H. Mann brings me two small pewees, but not yellowish about eye and bill, and bill is all black.
Also a white-throat sparrow, Wilson's thrush, and myrtle bird.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 4, 1861
Showing posts with label small pewee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label small pewee. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 4, 2021
Monday, May 3, 2021
In rain to Nawshawtuct.
May 3.
P. M. -- In rain to Nawshawtuct.
The river rising still.
What I have called the small pewee on the willow by my boat, — quite small, uttering a short tchevet from time to time.
Some common cherries are quite forward in leafing; say next after the black.
The Pyrus arbutifolia, of plants I observed, would follow the cherry in leafing. It just begins to show minute glossy leaves.
The meadow-sweet begins to look fairly green, with its little tender green leaves, making thin wreaths of green against the bare stems of other plants (this and the gooseberry), - the next plant in this respect to the earliest gooseberry in the garden, which appears to be the same with that in the swamp.
I see wood turtles which appear to be full and hard with eggs.
Yesterday I counted half a dozen dead yellow-spotted turtles about Beck Stow's.
There is a small dark native willow in the meadows as early to leaf as the S. alba, with young catkins.
Anemone nemorosa near the ferns and the sassafras appeared yesterday.
The ferns invested with rusty wool (cinnamomea?) have pushed up eight or ten inches and show some of the green leaf.
The river rising still.
What I have called the small pewee on the willow by my boat, — quite small, uttering a short tchevet from time to time.
Some common cherries are quite forward in leafing; say next after the black.
The Pyrus arbutifolia, of plants I observed, would follow the cherry in leafing. It just begins to show minute glossy leaves.
The meadow-sweet begins to look fairly green, with its little tender green leaves, making thin wreaths of green against the bare stems of other plants (this and the gooseberry), - the next plant in this respect to the earliest gooseberry in the garden, which appears to be the same with that in the swamp.
I see wood turtles which appear to be full and hard with eggs.
Yesterday I counted half a dozen dead yellow-spotted turtles about Beck Stow's.
There is a small dark native willow in the meadows as early to leaf as the S. alba, with young catkins.
Anemone nemorosa near the ferns and the sassafras appeared yesterday.
The ferns invested with rusty wool (cinnamomea?) have pushed up eight or ten inches and show some of the green leaf.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 3, 1854
The meadow-sweet begins to look fairly green. See April 24, 1860 ("The meadow-sweet and hardhack have begun to leaf."); May 4, 1852 ("The meadow-sweet begins to leave out")
There is a small dark native willow in the meadows as early to leaf as the S. alba, with young catkins. See May 2, 1855 ("That small native willow now in flower, or say yesterday, just before leaf.") See also April 24, 1855 ("The Salix alba begins to leaf. "); April 27, 1854 ("The Salix alba begins to leaf, and the catkins are three quarters of an inch long. "); April 29, 1855 ("For two or three days the Salix alba, with its catkins (not yet open) and its young leaves, or bracts (?), has made quite a show, before any other tree, —a pyramid of tender yellowish green in the russet landscape."); April 30, 1859 (Salix alba leafing, or stipules a quarter of an inch wide; probably began a day or two.")
Yesterday I counted half a dozen dead yellow-spotted turtles about Beck Stow's. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow-Spotted Turtle (Emys guttata)
Sunday, May 2, 2021
Summer yellowbird on the opening Salix alba.
May 2.
Summer yellowbird on the opening Salix alba.
Chimney swallows and the bank or else cliff ditto.
Small pewee?
Our earliest gooseberry in garden has bloomed.
What is that pondweed-like plant floating in a pool near Breed's, with a slender stem and linear leaves and a small whorl of minute leaves on the surface, and nutlets in the axils of the leaves, along the stem, as if now out of bloom? [Callitriche verna.]
Missouri currant.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 2, 1853
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 2, 1853
Missouri currant. See May 4, 1858 ("The Missouri currant, probably to-day."); May 5, 1855 ("Missouri currant look as if they would bloom to-morrow.”);
Friday, May 8, 2020
The simple peep peep of the peetweet.
May 8
A cloudy day.
The small pewee, how long.
The night-warbler's note.
River four and seven eighths inches below summer level.
Stone-heaps, how long?
I see a woodchuck in the middle of the field at Assabet Bath. He is a heavy fellow with a black tip to his tail, poking about almost on his belly, — where there is but little greenness yet, — with a great heavy head. He is very wary, every minute pausing and raising his head, and sometimes sitting erect and looking around. He is evidently nibbling some green thing, maybe clover. He runs at last, with an undulating motion, jerking his lumbering body along, and then stops when near a hole. But on the whole he runs and stops and looks round very much like a cat in the fields.
The cinquefoil is closed in a cloudy day, and when the sun shines it is turned toward it.
The simple peep peep of the peetweet, as it flies away from the shore before me, sounds hollow and rather mournful, reminding me of the seashore and its wrecks, and when I smell the fresh odor of our marshes the resemblance is increased.
How the marsh hawk circles or skims low, round and round over a particular place in a meadow, where, perhaps, it has seen a frog, screaming once or twice, and then alights on a fence-post! How it crosses the causeway between the willows, at a gap in them with which it is familiar, as a hen knows a hole in a fence! I lately saw one flying over the road near our house.
I see a gray squirrel ascend the dead aspen at the rock, and enter a hole some eighteen feet up it. Just below this, a crack is stuffed with leaves which project. Probably it has a nest within and has filled up this crack.
Now that the river is so low, the bared bank, often within the button-bushes, is seen to be covered with that fine, short, always green Eleocharis acicularis (?).
C. has seen a brown thrasher and a republican swallow to-day.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 8, 1860
The small pewee, how long. See May 7, 1852 (" The first small pewee sings now che-vet, or rather chirrups chevet, tche-vet — a rather delicate bird with a large head and two white bars on wings."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,the “Small Pewee"
The night-warbler's note. See May 8, 1852 ("The night-warbler while it is yet pretty light."); May 28, 1854 ("The night-warbler, after his strain, drops down almost perpendicularly into a tree-top and is lost.”); According to Emerson the night warbler is "a bird he had never identified, had been in search of twelve years, which always, when he saw it, was in the act of diving down into a tree or bush.” Probably the flight song of the oven-bird. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Oven-bird.
