Solidago coesia, — and methinks it is the latest of our asters and is besides the most common or conspicuous flower now. It is in large, dense masses, two or three feet high, pale purple or whitish, and covered with humble- bees. The radical leaves, now hearted and crenatish, are lake beneath. 

Also a hieracium quite freshly bloomed, but with white, bristly leaves and smooth stem, about twenty-flowered; peduncles and involucres glandular-hairy. Is it Gronovii or veiny-leaved? Almost as slender as the panicled. (In press.) 

No gerardias. 

Strawberries are red and green. 

It is the season of fuzzy seeds, — goldenrods, everlasting, senecio, asters, epilobium, etc., etc. 

Viburnum Lentago, with ripe berries and dull-glossy red leaves; young black cherry, fresh green or yellow; mayweed. 

The chestnuts have mostly fallen. 

One Diplopappus linariifolius in bloom, its leaves all yellow or red. 

This and A. undulatus the asters seen to-day. 

The red oak now red, perhaps inclining to scarlet; the white, with that peculiar ingrained redness; the shrub oak, a clear thick leather-color; some dry black oak, darker brown; chestnut, light brown; hickory, yellow, turning brown. These the colors of some leaves I brought home.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 23, 1853

I see a downy woodpecker tapping an apple tree, and hear, when I have passed, his sharp, metallic note.  See October 23, 1855 ("A downy woodpecker on an apple tree utters a sharp, shrill, rapid tea te t, t, t, t t t t t. "); December 5, 1853 ("See and hear a downy woodpecker on an apple tree. Have not many winter birds, like this and the chickadee, a sharp note like tinkling glass or icicles?") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Downy Woodpecker

The Viola pedata looking up from so low in the wood-path makes a singular impression. See October 22, 1859 (" In the wood-path below the Cliffs I see perfectly fresh and fair Viola pedata flowers, as in the spring, though but few together. No flower by its second blooming more perfectly brings back the spring to us")

The Populus grandidentata near railroad, bare; the P. tremuloides, half bare. See October 21, 1858 ("The Populus grandidentata is quite yellow and leafy yet. "); October 25, 1858 ("Aspens (tremuliformis) generally bare. ")

Is it Gronovii or veiny-leaved? See note to July 17, 1853 ("I think we have no Hieracium Gronoviis")

tinyurl.com/HDT531023

Holding a white pine needle in my hand.

September 25. 

September 25, 2019

P. M. — To Emerson's Cliff. 

Holding a white pine needle in my hand, and turning it in a favorable light, as I sit upon this cliff, I perceive that each of its three edges is notched or serrated with minute forward-pointing bristles. 

So much does Nature avoid an unbroken line that even this slender leaf is serrated; though, to my surprise, neither Gray nor Bigelow mention it. Loudon, however, says, "Scabrous and inconspicuously serrated on the margin; spreading in summer, but in winter contracted, and lying close to the branches." 

Fine and smooth as it looks, it is serrated after all. This is its concealed wildness, by which it connects itself with the wilder oaks. 

Prinos berries are fairly ripe for a few days. 

Moles work in meadows.  

I see at Brister Spring Swamp the (apparently) Aspidium Noveboracense, more than half of it turned white. Also some dicksonia is about equally white. These especially are the white ones. There is another, largish, and more generally decayed than either of these, with large serrated segments, rather far apart, — perhaps the Asplenium Filix-foemina (?). The first may be called now the white fern, — with rather small entirish and flat segments close together. 

In shade is the laboratory of white. Color is produced in the sun. 

The cinnamon ferns are all a decaying brown there. The sober brown colors of those ferns are in harmony with the twilight of the swamp. 

The terminal shield fern and the Aspidium spinulosum (?) are still fresh and green, the first as much so as the polypody. 

At 2 p. m. the river is sixteen and three quarters inches above my hub[?] by boat. 

Nabalus albus still common, though much past prime. Though concealed amid trees, I find three humble-bees on one. As when Antaeus touched the earth, so when the mountaineer scents the fern, he bounds up like a chamois, or mountain goat, with renewed strength. There is no French perfumery about it. It has not been tampered with by any perfumer to their majesties. It is the fragrance of those plants whose impressions we see on our coal. Beware of the cultivation that eradicates it. 

The very crab-grass in our garden is for the most part a light straw-color and withered, probably by the frosts of the 15th and 16th, looking almost as white as the corn; and hundreds of sparrows (chip-birds ?) find their food amid it. The same frosts that kill and whiten the corn whiten many grasses thus.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 25, 1859

I see at Brister Spring Swamp the (apparently) Aspidium Noveboracense, more than half of it turned white. Also some dicksonia...perhaps the Asplenium Filix-foemina. See July 17, 1857 ("Aspidium Noveboracense at Corner Spring, not yet brown; also Aspidium Filix-foemina (?), with lunar-shaped fruit, not yet brown; also apparently a chaffy-stemmed dicksonia, densely brown-fruited")

The sober brown colors of those ferns are in harmony with the twilight of the swamp. See note to September 24, 1859 ("The tufts of cinnamon fern, now a pale brown.") See also 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Cinnamon Fern

The terminal shield fern and the Aspidium spinulosum (?) are still fresh and green, the first as much so as the polypody. See September 30, 1859 ("The terminal shield fern is one of the handsomest. The most decidedly evergreen are the last, polypody, Aspidium marginale, and Aspidium spinulosum of Woodis Swamp and Brister's . . . Of the twenty-three ferns which I seem to know here, seven may be called evergreens."); October 23, 1857 ("The ferns which I can see on the bank, apparently all evergreens, are polypody at rock, marginal shield fern, terminal shield fern, and (I think it is) Aspidium spinulosum.. . .The above-named evergreen ferns are so much the more conspicuous on that pale-brown ground. They stand out all at once and are seen to be evergreen; their character appears.”); November 17, 1858 ("As for the evergreen ferns, I see now —

• Common polypody (though shrivelled by cold where exposed).
• Asplenium trichomanes.
• A. ebeneum.
• Aspidium spinulosum (?). large frond, small-fruited, in swamp southeast Brister’s Spring, on 16th.
• A. cristatum (?), Grackle Swamp on the 15th, with oftener what I take to be the narrower and more open sterile frond.
• A. marginale (common).
• A. achrostichoides (terminal shield).

