A farmer in his field.

September 23

P. M. — Round by Clematis Brook.

The forget-me-not still.

I observe the rounded tops of the dogwood bushes, scarlet in the distance, on the edge of the meadow (Hubbard's), more full and bright than any flower.

The maples are mostly darker, the very few boughs that are turned, and the tupelo, which is reddening.

The ash is just beginning to turn.

The scarlet dogwood is the striking bush to-day.

I find huckleberries on Conantum still sound and blackening the bushes.

How much longer a mile appears between two blue mountain peaks thirty or more miles off in the horizon than one would expect!

Some acorns and hickory nuts on the ground, but they have not begun to shell.

Is it the nut of the Carya amara, with raised seams, but not bitter, that I perceive?

I suppose that is the Carya tomentosa, or mockernut hickory, with large rounded nuts on Lee's land.

The bitternuts (?), rubbed together, smell like varnish.

The sarothra in bloom.

The wind from the north has turned the white lily pads wrong side up, so that they look red, and their stems are slanted up-stream.

Almost all the yellow ones have disappeared.

September 23, 2018

A blue-stemmed goldenrod, its stem and leaves red.

The woodbine high on trees in the shade a delicate pink.

I gathered some haws very good to eat to-day. I think they must be the senelles of the Canadians.

Hamamelis Virginiana out, before its leaves fall.

A woodchuck out.

The waxwork not opened.

The "feathery tails" of the clematis fruit conspicuous and interesting now.

Yellow lily out (again?) in the pond-holes.

Passing a corn-field the other day, close by a hat and coat on a stake, I recognized the owner of the farm. Any of his acquaintances would. He was only a trifle more weather-beaten] than when I saw him last. His back being toward me, I missed nothing, and I thought to myself if I were a crow I should not fear the balance of him, at any rate.

In northern latitudes, where other edible fruits are scarce, they make an account of haws and bunch-berries.

The barberry bushes in Clematis Hollow are very beautiful now, with their wreaths of red or scarlet fruit drooping over a rock.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 23, 1852

The scarlet dogwood is the striking bush to-day. See note to September 25, 1852 ("The scarlet of the dogwood is the most conspicuous and interesting of the autumnal colors at present.")

A blue-stemmed goldenrod, its stem and leaves red. See September 23, 1860 ("I see everywhere in the shady yew wood those pretty round-eyed fungus-spots on the upper leaves of the blue-stemmed goldenrod, contrasting with the few bright-yellow flowers above them, -- yellowish-white rings (with a slate-colored centre), surrounded by green and then dark."); See also November 10, 1858 ("In the path below the Cliff, I see some blue-stemmed goldenrod turned yellow as well as purple.")

How much longer a mile appears between two blue mountain peaks thirty or more miles off in the horizon. See March 31, 1853 ("It is affecting to see a distant mountain-top,. . . still as blue and ethereal to your eyes as is your memory of it.'); May 17, 1858 ("I doubt if in the landscape there can be anything finer than a distant mountain-range. They are a constant elevating influence."); August 14, 1854 (“I have come forth to this hill at sunset to see the forms of the mountains in the horizon.— to behold and commune with something grander than man. “); August 30, 1854 ("The clearness of the air makes it delicious to gaze in any direction. . . ., and I see with new pleasure to distant hillsides and farmhouses . . and to the mountains in the horizon."); October 20, 1852 ("This is an advantage of mountains in the horizon: they show you fair weather from the midst of foul."); October 22, 1857 ("But what a perfect crescent of mountains we have in our northwest horizon! Do we ever give thanks for it? "); November 4, 1857 ("But those grand and glorious mountains, how impossible to remember daily that they are there, and to live accordingly! They are meant to be a perpetual reminder to us, pointing out the way."): November 22, 1860 ("Simply to see to a distant horizon through a clear air, - the fine outline of a distant hill or a blue mountaintop through some new vista, - this is wealth enough for one afternoon.")  

The wind from the north has turned the white lily pads wrong side up, so that they look red. See June 29, 1852 ("The wind exposes the red undersides of the white lily pads. This is one of the aspects of the river now."); August 24,1854 ("The bright crimson-red under sides of the great white lily pads, turned up by the wind in broad fields on the sides of the stream, are a great ornament to the stream. It is not till August, methinks, that they are turned up conspicuously.”)

Carya amara, bitternut -- Carya tomentosa, mockernut hickory,( North American hickories include:

·        Carya glabra – pignut hickory

·       Carya laciniosa - shagbark hickory

·     Carya ovata – shagbark hickory

·      Carya texana  black hickory

·      Carya tomentosa  – mockernut hickory

·      Carya cordiformis (amara)  – bitternut hickory)

 

 

Found in this walk, of nests, one tanager, two bay wing, one blue jay, one catbird, and a Maryland yellow-throat.

June 8

P. M. —Goose Pond. 

High blueberry. 

A crow two thirds grown tied up for a scarecrow. 

A tanager’s nest in the topmost forks of a pitch pine about fifteen feet high, by Thrush Alley; the nest very slight, apparently of pine needles, twigs, etc.; can see through it; bird on. 

In that pitch pine wood see two rabbit forms, very snug and well-roofed retreats formed by the dead pine-needles falling about the base of the trees, where they are upheld on the dead stubs from the butt at from six inches to a foot from the ground, as if the carpet of the forest floor were puffed up there. Gnawed acorn-shells in them. 