Stone-heaps, how long? See May 4, 1858 ("I asked [a fisherman] if he knew what fish made the stone-heaps in the river. He said the lamprey eel.”) May 8, 1858 ("Mr. Wright . . ., an old fisherman, remembers the lamprey eels well, which he used to see in the Assabet there, but thinks that there have been none in the river for a dozen years and that the stone-heaps are not made by them. "); May 12, 1858 ("George, the carpenter, says that he used to see a great many stone-heaps in the Saco in Bartlett, near the White Mountains, like those in the Assabet, and that there were no lampreys there and they called them “snake-heaps.”); July 31, 1859 ("A man fishing at the Ox-Bow said without hesitation that the stone-heaps were made by the sucker, at any rate that he had seen them made by the sucker in Charles River,")
The small pewee, how long. See May 7, 1852 (" The first small pewee sings now che-vet, or rather chirrups chevet, tche-vet — a rather delicate bird with a large head and two white bars on wings."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,the “Small Pewee"
The night-warbler's note. See May 8, 1852 ("The night-warbler while it is yet pretty light."); May 28, 1854 ("The night-warbler, after his strain, drops down almost perpendicularly into a tree-top and is lost.”); According to Emerson the night warbler is "a bird he had never identified, had been in search of twelve years, which always, when he saw it, was in the act of diving down into a tree or bush.” Probably the flight song of the oven-bird. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Oven-bird.
Stone-heaps, how long? See May 4, 1858 ("I asked [a fisherman] if he knew what fish made the stone-heaps in the river. He said the lamprey eel.”) May 8, 1858 ("Mr. Wright . . ., an old fisherman, remembers the lamprey eels well, which he used to see in the Assabet there, but thinks that there have been none in the river for a dozen years and that the stone-heaps are not made by them. "); May 12, 1858 ("George, the carpenter, says that he used to see a great many stone-heaps in the Saco in Bartlett, near the White Mountains, like those in the Assabet, and that there were no lampreys there and they called them “snake-heaps.”); July 31, 1859 ("A man fishing at the Ox-Bow said without hesitation that the stone-heaps were made by the sucker, at any rate that he had seen them made by the sucker in Charles River,")
The cinquefoil is closed in a cloudy day, and when the sun shines it is turned toward it. See May 2, 1860 ("The early potentillas are now quite abundant."); May 17, 1853 ("The early cinquefoil is now in its prime and spots the banks and hillsides and dry meadows with its dazzling yellow. How lively! It is one of the most interesting yellow flowers. ")
The simple peep peep of the peetweet, as it flies away from the shore before me, sounds hollow and rather mournful. See April 30, 1856 (“As I go along the Assabet, a peetweet skims away from the shore.”); May 2, 1859 ("The river seems really inhabited when the peetweet is back . . . This bird does not return to our stream until the weather is decidedly pleasant and warm . . .Its note peoples the river, like the prattle of children once more in the yard of a house that has stood empty."); May 4, 1856 (“As soon as the rocks begin to be bare the peetweet comes and is seen teetering on them and skimming away from me.”) [Thoreau's Peetweet is the Spotted Sandpiper (Actitis macularia)]
How the marsh hawk circles or skims low, round and round over a particular place in a meadow. See May 2, 1855 ("Was that a harrier seen at first skimming low then seating and circling, with a broad whiteness on the wings beneath"); May 2, 1858 (" How patiently they skim the meadows, occasionally alighting, and fluttering "); May 14, 1855 (" See a male hen-harrier skimming low along the side of the river, often within a foot of the muddy shore . . . Occasionally he alights and walks or hops flutteringly a foot or two over the ground")
C. has seen a brown thrasher and a republican swallow to-day. See May 7, 1852 ("Beginning, I may say, with robins, song sparrows, chip-birds, bluebirds, etc., I walk through larks, pewees, pigeon woodpeckers, chickadees, towhees, huckleberry-birds, wood thrushes, brown thrasher, jay, catbird, ");May 8, 1857 ("The ring of toads, the note of the yellowbird, the rich warble of the red-wing, the thrasher on the hillside, the robin's evening song, the woodpecker tapping some dead tree across the water")
*****
I had a minor discovery in the wildflower garden while trimming branches off the ten-year old white pines i had cut there. Deep into the work I suddenly saw that the branches come in whorls of five, just as the white pine needles are in bundles of five. According to my friend Henry your true discoveries are made when you’re doing something else. Amid the tedium and torment of cutting the little branches into four-foot lengths I saw they were growing in whorls of five . . . 5. 5! 5 ! Five whorls. Five needles. May 8, 2020
Thursday, May 2, 2019
I am surprised by the tender yellowish green of the aspen leaf just expanded suddenly,
May 2.
Small pewee and young lackey caterpillars.
I see on the Salix rostrata by railroad many honey bees laden with large and peculiarly orange-colored pellets of its pollen.
P. M. — Up Assabet.
Those swarms of small miller-like insects which fly low over the surface of the river, sometimes constantly falling to and touching the surface and then rising again. When at rest they are seen to be blackish-winged, but flying they look light-colored. They flutter low and continuously over the same place. Theirs is a sort of dance.
A peetweet and its mate at Mantatuket Rock. The river seems really inhabited when the peetweet is back and those little light-winged millers (?). This bird does not return to our stream until the weather is decidedly pleasant and warm. He is perched on the accustomed rock. Its note peoples the river, like the prattle of children once more in the yard of a house that has stood empty.
I am surprised by the tender yellowish green of the aspen leaf just expanded suddenly, even like a fire, seen in the sun, against the dark-brown twigs of the wood, though these leafets are yet but thinly dispersed. It is very enlivening.
