We go listening for early birds with bread and cheese for our dinners.

March 20.  

A rather cool and breezy morning, which was followed by milder day.

March 20, 2022

We go listening

for early birds with bread and

cheese for our dinners.

(Yesterday I forgot to say I painted my boat. Spanish brown and raw oil were the ingredients. I found the painter had sold me the brown in hard lumps as big as peas, which I could not reduce with a stick; so I passed the whole when mixed through an old coffee-mill, which made a very good paint-mill, catching it in an old coffee- pot , whose holes I puttied up, there being a lack of vessels ; and then I broke up the coffee-mill and nailed a part over the bows to protect them , the boat is made so flat. I had first filled the seams with some grafting- wax I had, melted.) 

How handsome the curves which the edge of the ice makes, answering somewhat to those of the shore, but more regular, sweeping entirely round the pond  as if defined by a vast, bold sweep! 

It is evident that the English do not enjoy that contrast between winter and summer that we do, that there is too much greenness and spring in the winter.  There is no such wonderful resurrection of the year. Birds kindred with our first spring ones remain with them all winter, and flowers answering to our earliest spring ones put forth there in January. In one sense they have no winter but such as our spring. Our April is their March; our March, their February; our February, January, and December are not theirs at all under any name or sign. 

Those alder catkins on the west side of Walden tremble and undulate in the wind, they are so relaxed and ready to bloom, the most forward blossom-buds. 

Here and there around the pond, within a rod of the water, is the fisherman's stone fireplace, with its charred brands, where he cheered and warmed himself and ate his lunch. 

The peculiarity of to-day is that now first you perceive that dry, warm, summer-presaging scent from dry oak and other leaves, on the sides of hills and ledges. You smell the summer from afar. The warm [ sic ] makes a man young again. There is also some dryness, almost dustiness, in the roads. 

The mountains are white with snow, and sure as the wind is northwest it is wintry; but now it is more westerly. The edges of the mountains now melt into the sky. It is affecting to be put into communication with such distant objects by the power of vision, -actually to look into rich lands of promise. 

In this spring breeze, how full of life the silvery pines, probably the under sides of their leaves. 

Goose Pond is wholly open. 

Unexpectedly dry and crispy the grass is getting in warm places.

 At Flint's Pond, gathered a handful or two of chestnuts on a sloping bank under the leaves, every one sound and sweet, but mostly sprouting. There were none black as at C. Smith's, proving that in such places as this, somewhat warm and dry, they are all preserved the winter through. Now, then, new groves of chestnuts (and of oaks?) are being born. 

Under these wet leaves I find myriads of the snow-fleas, like powder. 

Some brooks are full of little wiggling creatures somewhat like caddis-worms, stemming the stream, — food for the early fishes. 

The canoe birch sprouts are red or salmon- colored like those of the common, but soon they cast off their salmon - colored jackets and come forth with a white but naked look, all dangling with ragged reddish curls. 

What is that little bird that makes so much use of these curls in its nest, lined with coarse grass? 

The snow still covers the ground on the north side of hills, which are hard and slippery with frost. 

I am surprised to find Flint's Pond not more than half broken up. Probably it was detained by the late short but severe cold, while Walden, being deeper, was not. Standing on the icy side, the pond appears nearly all frozen; the breadth of open water is far removed and diminished to a streak; I say it is beginning to break up. Standing on the water side (which in Flint's is the middle portion ), it appears to be but bordered with ice, and I say there is ice still left in the pond.

Saw a bluish-winged beetle or two. 

In a stubble-field east of Mt. Tabor, started up a pack ( though for numbers, about twenty, it may have been a bevy ) of quail, which went off to some young pitch pines, with a whir like a shot, the plump  round birds. 

The redpolls are still numerous.

On the warm, dry cliff, looking south over Beaver Pond, I was surprised to see a large butterfly, black with buff-edged wings, so tender a creature to be out so early, and, when alighted, opening and shutting its wings. What does it do these frosty nights? Its chrysalis must have hung in some sunny nook of the rocks. Born to be food for some early bird.

Cutting a maple for a bridge over Lily Brook, I was rejoiced to see the sap falling in large, clear drops from the wound. 

H. D Thoreau, Journal, March 20, 1853

March 20, 1853 How handsome the curves which the edge of the ice makes, See Walden is melting apace

I painted my boat . . . I had first filled the seams with some grafting- wax. See March 16, 1854 ("See and hear honey-bees about my boat in the yard, attracted probably by the beeswax in the grafting-wax which was put on it a year ago.) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Boat in. Boat out.