The first one and the last two are particularly handsome, the last especially, it has so thick a frond.") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part Three: Polypody, Marginal Shield Fern, Terminal Shield Fern andA Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part Two: Aspidium spinulosum & Aspidium cristatum

September is the month when various small, and commonly inedible, berries in cymes and clusters hang over the roadsides and along the walls and fences, or spot the forest floor

September 11. 

P.M. — To Conantum-end. 

The prinos berries are now seen, red (or scarlet), clustered along the stems, amid the as yet green leaves. A cool red.

By the pool in Hubbard's Grove, I see tall tupelos, all dotted with the now ripe (apparently in prime) small oval purple berries, two or three together on the end of slender peduncles, amid the reddening leaves. This fruit is very acid and has a large stone, but I see several robins on the trees, which appear to have been attracted by it. Neither tree nor fruit is generally known, and many liken the former when small to a pear. The trees are quite full of fruit. 

The wax-like fruit of Cornus paniculata still holds on abundantly. 

This being a cloudy and somewhat rainy day, the autumnal dandelion is open in the afternoon.

The Rhus Toxicodendron berries are now ripe and greenish-yellow, and some already shrivelled, over bare rocks. 

September is the month when various small, and commonly inedible, berries in cymes and clusters hang over the roadsides and along the walls and fences, or spot the forest floor. 

The clusters of the Viburnum Lentago berries, now in their prime, are exceedingly and peculiarly handsome, and edible withal. These are drooping, like the Cornus sericea cymes. Each berry in the cyme is now a fine, clear red on the exposed side and a distinct and clear green on the opposite side. Many are already purple, and they turn in your hat, but they are handsomest when thus red and green. 

The large clusters of the Smilacina racemosa berries, four or five inches long, of whitish berries a little smaller than a pea, finely marked and dotted with vermilion or bright red, are very conspicuous. I do not chance to see any ripe. 

No fruit is handsomer than the acorn. I see but few fallen yet, and they are all wormy. Very pretty, especially, are the white oak acorns, three raying from one centre. 

I see dill and saffron still, commonly out at R. W. E.'s.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 11, 1859



September is the month when various small, and commonly inedible, berries in cymes and clusters hang over the roadsides and along the walls and fences, or spot the forest floor. See September 3, 1853 ("Now is the season for those comparatively rare but beautiful wild berries which are not food for man.. . .Berries which are as beautiful as flowers, but far less known, the fruit of the flower.") See also August 27, 1856 ("There are many wild-looking berries about now.");  September 1, 1854 ("The Cornus sericea berries are now in prime, of different shades of blue, lighter or darker, and bluish white."); September 1, 1856 ("Cohush berries appear now to be in their prime, and arum berries, and red choke-berries, which last further up in this swamp, with their peculiar glossy red and squarish form, are really very handsome. A few medeola berries ripe."); September 2, 1853 ("The dense oval bunches of arum berries now startle the walker in swamps. They are a brilliant vermilion on a rich ground . . . The medeola berries are now dull glossy and almost blue-black; about three, on slender threads one inch long, arising in the midst of the cup formed by the purple bases of the whorl of three upper leaves."); ); September 3, 1856 (A singular and pleasing contrast, also, do the different kinds of viburnum and cornel berries present when compared with each other. "); September 4, 1859 (See a very large mass of spikenard berries fairly ripening, eighteen inches long").

The clusters of the Viburnum Lentago berries, now in their prime, are exceedingly and peculiarly handsome, and edible withal. See August 21, 1853 ("The Viburnum Lentago berries are but just beginning to redden on one cheek.”); August 23, 1853 (".How handsome now the cymes of Viburnum Lentago berries, flattish with red cheeks!”); August 25, 1852 ("The fruit of the Viburnum Lentago is now very handsome, with its sessile cymes of large elliptical berries, green on one side and red with a purple bloom on the other or exposed side, not yet purple, blushing on one cheek.”);    August 27, 1854 (Some Viburnum Lentago berries, turned blue before fairly reddening."); . August 27, 1856 ("The Viburnum Lentago begin to show their handsome red cheeks, rather elliptic-shaped and mucronated, one cheek clear red with a purplish bloom, the other pale green, now. Among the handsomest of berries, one half inch long by three eighths by two eighths, being somewhat flattish"); August 30, 1853 ("Viburnum Lentago berries are now common and handsome");September 1, 1854 ("The Viburnum Lentago are just fairly begun to have purple cheeks."); September 13, 1856 ("The Viburnum Lentago, which I left not half turned red when I went up-country a week ago, are now quite black-purple and shrivelled like raisins on my table, and sweet to taste, though chiefly seed."); Also see A Book of the Seasons,by Henry Thoreau, The Viburnum lentago (Nannyberry)

September  – the month 

when various berries  hang

in cymes and clusters.