I heard yesterday, and perhaps for several days, the soft purring sound of what I take to be the Rana palustris, breeding, though I did not this time see the frog.
I feel no desire to go to California or Pike's Peak, but I often think at night with inexpressible satisfaction and yearning of the arrowheadiferous sands of Concord. I have often spent whole afternoons, especially in the spring, pacing back and forth over a sandy field, looking for these relics of a race. This is the gold which our sands yield.
The soil of that rocky spot on Simon Brown's land is quite ash-colored — now that the sod is turned up — by Indian fires, with numerous pieces of coal in it. There is a great deal of this ash-colored soil in the country. We do literally plow up the hearths of a people and plant in their ashes. The ashes of their fires color much of our soil.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 2, 1859
Small pewee. See April 30, 1856 (“I hear the small pewee’s tche-vet’ repeatedly.”); May 3, 1854 (“What I have called the small pewee on the willow by my boat, — quite small, uttering a short tchevet from time to time); May 3, 1855 “Small pewee; tchevet, with a jerk of the head.”); May 5, 1858 ("Saw and heard the small pewee yesterday.”); May 7, 1852 (“he first small pewee sings now che-vet, or rather chirrups chevet, tche-vet — a rather delicate bird with a large head and two white bars on wings. . . . Now I remember the yellowbird comes when the willows begin to leave out. (And the small pewee on the willows also.) ”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Small Pewee
I see on the Salix rostrata by railroad many honey bees laden with large and peculiarly orange-colored pellets of its pollen. See May 6, 1858 (“The Salix rostrata staminate flowers are of very peculiar yellow, — a bright, what you might call yellow yellow.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Willows on the Causeway
Swarms of small miller-like insects which fly low over the surface of the river. Compare May 1, 1854 ("The water is strewn with myriads of wrecked shad-flies, erect on the surface, with their wings up like so many schooners all headed one way. . . .”); May 1, 1858 (“Ephemerae quite common over the water.”); May 4, 1856 ("Shad-flies on the water, schooner-like.”)
The tender yellowish green of the aspen leaf just expanded suddenly. See May 2, 1855 ("The young aspens are the first of indigenous trees conspicuously leafed”); May 4, 1856 ("The aspen there [the Island]just begun to leaf."); May 5, 1858 ("The aspen leaves at Island to-day appear as big as a nine pence suddenly"); May 17, 1860 ("Standing in the meadow near the early aspen at the island, I hear the first fluttering of leaves, - a peculiar sound, at first unaccountable to me”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau the Aspens.
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| May 2, 2019 |
I see on the Salix rostrata by railroad many honey bees laden with large and peculiarly orange-colored pellets of its pollen.
P. M. — Up Assabet.
Those swarms of small miller-like insects which fly low over the surface of the river, sometimes constantly falling to and touching the surface and then rising again. When at rest they are seen to be blackish-winged, but flying they look light-colored. They flutter low and continuously over the same place. Theirs is a sort of dance.
A peetweet and its mate at Mantatuket Rock. The river seems really inhabited when the peetweet is back and those little light-winged millers (?). This bird does not return to our stream until the weather is decidedly pleasant and warm. He is perched on the accustomed rock. Its note peoples the river, like the prattle of children once more in the yard of a house that has stood empty.
I am surprised by the tender yellowish green of the aspen leaf just expanded suddenly, even like a fire, seen in the sun, against the dark-brown twigs of the wood, though these leafets are yet but thinly dispersed. It is very enlivening.
I heard yesterday, and perhaps for several days, the soft purring sound of what I take to be the Rana palustris, breeding, though I did not this time see the frog.
I feel no desire to go to California or Pike's Peak, but I often think at night with inexpressible satisfaction and yearning of the arrowheadiferous sands of Concord. I have often spent whole afternoons, especially in the spring, pacing back and forth over a sandy field, looking for these relics of a race. This is the gold which our sands yield.
The soil of that rocky spot on Simon Brown's land is quite ash-colored — now that the sod is turned up — by Indian fires, with numerous pieces of coal in it. There is a great deal of this ash-colored soil in the country. We do literally plow up the hearths of a people and plant in their ashes. The ashes of their fires color much of our soil.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 2, 1859
Small pewee. See April 30, 1856 (“I hear the small pewee’s tche-vet’ repeatedly.”); May 3, 1854 (“What I have called the small pewee on the willow by my boat, — quite small, uttering a short tchevet from time to time); May 3, 1855 “Small pewee; tchevet, with a jerk of the head.”); May 5, 1858 ("Saw and heard the small pewee yesterday.”); May 7, 1852 (“he first small pewee sings now che-vet, or rather chirrups chevet, tche-vet — a rather delicate bird with a large head and two white bars on wings. . . . Now I remember the yellowbird comes when the willows begin to leave out. (And the small pewee on the willows also.) ”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Small Pewee
I see on the Salix rostrata by railroad many honey bees laden with large and peculiarly orange-colored pellets of its pollen. See May 6, 1858 (“The Salix rostrata staminate flowers are of very peculiar yellow, — a bright, what you might call yellow yellow.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Willows on the Causeway
The tender yellowish green of the aspen leaf just expanded suddenly. See May 2, 1855 ("The young aspens are the first of indigenous trees conspicuously leafed”); May 4, 1856 ("The aspen there [the Island]just begun to leaf."); May 5, 1858 ("The aspen leaves at Island to-day appear as big as a nine pence suddenly"); May 17, 1860 ("Standing in the meadow near the early aspen at the island, I hear the first fluttering of leaves, - a peculiar sound, at first unaccountable to me”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau the Aspens.
A peetweet and its mate at Mantatuket Rock. See May 2, 1858 (“Peetweet on a rock”); April 30, 1856 (“As I go along the Assabet, a peetweet skims away from the shore.”); May 4, 1856 (“See a peetweet on Dove Rock, which just peeps out. As soon as the rocks begin to be bare the peetweet comes and is seen teetering on them and skimming away from me.”)
Saturday, May 5, 2018
Saw and heard the small pewee yesterday.