Those alder catkins on the west side of Walden tremble and undulate in the wind, they are so relaxed and ready to bloom, the most forward blossom-buds. See  March 22, 1853 ("The very earliest alder is in bloom and sheds its pollen. I detect a few catkins at a distance by their distinct yellowish color. This the first native flower."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring:: Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding

The edges of the mountains now melt into the sky. It is affecting to be put into communication with such distant objects by the power of vision. See February 21, 1855 ("We now notice the snow on the mountains, because on the remote rim of the horizon its whiteness contrasts with the russet and darker hues of our bare fields"); March 11, 1854 ("The distant mountains are all white with snow while our landscape is nearly bare."); 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.");  October 22, 1857 ("But what a perfect crescent of mountains we have in our northwest horizon! Do we ever give thanks for it?")See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Mountains in the Horizon

Now first you perceive that dry, warm, summer-presaging scent from dry oak and other leaves, on the sides of hills and ledges. You smell the summer from afar. See February 18, 1857 (“I was surprised to find how sweet the whole ground smelled when I lay flat and applied my nose to it”); March 4, 1854 ("I begin to sniff the air and smell the ground."); March 18,1853 ("To-day first I smelled the earth.”) April 2, 1856 ("I am tempted to stretch myself on the bare ground above the Cliff, to feel its warmth in my back, and smell the earth and the dry leaves . I see and hear flies and bees about. A large buff-edged butterfly flutters by along the edge of the Cliff, — Vanessa antiopa.”); April 27, 1860 ("There is a certain summeriness in the air now, especially under a warm cliff like this, where you smell the very dry leaves, and hear the pine warbler and the hum of insects")

In this spring breeze, how full of life the silvery pines, probably the under sides of their leaves. See February 10, 1860 ("I see that Wheildon's pines are rocking and showing their silvery under sides as last spring, — their first awakening, as it were. "); March 21, 1859 (“That fine silvery light reflected from its needles (perhaps their undersides) incessantly in motion.”); April 29, 1852 ("The pines have an appearance they have not worn before, yet not easy to describe"); May 1, 1855 ("Why have the white pines at a distance that silvery look around their edges or thin parts? Is it owing to the wind showing the under sides of the needles? Methinks you do not see it in the winter.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: First silvery sheen from needles of the white pine waving in the wind

Goose Pond is wholly open. Compare March 21, 1855("Crossed Goose Pond on ice."); March 24, 1854 ("Goose Pond half open. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Ice-Out

Under these wet leaves I find myriads of the snow-fleas, like powder. See January 30, 1860 ("The snow-flea seems to be a creature whose summer and prime of life is a thaw in the winter. It seems not merely to enjoy this interval like other animals, but then chiefly to exist. It is the creature of the thaw."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Snow-flea

The canoe birch sprouts are red or salmon-colored . . . but soon they . . . come forth with a white but naked look, all dangling with ragged reddish curls. See April 7, 1856 ("The tops of young white birches now have a red-pink color."); January 9, 1860 ("I am interested by a clump of young canoe birches on the hillside shore of the pond. There is an interesting variety in the colors of their bark, passing from bronze at the earth, through ruddy and copper colors to white higher up, with shreds of different color from that beneath peeling off. . . .It is as if the tree unbuttoned a thin waistcoat and suffered it to blow aside, revealing its bosom or inner garment, which is a more ruddy brown, or sometimes greenish or coppery; and thus one cuticle peels off after another till it is a ruddy white, as if you saw to a red ground through a white wash; . . .It may be, then, half a dozen years old before it assumes the white toga which is its distinctive dress. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Birches in Season

The redpolls are still numerous. See March 23, 1853 ("The birds which are merely migrating or tarrying here for a season are especially gregarious now, — the redpoll, Fringilla hyemalis, fox-colored sparrow, etc.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Lesser Redpoll

A large butterfly, black with buff-edged wings, so tender a creature to be out so early. See  March 21, 1853 ("Saw two more of those large black and buff butterflies. The same degree of heat brings them out everywhere.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Buff-edged Butterfly

Rejoiced to see the sap. See  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Red Maple Sap Flows

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, We go listening for early birds

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/hdt-530329

A low, narrow, clear segment of sky in the west – coppery yellow.

January 6

A low, narrow, clear

segment of sky in the west -

coppery yellow.

January 6, 1854

Walked Tappan in P. M. down railroad to Heywood Brook, Fair Haven, and Cliffs.

At every post along the brook-side, and under almost every white pine, the snow strewn with the scales and seeds of white pine cones left by the squirrels. They have sat on every post and dropped them for a great distance, also acorn-shells.

