At sunset after the rain, the robins and song sparrows fill the air along the river with their song.

April 9

5.15 A. M. —To Red Bridge just before sunrise. 

Fine clear morning, but still cold enough for gloves. A slight frost, and mist as yesterday curling over the smooth water. 

I see half a dozen crows on an elm within a dozen rods of the muskrats’ bodies, as if eyeing them. I see thus often crows very early in the morning near the houses, which soon after sun rise take their way across the river to the woods again. It is a regular thing with them. 

Hear the hoarse rasping chuck or chatter of crow blackbirds and distinguish their long broad tails. Wilson says that the only note of the rusty grackle is a chuck, though he is told that at Hudson’s Bay, at the breeding-time, they sing with a fine note. Here they utter not only a chuck, but a fine shrill whistle. 

They cover the top of a tree now, and their concert is of this character: They all seem laboring together to get out a clear strain, as it were wetting their whistles against their arrival at Hudson’s Bay. They begin as it were by disgorging or spitting it out, like so much tow, from a full throat, and conclude with a clear, fine, shrill, ear-piercing whistle. Then away they go, all chattering together. 

Hear a phoebe near the river. 

The golden willow is, methinks, a little livelier green and begins to peel a little, but I am not sure the bark is any smoother yet.

Hear a loud, long, dry, tremulous shriek which reminded me of a kingfisher, but which I find proceeded from a woodpecker that had just alighted on an elm; also its clear whistle or Chink afterward. It is probably the hairy woodpecker, and I am not so certain I have seen it earlier this year. Wilson does not allow that the downy one makes exactly such a sound. 

Did I hear part of the note of a golden-crowned wren this morning? It was undoubtedly a robin, the last part of his strain. 

Some twenty minutes after sundown I hear the first booming of a snipe. 

The forenoon was cloudy and in the afternoon it rained, but the sun set clear, lighting up the west with a yellow light, which there was no green grass to reflect, in which the frame of a new building is distinctly seen, while drops hang on every twig, and producing the first rainbow I have seen or heard of except one long ago in the morning. 

With April showers, me thinks, come rainbows. Why are they so rare in the winter? Is the fact that the clouds are then of snow commonly, instead of rain, sufficient to account for it?

At sunset after the rain, the robins and song sparrows fill the air along the river with their song.

MacGillivray says that divers, mergansers, and cormorants actually fly under water, using their wings fully expanded. He had seen them pursuing sand eels along the shores of the Hebrides. Had seen the water ouzel fly in like manner. 

Several flocks of geese went over this morning also. Now, then, the main body are moving. Now first are they generally seen and heard.

H. D. Thoreau,  Journal, April 9, 1855

Still cold enough for gloves. See April 10, 1855 ("Since April came in, however, you have needed gloves only in the morning"); April 22, 1855 ("Though my hands are cold this morning I have not worn gloves for a few mornings past, — a week or ten days.")

 
Some twenty minutes after sundown I hear the first booming of a snipe. See April 9, 1853 (“Evening. -- Hear the snipe a short time at early starlight.”); April 9, 1858 ("This “booming” of the snipe is our regular village serenade."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Snipe

A clear, fine, shrill, ear-piercing whistle. See April 3, 1855 ("The first grackles [rusty grackles, or rusty blackbirds.] I have seen. I detected them first by their more rasping note . . . after a short stuttering, then a fine, clear whistle.")

Several flocks of geese went over this morning also.  See April 8, 1855 ("This evening, about 9 P.M., I hear geese go over . . . The first I have heard.  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: Signs of Spring, Geese Overhead

 The first rainbow I have seen or heard of except one long ago in the morning. See February 23, 1860 ("About 4 P. M. a smart shower, ushered in by thunder and succeeded by a brilliant rainbow and yellow light from under the dark cloud in the west."); March 13, 1855 ("Rainbow in east this morning."); March 15. 1859 ("two brilliant rainbows at sunset, the first of the year."); April 18, 1855 ("Am overtaken by a sudden sun-shower, after which a rainbow.”); December 6, 1858 ("Looking at a dripping tree between you and the sun, you may see here or there one or another rainbow color, a small brilliant point of light.")

 

April 9. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, April 9

Sunset after rain

the robins and song sparrows

fill the air with song.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, At sunset after the rain

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550409

A very large hawk

April 3,  2015

April 3

It is somewhat warmer, but still windy, and I go to sail down to the Island and up to Hubbard’s Causeway.