May 5.
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| May 5, 2018 |
The two Rana palustris which I caught May 1st have been coupled ever since in a firkin in my chamber. They were not coupled when I caught them. Last night I heard them hopping about, for the first time, as if trying to get out. Perhaps the female was trying to find a good place to deposit her spawn.
As soon as I get up I find that she has dropped her spawn, a globular mass, wrong or white side up, about two inches in diameter, which still adheres to her posterior, and the male still lies on her back. A few moments later they are separate.
The female moves about restlessly from time to time, the spawn still attached, but soon it is detached from her posterior, still adhering to her right leg, as if merely sticking to it. In the course of the forenoon it becomes quite detached.
At night they are coupled again. The spawn was not dropped at 10 P.M. the evening before, but apparently in the night. The female now looked long and lank.
This is the first spawn I have known to be dropped by the R. palustris. I should not know it by its appearance from that of the sylvatica and halecina.
The only frogs hereabouts whose spawn I do not know are the bullfrogs, R. fontinalis, and hylodes. The first have not begun to trump, and I conclude are not yet breeding; the last, I think, must be nearly done breeding, and probably do not put their spawn in the river proper; possibly, therefore, the oat spawn of yesterday may be that of the R. fontinalis.
Saw and heard the small pewee yesterday.
The aspen leaves at Island to-day appear as big as a nine pence suddenly.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 5, 1858
Saw and heard the small pewee yesterday. See May 3, 1854 ("What I have called the small pewee on the willow by my boat, — quite small, uttering a short tchevet from time to time.”); May 7, 1852 ("The first small pewee sings now che-vet, or rather chirrups chevet, tche-vet — a rather delicate bird with a large head and two white bars on wings.) Also note to May 3, 1855("Small pewee; tchevet, with a jerk of the head.”) ~ The “Small Pewee” is listed as Muscicapa acadia in Report on the Fishes, Reptiles and Birds of Massachusetts 295 (1839), also in Thompson, Natural History of Vermont, part I, 76 (1842). Probably what Thoreau calls the "small pewee” is what we now know as the Least Flycatcher (Empidonax minimus). It arrives in Massachusetts the last week in April and in Vermont the first week of May. See A Book of the Seasons, the "Small Pewee”
Sunday, May 7, 2017
A second fine day.
May 7.
A second fine day. Small pewee and, methinks, golden robin (?).
A second fine day. Small pewee and, methinks, golden robin (?).
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 7, 1857
Small pewee. See May 7, 1852 ("The first small pewee sings now che-vet, or rather chirrups chevet, tche-vet — a rather delicate bird with a large head and two white bars on wings.) Also note to May 3, 1855 ("Small pewee; tchevet, with a jerk of the head.”)
Golden robin (?). See May 14, 1856 ("Air full of golden robins. Their loud clear note betrays them as soon as they arrive.”); May 13, 1855 (“[H]eard the golden robin, now that the elms are beginning to leaf . . .The gold robin, just come, is heard in all parts of the village. I see both male and female.”)
Small pewee. See May 7, 1852 ("The first small pewee sings now che-vet, or rather chirrups chevet, tche-vet — a rather delicate bird with a large head and two white bars on wings.) Also note to May 3, 1855 ("Small pewee; tchevet, with a jerk of the head.”)
Golden robin (?). See May 14, 1856 ("Air full of golden robins. Their loud clear note betrays them as soon as they arrive.”); May 13, 1855 (“[H]eard the golden robin, now that the elms are beginning to leaf . . .The gold robin, just come, is heard in all parts of the village. I see both male and female.”)
Sunday, June 12, 2016
A small pewee nest on apple in Miles’s meadow.
June 12.
P. M. — To Conantum on foot.
Sophia has sent me, in a letter from Worcester, part of an orchis in bloom, apparently Platanthera Hookeri (?), or smaller round-leafed orchis, from the Hermitage Wood, so called, northeast of the town; but the two leaves are elliptical.
Utricularia vulgaris was abundantly out yesterday in Everett’s Pool; how long?
Sidesaddle flower numerously out now.
Apparently a small pewee nest on apple in Miles’s meadow. Bird on, and not to be frightened off, though I throw sticks and climb the tree to near her.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 12, 1856
Sidesaddle flower numerously out now: Sarracenia purpurea, also known as the purple pitcher plant or northern pitcher plant, the only pitcher plant native to New England. See 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."); June 12, 1853 ('The sidesaddle-flowers are partly turned up now and make a great show, with their broad red petals flapping like saddle ears (?)" See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Purple Pitcher Plant
Apparently a small pewee nest on apple. See June 9, 1855 ("The nest probably of the small pewee — looking from the ground like a yellowbird’s, showing reddish wool of ferns —against a white birch, on a small twig, eighteen feet from ground. Four little eggs, all pale cream-color before blowing, white after - fresh.”); June 21, 1855 (" On an apple at R.W.E.’s a small pewee’s nest, on a horizontal branch, seven feet high, almost wholly of hair, cotton without, not incurved at edge; four eggs, pale cream-color.”)
The “Small Pewee” is listed as Muscicapa acadia in Report on the Fishes, Reptiles and Birds of Massachusetts 295 (1839), also in Thompson, Natural History of Vermont, part I, 76 (1842). Probably what Thoreau calls the "small pewee” is what we now know as the Least Flycatcher (Empidonax minimus). It nests in open woods, aspen groves orchards and shade trees. Its sound, che bek, seems closer to Thoreau’s chevet, tche-vet. And it arrives in Massachusetts the last week in April and in Vermont the first week of May. See A Book of the Seasons,by Henry Thoreau, the "Small Pewee”
P. M. — To Conantum on foot.
Sophia has sent me, in a letter from Worcester, part of an orchis in bloom, apparently Platanthera Hookeri (?), or smaller round-leafed orchis, from the Hermitage Wood, so called, northeast of the town; but the two leaves are elliptical.
Utricularia vulgaris was abundantly out yesterday in Everett’s Pool; how long?