The surface of the snow was sometimes strewn with the small alder scales, i. e. of catkins; also, here and there, the large glaucous lichens (cetrarias?).

Showed Tappan a small shad bush, which interested him and reminded him of a greyhound, rising so slender and graceful with its narrow buds above the snow.

To return to the squirrels, I saw where they had laid up a pitch pine cone in the fork of a rider in several places.

Many marks of partridges, and disturbed them on evergreens.

A winter (?) gnat out on the bark of a pine.

On Fair Haven we slumped nearly a foot to the old ice.

The partridges were budding on the Fair Haven orchard, and flew for refuge to the wood, twenty minutes or more after sundown.

There was a low, narrow, clear segment of sky in the west at sunset, or just after (all the rest overcast), of the coppery yellow, perhaps, of some of Gilpin's pictures, all spotted coarsely with clouds like a leopard's skin.

I took up snow in the tracks at dark, but could find no fleas in it then, though they were exceedingly abundant before. Do they go into the snow at night? 

Frequently see a spider apparently stiff and dead on snow.

H. D. Thoreau Journal, January 6, 1854

A small shad bush. . . rising so slender and graceful with its narrow buds above the snow. See November 4, 1854 ("The shad-bush buds have expanded into small leaflets); December 1, 1852 ("At this season I observe the form of the buds which are prepared for spring, "); 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.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Shad-bush, Juneberry, or Service-berry

The scales and seeds of white pine cones left by the squirrels. See January 13, 1860 ("The scales of the white pine cones are scattered about here and there. They seek a dry place to open them, — a fallen limb that rises above the snow, or often a lower dead stub projecting from the trunk of the tree.");  January 22,  1856 ("he snow under one young pine is covered quite thick with the scales they have dropped while feeding overhead.").See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Plucking and Stripping a Pine Cone.

The surface of the snow was sometimes strewn with the small alder scales. See December 30, 1855 ("For a few days I have noticed the snow sprinkled with alder and birch scales."); January 5, 1851 ("The catkins of the alders are now frozen stiff !!") January 20, 1860 (" The snow along the sides of the river is also all dusted over with birch and alder seed, and I see where little birds have picked up the alder seed") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Alders

Winter gnats? See February 2, 1854 ("The winter gnat is seen in the warm air.");  March 19, 1858  ("Are not these the winter gnat? They keep up a circulation in the air like water-bugs on the water.");  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Fuzzy Gnats (tipulidæ)

On Fair Haven we slumped nearly a foot to the old ice. See January 6, 1855 ("The skating is for the most part spoiled by a thin, crispy ice on top of the old ice, which is frozen in great crystals and crackles under your feet.")

The partridges were budding on the Fair Haven orchard, and flew for refuge to the wood, twenty minutes or more after sundown. See February 18, 1852 ("I find the partridges among the fallen pine-tops on Fair Haven these afternoons, an hour before sundown, ready to commence budding in the neighboring orchard")

There was a low, narrow, clear segment of sky in the west at sunset.  See January 2, 1854 ("The tints of the sunset sky are never purer and ethereal than in the coldest winter days. "); January 5, 1852 ("I thought I saw an extensive fire in the western horizon . It was a bright coppery-yellow fair-weather cloud along the edge of the horizon  gold with some alloy of copper"); January 7, 1852 ("I go forth each afternoon and look into the west a quarter of an hour before sunset , with fresh curiosity , to see what new picture will be painted there") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Sunsets

Gilpin. William Gilpin, English writer, printmaker, clergyman and schoolmaster, best known as one of the originators of the idea of the picturesque. See January 8, 1854 ("Gilpin, in his essay on the "Art of Sketching Landscape," says: "When you have finished your sketch therefore with Indian ink, as far as you propose, tinge the whole over with some light horizon hue. It may be the rosy tint of morning; or the more ruddy one of evening; or it may incline more to a yellowish, or a greyish cast. . . . By washing this tint over your whole drawing, you lay a foundation for harmony." I have often been attracted by this harmonious tint in his and other drawings, and sometimes, especially, have observed it in nature when at sunset I inverted my head.")

I took up snow in the tracks at dark, but could find no fleas in it then, though they were exceedingly abundant before.  See January 5, 1854 ("The snow is covered with snow-fleas . . . sprinkled like pepper for half a mile in the tracks of a woodchopper in deep snow."); January 9, 1854 ("Find many snow-fleas, apparently frozen, on the snow. "); January 10, 1854 ("I cannot thaw out to life the snow-fleas which yesterday covered the snow like pepper, in a frozen state.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Snow Flea

Frequently see a spider apparently stiff and dead on snow. See December 18, 1855 ("See to-day a dark-colored spider of the very largest kind on ice."); December 23, 1859 ("A little black, or else a brown, spider (sometimes quite a large one) motionless on the snow or ice. . . .The spiders lie torpid and plain to see on the snow.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Spiders on Ice

January 6.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January 6.