Most would call it cold to-day. I paddle without gloves. It is a coolness like that of March 29th and 30th, pleasant to breathe, and, perhaps, like that, presaging decidedly warmer weather. It is an amelioration, as nature does nothing suddenly.

The shores are lined with frozen spray-like foam, with an abrupt edge, a foot high often on the waterside. Occasionally where there are twigs there is a nest of those short, thick bulls’-horn icicles, pointing in every direction.

I see many hens feeding close to the river’s edge, like the crows, - and robins and blackbirds later, - and I have no doubt they are attracted by a like cause. The ground being first thawed there, not only worms but other insect and vegetable life is accessible there sooner than elsewhere.

See several pairs of ducks, mostly black.

Returning, when off the hill am attracted by the noise of crows, which betray to me a very large hawk, large enough for an eagle, sitting on a maple beneath them. Now and then they dive at him, and at last he sails away low round the hill, as if hunting.

The hillside is alive with sparrows, red-wings, and the first grackles 
[rusty grackles, or rusty blackbirds.] I have seen.  I detected them first by their more rasping note . . . after a short stuttering, then a fine, clear whistle. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 3, 1855

Most would call it cold to-day. I paddle without gloves. Compare April 3, 1852 ("It is very cold and windy, and I miss my gloves, left at home. Colder than the last moon"); See March 20, 1855 (“It is remarkable by what a gradation of days which we call pleasant and warm . . . At first a sunny, calm, serene winter day is pronounced spring, or reminds us of it; and then the first pleasant spring day perhaps we walk with our greatcoat buttoned up and gloves on.”);  April 26, 1860 ("To-day it is 53° at 2 P. M., yet cold, such a difference is there in our feelings. What we should have called a warm day in March is a cold one at this date in April. It is the northwest wind makes it cold.")

A coolness like that of March 29th and 30th. See March 29, 1855 ("I inhale with pleasure the cold but wholesome air . . . This, which is a chilling wind to my fellow, is decidedly refreshing to me."); March 30, 1855 ("To-day and yesterday have been bright, windy days. —west wind, cool, yet, compared with the previous colder ones, pleasantly, gratefully cool to me on my cheek.")

Nature does nothing suddenly. See September 17, 1839 ("Nature never makes haste; her systems revolve at an even pace."); June 14, 1851 ("How moderate, deliberate, is Nature! "); January 26, 1858 ("Nature loves gradation.");  November 17, 1858 ("Nature is moderate and loves degrees.");  January 14, 1861 ("Nature is slow but sure; she works no faster than need be.")

Those short, thick bulls’-horn icicles, pointing in every direction. See April 2, 1855 ("The wind is still very strong and cold from the north west . . . blowing the water . . . over the rocks and bushes along the shore, where it freezes in the shape of bulls’ horns.")

See several pairs of ducks, mostly black. See April 7, 1853 ("We cross the Great Meadows, scaring up many ducks at a great distance, some partly white, some apparently black, some brownish (?).  It is Fast-Day, and many gunners are about the shore, which makes them shy. I never cross the meadow at this season without seeing ducks. "); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Black Duck

The noise of crows . . . betray to me a very large hawk, large enough for an eagle. See April 6, 1856 ("The crows had betrayed to me some large bird of the hawk kind which they were buffeting.); April 8, 1854 ("It sailed and circled along over the low cliff, and the crows dived at it in the field of my glass . . . It was undoubtedly a white-headed eagle.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow

Rusty grackles, or rusty blackbirds . . . after a short stuttering, then a fine, clear whistle. See April 9, 1855 ("Wilson says that the only note of the rusty grackle is a chuck, though he is told that at Hudson’s Bay, at the breeding-time, they sing with a fine note. Here they utter not only a chuck, but a fine shrill whistle."); April 11, 1856 (" See a male and female rusty grackle alight on an oak near me, the latter apparently a flaxen brown, with a black tail. She looks like a different species of bird. Wilson had heard only a tchuck from the grackle, but this male, who was courting his mate, broke into incipient warbles, like a bubble burst.");  April 14, 1855 ("I see half a dozen crow blackbirds uttering their coarse rasping char char. . . They also attain to a clear whistle with some effort, but seem to have some difficulty in their throats yet."): March 29, 1853 ("It would be worth the while to attend more to the different notes of the blackbirds.");March 29, 1858 ("I see what I suppose is the female rusty grackle; black body with green reflections and purplish-brown head and neck, but I notice no light iris. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: The grackle arrives.

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

A very large hawk

large enough for an eagle

mobbed by noisy crows.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  A very large hawk

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550403