Sidesaddle flower numerously out now.
Apparently a small pewee nest on apple in Miles’s meadow. Bird on, and not to be frightened off, though I throw sticks and climb the tree to near her.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 12, 1856
Sidesaddle flower numerously out now: Sarracenia purpurea, also known as the purple pitcher plant or northern pitcher plant, the only pitcher plant native to New England. See 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."); June 12, 1853 ('The sidesaddle-flowers are partly turned up now and make a great show, with their broad red petals flapping like saddle ears (?)" See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Purple Pitcher Plant
Apparently a small pewee nest on apple. See June 9, 1855 ("The nest probably of the small pewee — looking from the ground like a yellowbird’s, showing reddish wool of ferns —against a white birch, on a small twig, eighteen feet from ground. Four little eggs, all pale cream-color before blowing, white after - fresh.”); June 21, 1855 (" On an apple at R.W.E.’s a small pewee’s nest, on a horizontal branch, seven feet high, almost wholly of hair, cotton without, not incurved at edge; four eggs, pale cream-color.”)
A small pewee nest
on apple in Mile's meadow –
bird on, not frightened.
Saturday, April 30, 2016
Hearing with the side of the ear.
April 30
Surveying the Tommy Wheeler farm. A fine morning.
I hear the first brown thrasher singing within three or four rods of me on the shrubby hill side in front of the Hadley place. I think I had a glimpse of one darting down from a sapling-top into the bushes as I rode by the same place on the morning of the 28th. This, I think, is the very place to hear them early, a dry hillside sloping to the south, covered with young wood and shrub oaks.
I am the more attracted to that house as a dwelling-place. To live where you would hear he first brown thrasher! First, perchance, you have a glimpse of one’s ferruginous long brown back, instantly lost amid the shrub oaks, and are uncertain if it was a thrasher, or one of the other thrushes; and your uncertainty lasts commonly a day or two, until its rich and varied strain is heard.
Surveying seemed a noble employment which brought me within hearing of this bird. I was trying to get the exact course of a wall thickly beset with shrub oaks and birches, making an opening through them with axe and knife, while the hillside seemed to quiver or pulsate with the sudden melody.
Again, it is with the side of the ear that you hear. The music or the beauty belong not to your work itself but some of its accompaniments. You would fain devote yourself to the melody, but you will hear more of it if you devote yourself to your work.
Cutting off the limbs of a young white pine in the way of my compass, I find that it strips freely. How long this? By the time I have run through to the Harvard road, I hear the small pewee’s tche-vet’ repeatedly.
The Italian with his hand-organ stops to stare at my compass, just as the boys are curious about his machine. We have exchanged places.
As I go along the Assabet, a peetweet skims away from the shore.
The canoe birch sap still flows. It is much like that of the white, and is now pink, white, and yellow on the bark.
Bluets out on the bank by Tarbell’s spring brook, maybe a day or two.
This was a very warm as well as pleasant day, but at one o’clock there was the usual fresh easterly wind and sea-turn, and before night it grew quite cold for the season. The regularity of the recurrence of this phenomenon is remarkable. I have noticed it, at least, on the 24th late in the day, the 28th and the 29th about 3 P. M., and to-day at 1 P. M. It has been the order.
Early in the afternoon, or between one and four, the wind changes (I suppose, though I did not notice its direction in the forenoon), and a fresh cool wind from the sea produces a mist in the air.
About 3.30 P. M., when it was quite cloudy as well as raw, and I was measuring along the river just south of the bridge, I was surprised by the great number of swallows—white-bellied and barn swallows and perhaps republican — flying round and round, or skimming very low over the meadow, just laid bare, only a foot above the ground.
Either from the shape of the hollow or their circling, they seemed to form a circular flock three or four rods in diameter and one swallow, deep. There were two or three of these centres and some birds equally low over the river. It looked like rain, but did not rain that day or the next. Probably their insect food was flying at that height over the meadow at that time.
There were a thousand or more of swallows, and I think that they had recently arrived together on their migration. Only this could account for there being so many together. We were measuring through one little circular meadow, and many of them were not driven off by our nearness. The noise of their wings and their twittering was quite loud.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 30, 1856
You have a glimpse of one’s ferruginous long brown back, instantly lost amid the shrub oaks, and are uncertain if it was a thrasher; and your uncertainty lasts commonly a day or two, until its rich and varied strain is heard. See May 3, 1852 ("Hear the first brown thrasher, — two of them. They drown all the rest. He says cherruwit, cherruwit ; go ahead, go ahead; give it to him, give it to him. "); May 4, 1859 ("We hear a thrasher sing for half an hour steadily, — a very rich singer and heard a quarter of a mile off very distinct . . . He sings as if conscious of his power."); May 12, 1855 (“The brown thrasher is a powerful singer; he is a quarter of a mile off across the river, when he sounded within fifteen rods.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Brown Thrasher
Again, it is with the side of the ear that you hear. . . . you will hear more of it if you devote yourself to your work. See November 18, 1851 ("The man who is bent upon his work is frequently in the best attitude to observe what is irrelevant to his work.”); November 20, 1851 ("Hard and steady and engrossing labor with the hands, especially out of doors, is invaluable to the literary man and serves him directly. Here I have been for six days surveying in the woods, and yet when I get home at evening, somewhat weary at last, and beginning to feel that I have nerves, I find myself more susceptible than usual to the finest influences, as music and poetry. The very air can intoxicate me, or the least sight or sound, as if my finer senses had acquired an appetite by their fast."); June 14, 1853 (“You see those rare sights with the unconscious side of the eye, which you could not see by a direct gaze before.”); April 12, 1854 ("I observe that it is when I have been intently, and it may be laboriously, at work, and am somewhat listless or abandoned after it, reposing, that the muse visits me, and I see or hear beauty."); December 11, 1855 ("Beauty and music are not mere traits and exceptions. They are the rule and character. It is the exception that we see and hear. “); April 28, 1856 ("I am reminded of the advantage to the poet, and philosopher, and naturalist, and whomsoever, of pursuing from time to time some other business than his chosen one, — seeing with the side of the eye. The poet will so get visions which no deliberate abandonment can secure. The philosopher is so forced to recognize principles which long study might not detect. And the naturalist even will stumble upon some new and unexpected flower or animal.”); May 12, 1857 (“Methinks I hear these sounds, have these reminiscences, only when well employed.”);April 15, 1859 (. If you yield for a moment to the impressions of sense, you hear some bird giving expression to its happiness in a pleasant strain. We are provided with singing birds and with ears to hear them ")
Early in the afternoon . . . the wind changes and a fresh cool wind from the sea produces a mist in the air. See April 28, 1856 ("On our return the wind changed to easterly, and I felt the cool, fresh sea-breeze."); April 29, 1856 ("About 3 P. M. I felt a fresh easterly wind, and saw quite a mist in the distance produced by it, a sea-turn,") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Sea-turn
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Hearing with the side of the Ear
I hear the first brown thrasher singing within three or four rods of me on the shrubby hill side in front of the Hadley place. I think I had a glimpse of one darting down from a sapling-top into the bushes as I rode by the same place on the morning of the 28th. This, I think, is the very place to hear them early, a dry hillside sloping to the south, covered with young wood and shrub oaks.