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/hdt540106

A Book of the Seasons: THE SNOW-FLEA

I would make a chart of our life, 

know why just this circle of creatures 
completes the world.

Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

When I breathe on them

I find them all alive

and ready to skip.

This must be as peculiarly 

a winter animal as any. 

It may truly be said

 to live in snow.

It is the creature of the thaw. 

Moist snow is its element.

October 27.  Long-continued rain and wind come to settle the accounts of the year  . . . The snow-flea (as to-day) is washed out of the bark of meadow trees and covers the surface of the flood. October 27, 1857

October 28. I think it was the 18th that I first noticed snow-fleas on the surface of the river amid the weed at its edge.  October 18, 1855

November 11. Snow-fleas are skipping on the surface of the water at the edge, and spiders running about. These become prominent now. November 11, 1858

November 25. For some days since colder weather, I notice the snow-fleas skipping on the surface the shore. I see them today skipping by thousands in the wet clamshells left by the muskrats. These are rather a cool-weather phenomenon. (Probably washed out by rise of river)  November 25, 1859 

December 7. Saw a pile of snow-fleas in a rut in the wood-path, six or seven inches long and three quarters of an inch high, to the eye exactly like powder, as if a sportsman had spilled it from his flask; and when a stick was passed through the living and skipping mass, each side of the furrow preserved its edge as in powder. December 7, 1852

December 10.  Weather warmer; snow softened . . . Snow-fleas in paths; first I have seen.  December 10, 1854 

December 16. The snow everywhere is covered with snow-fleas like pepper. When you hold a mass in your hand, they skip and are gone before you know it. They are so small that they go through and through the new snow. They look like some powder which the hunter has spilled in the path.  December 16, 1850

January 5. Still thaws. This afternoon (as probably yesterday), it being warm and thawing, though fair, the snow is covered with snow-fleas. Especially they are sprinkled like pepper for half a mile in the tracks of a woodchopper in deep snow. These are the first since the snow came. January 5, 1854 

January 6.  I took up snow in the tracks at dark, but could find no fleas in it then, though they were exceedingly abundant before. Do they go into the snow at night? January 6, 1854

January 7. I saw what looked like clay-colored snow-fleas on the under side of a stone. January 7, 1855

January 7. A thaw begins, with a southerly wind. . . As soon as I reach the neighborhood of the woods I begin to see the snow-fleas, more than a dozen rods from woods, amid a little goldenrod, etc., where, methinks, they must have come up through the snow. Last night there was not one to be seen. January 7, 1860 

January 9. Find many snow-fleas, apparently frozen, on the snow.  January 9, 1854

January 10. I cannot thaw out to life the snow-fleas which yesterday covered the snow like pepper, in a frozen state. How much food they must afford to small birds, chickadees, etc. January 10, 1854

January 14. It is warm, and the snow-fleas are about. January 14, 1853

January 15. For the first time this winter I notice snow-fleas this afternoon in Walden Wood. Wherever I go they are to be seen, especially in the deepest ruts and foot-tracks. Their number is almost infinite. It is a rather warm and moist afternoon, and feels like rain. I suppose that some peculiarity in the weather has called them forth from the bark of the trees. January 15, 1852

January 22. Harris told me on the 19th that he had never found the snow-flea.  January 22, 1854

January 22.  There were also many small brown grasshoppers (not to mention spiders of various sizes and snow-fleas) on the ice. January 22, 1859

January 22.The snow-fleas are thickest along the edge of the wood here, but I find that they extend quite across the river, though there are comparatively few over the middle. There are generally fewer and fewer the further you are from the shore. Nay, I find that they extend quite across Fair Haven Pond. There are two or three inches of snow on the ice, and thus they are revealed. There are a dozen or twenty to a square rod on the very middle of the pond. When I approach one, it commonly hops away, and if it gets a good spring it hops a foot or more, so that it is at first lost to me. Though they are scarcely the twentieth of an inch long they make these surprising bounds, or else conceal themselves by entering the snow. We have now had many days of this thawing weather, and I believe that these fleas have been gradually hopping further and further out from the shore. To-day, perchance, it is water, a day or two later ice, and no fleas are seen on it. Then snow comes and covers the ice, and if there is no thaw for a month, you see no fleas for so long. But, at least soon after a thaw, they are to be seen on the centre of ponds at least half a mile across. Though this is my opinion, it is by no means certain that they come here thus, for I am prepared to believe that the water in the middle may have had as many floating on it, and that these were afterward on the surface of the ice, though unseen, and hence under the snow when it fell, and ready to come up through it when the thaw came. But what do they find to eat in apparently pure snow so far from any land? Has their food come down from the sky with the snow? They must themselves be food for many creatures. This must be as peculiarly a winter animal as any. It may truly be said to live in snow.  January 22, 1860