Two Fringilla pusilla nests in my old potato-field, at the foot of little white pines each; made of dried grass lined with hair, snug in the sod. Four eggs to each; one lot nearly hatched; with reddish brown spots, especially toward larger end, but a. light opening quite at that end; smaller, slenderer, and less spotted than the song sparrow’s. The bird is ash side head, ferruginous above, mahogany bill and legs, two whitish bars. Eggs do not agree with account? Nuttall says this bird’s eggs are so thick with ferruginous as to appear almost wholly of that color! 

A jay’s nest with three young half fledged in a white pine, six feet high, by the Ingraham cellar, made of coarse sticks. 

J\

June 8, 2018

Hear, I am pretty sure, a rose-breasted grosbeak sing. 

See apparently a summer duck in Goose Pond. C. says he saw two other dark ducks here yesterday.

A great many devil’s-needles in woods within a day or two. 

A catbird’s nest on the peninsula of Goose Pond — four eggs — in a blueberry bush, four feet from ground, close to water; as usual of sticks, dry leaves, and bark lined with roots. 

What was that little nest on the ridge near by, made of fine grass lined with a few hairs and containing five small eggs (two hatched the 11th), nearly as broad as long, yet pointed, white with fine dull-brown spots especially on the large end—nearly hatched? The nest in the dry grass under a shrub, remarkably concealed.

Found in this walk, of nests, one tanager, two bay wing, one blue jay, one catbird, and the last named. (June 11.—It is a Maryland yellow-throat.)

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 8, 1855

A crow two thirds grown tied up for a scarecrow. Compare September 23, 1852 ("Passing a corn-field the other day, close by a hat and coat on a stake, I recognized the owner of the farm.")

[In Robinson Crusoe (1719), Crusoe hangs dead crows in his patch of corn in order to frighten away other birds daring to enter the area. It worked: “…I could never see a bird near the place as long as my scarecrows hung there.” This, though not the modern idea of a scarecrow, is thought by some to be probably the first time the word “scarecrow” appeared in literature.  ~The Myth and History of Scarecrows]

A tanager’s nest in the topmost forks of a pitch pine about fifteen feet high, by Thrush Alley; the nest very slight, apparently of pine needles, twigs, etc.; can see through it; bird on. See .June 11, 1855 (" In order to get the deserted tanager’s nest at the top [of] a pitch pine which was too weak to climb, we carried a rope in our pockets and took three rails a quarter of a mile into the woods, and there rigged a derrick, by which I climbed to a level with the nest, and I could see if there were eggs in it. I have the nest. Tied the three tops together and spread the bottoms")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Scarlet Tanager

A great many devil’s-needles in woods within a day or two.  See June 6, 1857 ("I see many great devil's-needles in an open wood, — and for a day or two, — stationary on twigs, etc., standing out more or less horizontally like thorns, holding by their legs and heads(?). They do not incline to move when touched, and their eyes look whitish and opaque, as if they were blind.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Devil's-needle

A catbird’s nest on the peninsula of Goose Pond. . . as usual of sticks, dry leaves, and bark lined with roots. See June 6, 1855 ("Two catbirds’ nests in the thickest part of the thicket on the edge of Wheeler’s meadow near Island. One. . .composed of dead twigs and a little stubble, then grape vine bark, and is lined with dark root-fibres."); June 6, 1855 ("Another . . . has some dry leaves with the twigs, and one egg,—about six feet high."); June 9, 1855 ("A catbird’s nest, three eggs, in a high blueberry, four feet from ground, with rather more dry leaves than usual"); June 9, 1855 ("Catbird’s nest, one egg, on a blueberry bush, three feet from ground, of (as usual) sticks, leaves, bark, roots. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  Catbird nests

What was that little nest on the ridge near by, made of fine grass lined with a few hairs and containing five small eggs . . . nearly as broad as long, yet pointed, white with fine dull-brown spots especially on the large end . . .? See June 7, 1857 ("A nest well made outside of leaves, then grass, lined with fine grass, very deep and narrow, with thick sides, with four small somewhat cream-colored eggs with small brown and some black spots chiefly toward larger end.. . .It was a Maryland yellow-throat. Egg fresh. She is very shy and will not return to nest while you wait, but keeps up a very faint chip in the bushes or grass at some distance.”); June 10, 1858 ("The usual small deep nest (but not raised up) of dry leaves, fine grass stubble, and lined with a little hair. Four eggs, white, with brown spots, chiefly at larger end, and some small black specks or scratches. The bird flits out very low and swiftly and does not show herself, so that it is hard to find the nest or to identify the bird. ”);  June 12, 1859 ("To Gowing's Swamp . . .Maryland yellow-throat four eggs, fresh, in sphagnum in the interior omphalos.")

Two Fringilla pusilla nests in my old potato-field, at the foot of little white pines each; made of dried grass lined with hair, snug in the sod.  See May 18, 1855 ("At Clamshell a bay-wing sparrow’s nest, four eggs (young half hatched) -- some black-spotted, others not. ");  June 4, 1857 ("I scare up a bay-wing. She runs several rods close to the ground through the thin grass, and then lurks behind tussocks, etc. The nest has four eggs, dull pinkish-white with brown spots; nest low in ground, of stubble lined with white horse hair.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Bay-Wing Sparrow (Fringilla graminea) and The Field Sparrow (Fringilla juncorum aka Spizella pusilla)

A jay’s nest with three young half fledged in a white pine, six feet high . . . made of coarse sticks.  See June 5, 1856 ("A blue jay’s nest on a white pine, eight feet from ground, next to the stem, of twigs lined with root-fibres; three fresh eggs, dark dull greenish, with dusky spots equally distributed all over, . . .”) 

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2021