I am the more attracted to that house as a dwelling-place. To live where you would hear he first brown thrasher! First, perchance, you have a glimpse of one’s ferruginous long brown back, instantly lost amid the shrub oaks, and are uncertain if it was a thrasher, or one of the other thrushes; and your uncertainty lasts commonly a day or two, until its rich and varied strain is heard.
Surveying seemed a noble employment which brought me within hearing of this bird. I was trying to get the exact course of a wall thickly beset with shrub oaks and birches, making an opening through them with axe and knife, while the hillside seemed to quiver or pulsate with the sudden melody.
Again, it is with the side of the ear that you hear. The music or the beauty belong not to your work itself but some of its accompaniments. You would fain devote yourself to the melody, but you will hear more of it if you devote yourself to your work.
June 30, 2017
Cutting off the limbs of a young white pine in the way of my compass, I find that it strips freely. How long this? By the time I have run through to the Harvard road, I hear the small pewee’s tche-vet’ repeatedly.
The Italian with his hand-organ stops to stare at my compass, just as the boys are curious about his machine. We have exchanged places.
As I go along the Assabet, a peetweet skims away from the shore.
The canoe birch sap still flows. It is much like that of the white, and is now pink, white, and yellow on the bark.
Bluets out on the bank by Tarbell’s spring brook, maybe a day or two.
This was a very warm as well as pleasant day, but at one o’clock there was the usual fresh easterly wind and sea-turn, and before night it grew quite cold for the season. The regularity of the recurrence of this phenomenon is remarkable. I have noticed it, at least, on the 24th late in the day, the 28th and the 29th about 3 P. M., and to-day at 1 P. M. It has been the order.
Early in the afternoon, or between one and four, the wind changes (I suppose, though I did not notice its direction in the forenoon), and a fresh cool wind from the sea produces a mist in the air.
About 3.30 P. M., when it was quite cloudy as well as raw, and I was measuring along the river just south of the bridge, I was surprised by the great number of swallows—white-bellied and barn swallows and perhaps republican — flying round and round, or skimming very low over the meadow, just laid bare, only a foot above the ground.
Either from the shape of the hollow or their circling, they seemed to form a circular flock three or four rods in diameter and one swallow, deep. There were two or three of these centres and some birds equally low over the river. It looked like rain, but did not rain that day or the next. Probably their insect food was flying at that height over the meadow at that time.
There were a thousand or more of swallows, and I think that they had recently arrived together on their migration. Only this could account for there being so many together. We were measuring through one little circular meadow, and many of them were not driven off by our nearness. The noise of their wings and their twittering was quite loud.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 30, 1856
You have a glimpse of one’s ferruginous long brown back, instantly lost amid the shrub oaks, and are uncertain if it was a thrasher; and your uncertainty lasts commonly a day or two, until its rich and varied strain is heard. See May 3, 1852 ("Hear the first brown thrasher, — two of them. They drown all the rest. He says cherruwit, cherruwit ; go ahead, go ahead; give it to him, give it to him. "); May 4, 1859 ("We hear a thrasher sing for half an hour steadily, — a very rich singer and heard a quarter of a mile off very distinct . . . He sings as if conscious of his power."); May 12, 1855 (“The brown thrasher is a powerful singer; he is a quarter of a mile off across the river, when he sounded within fifteen rods.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Brown Thrasher
Again, it is with the side of the ear that you hear. . . . you will hear more of it if you devote yourself to your work. See November 18, 1851 ("The man who is bent upon his work is frequently in the best attitude to observe what is irrelevant to his work.”); November 20, 1851 ("Hard and steady and engrossing labor with the hands, especially out of doors, is invaluable to the literary man and serves him directly. Here I have been for six days surveying in the woods, and yet when I get home at evening, somewhat weary at last, and beginning to feel that I have nerves, I find myself more susceptible than usual to the finest influences, as music and poetry. The very air can intoxicate me, or the least sight or sound, as if my finer senses had acquired an appetite by their fast."); June 14, 1853 (“You see those rare sights with the unconscious side of the eye, which you could not see by a direct gaze before.”); April 12, 1854 ("I observe that it is when I have been intently, and it may be laboriously, at work, and am somewhat listless or abandoned after it, reposing, that the muse visits me, and I see or hear beauty."); December 11, 1855 ("Beauty and music are not mere traits and exceptions. They are the rule and character. It is the exception that we see and hear. “); April 28, 1856 ("I am reminded of the advantage to the poet, and philosopher, and naturalist, and whomsoever, of pursuing from time to time some other business than his chosen one, — seeing with the side of the eye. The poet will so get visions which no deliberate abandonment can secure. The philosopher is so forced to recognize principles which long study might not detect. And the naturalist even will stumble upon some new and unexpected flower or animal.”); May 12, 1857 (“Methinks I hear these sounds, have these reminiscences, only when well employed.”);April 15, 1859 (. If you yield for a moment to the impressions of sense, you hear some bird giving expression to its happiness in a pleasant strain. We are provided with singing birds and with ears to hear them ")
I hear the small pewee’s tche-vet’ repeatedly. See . May 3, 1854 ("What I have called the small pewee on the willow by my boat, — quite small, uttering a short tchevet from time to time.”); May 3, 1855 ("Small pewee; tchevet, with a jerk of the head.”); May 7, 1852 ("The first small pewee sings now che-vet, or rather chirrups chevet, tche-vet — a rather delicate bird with a large head and two white bars on wings.) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, ,the “Small Pewee" [Empidonax minimus]
As I go along the Assabet, a peetweet skims away from the shore. See May 2, 1859 ("The river seems really inhabited when the peetweet is back . . . This bird does not return to our stream until the weather is decidedly pleasant and warm. . . .Its note peoples the river, like the prattle of children once more in the yard of a house that has stood empty."); May 4, 1856 (“As soon as the rocks begin to be bare the peetweet comes and is seen teetering on them and skimming away from me.”) [Thoreau's Peetweet is the Spotted Sandpiper (Actitis macularia)]
Bluets out on the bank by Tarbell’s spring brook, maybe a day or two. See April 24, 1857 ("Bluets numerous and fully out at the Smith hillside"); April 25, 1859 ("Bluets and potentilla are first noticed by me"); May 7, 1860 ("I saw bluets whitening the fields yesterday a quarter of a mile off. "); May 14, 1852 ("The grass is now whitened with bluets; the fields are green.")
Early in the afternoon . . . the wind changes and a fresh cool wind from the sea produces a mist in the air. See April 28, 1856 ("On our return the wind changed to easterly, and I felt the cool, fresh sea-breeze."); April 29, 1856 ("About 3 P. M. I felt a fresh easterly wind, and saw quite a mist in the distance produced by it, a sea-turn,") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Sea-turn
The great number of swallows . . . flying round and round. See April 30, 1855 ("Circling about and flying . . . about six inches above the water, — it was cloudy and almost raining”); April 29, 1854 (" The barn swallows are very numerous, flying low over the water in the rain.”) and note to April 29, 1856 ("Barn swallows and chimney, with white-bellied swallows, are flying together over the river."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The White-bellied Swallow
April 30. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April 30
Sudden melody –
absorbed in my work I hear
my first brown thrasher.
Early afternoon
a fresh cool wind from the sea –
a mist in the air.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Hearing with the side of the Ear
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-560430
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Peetweets make quite a noise calling to their young with alarm.
Saw a white lily in Everett’s Pond.
Sparrow’s nest, four eggs, deep in the moist bank beyond cherry-bird’s nest (have three), of peculiar color. She deserted the nest after one was taken. Outside of stubble, scantily lined with fibrous roots.
Clams abundant within three feet of shore, and bream-nests.
The early grass is ripe or browned, and clover is drying.
Peetweets make quite a noise calling to their young with alarm.
On an apple at R.W.E.’s a small pewee’s nest, on a horizontal branch, seven feet high, almost wholly of hair, cotton without, not incurved at edge; four eggs, pale cream-color.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 21, 1855
Peetweets ... calling to their young... See July 2, 1860 ("Nowadays hear from my window the constant tittering of young golden robins, and by the river fields the alarm note of the peetweets, concerned about their young"); July 2, 1853 ("The peetweets are quite noisy about the rocks in Merrick's pasture when I approach; have eggs or young there, which they are anxious about").
Friday, June 19, 2015
A wood pewee's nest at the Leaning Hemlocks.
 |
| June 19. |
June 19
P. M. — Up Assabet.
 |
| June 19, 2015 |
Young song sparrows flutter about.
A yellowbird’s nest saddled on a horizontal (or slanting down amid twigs) branch of a swamp white oak, within reach, six feet high, of fern down and lint; a sharp cone bottom; four eggs, just laid, pale flesh-color with brown spots; have one.
There are a great many glaucous and also hoary and yellowish-green puffs on the Andromeda particulata now, some four inches in diameter.
Wood tortoises united, with heads out of water.
Did I enumerate the sharp-shinned hawk among ours?
Mr. Bull found in his garden this morning a snapping turtle about twenty rods from the brook, which had there just made a round hole (apparently with head) 2 1/2 inches in diameter and 5+ deep, in a slanting direction. I brought her home and put her into a pen in the garden that she might lay (she weighed seven pounds five ounces), but she climbed over an upright fence of smooth stakes twenty-two inches high.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 19, 1855
A pewee’s nest (bird apparently small pewee, nest apparently wood pewee’s) on a white maple . . . See June 12, 1856 ("Apparently a small pewee nest on apple in Miles’s meadow. Bird on, and not to be frightened off. . ."); June 21, 1855 (" On an apple at R.W.E.’s a small pewee’s nest, on a horizontal branch, seven feet high, almost wholly of hair, cotton without, not incurved at edge; four eggs, pale cream-color.”) See also A Book of the Seasons: The Small Pewee
A yellowbird’s nest saddled on a . . .branch of a swamp white oak, within reach, six feet high, of fern down and lint; . . . four eggs, just laid, pale flesh-color with brown spots . . . See June 20, 1855 ("A summer yellowbird’s, saddled on an apple, of cotton-wool, lined with hair and feathers, three eggs, white with flesh-colored tinge and purplish-brown and black spots."). See also A Book of the Seasons: the Summer Yellowbird
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Found to-day, of nests, one song sparrow, one small pewee, one yellowbird, one chip-bird, three catbirds, one chewink, one robin..
June 9.
P. M. — To Wheeler’s azalea swamp, across meadow.
Early primrose done, say-two days. An orchis, probably yellowish, will be common in Wheeler’s meadow.
Sidesaddle, apparently a day or two; petals hang down.
A song sparrow’s nest low in Wheeler’s meadow, with five eggs, made of grass lined with hair.
Rhus Toxicodendron on Island Rock.
The nest probably of the small pewee — looking from the ground like a yellowbird’s, showing reddish wool of ferns —against a white birch, on a small twig, eighteen feet from ground. Four little eggs, all pale cream-color before blowing, white after - fresh.
A yellowbird’s nest eight feet from ground in crotch of a very slender maple.
A chip-bird’s in a white thorn on the Hill; one egg.
A catbird’s nest, three eggs, in a high blueberry, four feet from ground, with rather more dry leaves than usual, above Assabet Spring.
Lambkill out.
Catbird’s nest, one egg, on a blueberry bush, three feet from ground, of (as usual) sticks, leaves, bark, roots. Another near same (also in V. Muhlenbergii Swamp) on a bent white birch and andromeda, eighteen inches from ground; three eggs; stubble of weeds mainly instead of twigs, otherwise as usual.
A chewink’s nest sunk in ground under a bank covered with ferns, dead and green, and huckleberry bushes; composed of dry leaves, then grass stubble, and lined with a very few slender, reddish moss stems; four eggs, rather fresh; merely enough moss stems to indicate its choice.
Fever-root, perhaps several days.
See very few hawks for several weeks.
Found to-day, of nests, one song sparrow, one small pewee, one yellowbird, one chip-bird, three catbirds, one chewink, one robin (the last on a black willow, two feet from ground, one egg).
I think I have hardly heard a bobolink for a week or ten days.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 9, 1855
Sidesaddle, apparently a day or two; petals hang down. Sarracenia purpurea, also known as the purple pitcherplant or northern pitcher plant, the only pitcherplant native to New England. See note to June 12, 1856 ("Sidesaddle flower numerously out now.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Purple Pitcher Plant
A yellowbird’s nest eight feet from ground in crotch of a very slender maple. See June 9, 1856 ("A yellowbird’s nest in a poplar on Hubbard’s Bridge; four fresh eggs; ten feet high"); see also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Summer Yellowbird
I think I have hardly heard a bobolink for a week or ten days. See June 15, 1852 ("The note of the bobolink begins to sound somewhat rare"); June 19, 1853 ("The strain of the bobolink now begins to sound a little rare. It never again fills the air as the first week after its arrival"); June 22, 1852 ("The bobolink loses his song as he loses his colors.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bobolink
P. M. — To Wheeler’s azalea swamp, across meadow.
Early primrose done, say-two days. An orchis, probably yellowish, will be common in Wheeler’s meadow.
Sidesaddle, apparently a day or two; petals hang down.
A song sparrow’s nest low in Wheeler’s meadow, with five eggs, made of grass lined with hair.
Rhus Toxicodendron on Island Rock.
The nest probably of the small pewee — looking from the ground like a yellowbird’s, showing reddish wool of ferns —against a white birch, on a small twig, eighteen feet from ground. Four little eggs, all pale cream-color before blowing, white after - fresh.
A yellowbird’s nest eight feet from ground in crotch of a very slender maple.
A chip-bird’s in a white thorn on the Hill; one egg.
A catbird’s nest, three eggs, in a high blueberry, four feet from ground, with rather more dry leaves than usual, above Assabet Spring.
Lambkill out.
Catbird’s nest, one egg, on a blueberry bush, three feet from ground, of (as usual) sticks, leaves, bark, roots. Another near same (also in V. Muhlenbergii Swamp) on a bent white birch and andromeda, eighteen inches from ground; three eggs; stubble of weeds mainly instead of twigs, otherwise as usual.
A chewink’s nest sunk in ground under a bank covered with ferns, dead and green, and huckleberry bushes; composed of dry leaves, then grass stubble, and lined with a very few slender, reddish moss stems; four eggs, rather fresh; merely enough moss stems to indicate its choice.
Fever-root, perhaps several days.
See very few hawks for several weeks.
Found to-day, of nests, one song sparrow, one small pewee, one yellowbird, one chip-bird, three catbirds, one chewink, one robin (the last on a black willow, two feet from ground, one egg).
I think I have hardly heard a bobolink for a week or ten days.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 9, 1855
Sidesaddle, apparently a day or two; petals hang down. Sarracenia purpurea, also known as the purple pitcherplant or northern pitcher plant, the only pitcherplant native to New England. See note to June 12, 1856 ("Sidesaddle flower numerously out now.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Purple Pitcher Plant
A yellowbird’s nest eight feet from ground in crotch of a very slender maple. See June 9, 1856 ("A yellowbird’s nest in a poplar on Hubbard’s Bridge; four fresh eggs; ten feet high"); see also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Summer Yellowbird
Lambkill out. See June 13, 1852 ("Lambkill is out. I remember with what delight I used to discover this flower in dewy mornings.All things in this world must be seen with the morning dew on them, must be seen with youthful, early-opened, hopeful eyes.");June 13, 1854 ("How beautiful the solid cylinders of the lamb-kill now just before sunset, — small ten-sided, rosy-crimson basins, about two inches above the recurved, drooping dry capsules of last year, — and sometimes those of the year before are two inches lower."); June 25, 1852 ("Sometimes the lambkill flowers form a very even rounded, close cylinder, six inches long and two and a half in diameter, of rich red saucer-like flowers, the counterpart of the latifolia in flowers and flower- buds, but higher colored. I regard it as a beautiful flower neglected. It has a slight but not remarkable scent") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Lambkill (Kalmia augustifolia)
I think I have hardly heard a bobolink for a week or ten days. See June 15, 1852 ("The note of the bobolink begins to sound somewhat rare"); June 19, 1853 ("The strain of the bobolink now begins to sound a little rare. It never again fills the air as the first week after its arrival"); June 22, 1852 ("The bobolink loses his song as he loses his colors.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bobolink
June 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 9
A yellowbird’s nest
eight feet from ground in crotch of
a slender maple.
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
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