January 23.  There is a cold northwest wind, and I notice that the snow-fleas which were so abundant on this water yesterday have hopped to some lee, i. e., are collected like powder under the southeast side of posts or trees or sticks or ridges in the ice. You are surprised to see that they manage to get out of the wind. On the southeast side of every such barrier along the shore there is a dark line or heap of them. January 23, 1859

January 26. To-day I see a few snow-fleas on the Walden road and a slight blueness in the chinks, it being cloudy and melting. January 26, 1852

January 30.  The snow-flea seems to be a creature whose summer and prime of life is a thaw in the winter. It seems not merely to enjoy this interval like other animals, but then chiefly to exist. It is the creature of the thaw. Moist snow is its element. That thaw which merely excites the cock to sound his clarion as it were calls to life the snow-flea. January 30, 1860

January 31. At 8 A. M., the river rising, the thin yellowish ice of last night, next the shore, is, as usual, much heaved up in ridges, as if beginning to double on itself, and here and there at 9 o'clock, being cracked thus in the lowest parts, the water begins to spurt up in some places in a stream, as from an ordinary pump, and flow along these valleys; and thus we have soon reëstablished an edging of shallow yellowish or oil-colored water all along the river and meadows, covered with floating snow-fleas. January 31, 1855

February 1. Lying flat, I quench my thirst where it is melted about it, blowing aside the snow-fleas. February 1, 1855

February 1. There has been no January thaw, though one prophesied it a fortnight ago because he saw snow-fleas. The ponds are yielding a good crop of ice. The eaves have scarcely run at all. It has been what is called "an old-fashioned winter."  February 1, 1856

February 2. As it is a melting day, the snow is everywhere peppered with snow-fleas, even twenty rods from the woods, on the pond and meadows.  February 2, 1854

 

February 9. There are snow-fleas, quite active, on the half-melted snow on the middle of Walden. February 9, 1854

February 11. 7.30 a. m. — Snow-fleas lie in black patches like some of those dark rough lichens on rocks, or like ink-spots three or four inches in diameter, about the grass-stems or willows, on the ice which froze last night. When I breathe on them I find them all alive and ready to skip. Also the water, when I break the ice, arouses them. February 11, 1854

February 12. Another cold morning. The patches of snow-fleas on the ice are now much reduced, but still, when I kneel and breathe on them, they begin to skip, though the last two nights and all day yesterday have been severely cold. They look like little patches of rust on the ice.  February 12, 1854

March 10. The past has been a winter of such unmitigated severity that I have not chanced to notice a snow-flea, which are so common in thawing days. March 10, 1856

March 15.  Mr. Chase . . . who has lived a hundred miles distant in New Hampshire, speaks of the snow-fleas as a spring phenomenon, – probably because the winter is more uniformly cold there, – and says that they think it time to stop making maple-sugar when they observe them. They get into the sap by myriads and trouble them much. March 15, 1856

March 20.  Under these wet leaves I find myriads of the snow-fleas, like powder. March 20, 1853

March 22.  Where the sap is flowing, the red maple being cut, the inner bark turns crimson. I see many snow-fleas on the moist maple chips.  March 22, 1856

April 9. When I return to my boat, I see the snow-fleas like powder, in patches on the surface of the smooth water, amid the twigs and leaves. April 9, 1856

April 22. There are myriads of snow-fleas in the water amid the bushes, apparently washed out of the bark by the rain and rise of river.  April 22, 1856

May 15.  This spring was filled and covered with a great mass of beech leaves, amid and beneath which, damp and wet as they were, were myriads of snow-fleas and also their white exuviæ; the latter often whitening a whole leaf, mixed with live ones. It looks as if for coolness and moisture which the snow had afforded – they were compelled to take refuge here. May 15, 1856

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Snow Flea

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 ©  2009-2026

Fuzzy Gnats                                                                 The Water-bug                                                                                                                         

What miracles, what beauty surrounds us!

January 30. 

January 30, 2022, 7:00AM

2 p. m. — To Nut Meadow and White Pond road. 

Thermometer 45°. Fair with a few cumuli of indefinite outline in the north and south, and dusky under sides. A gentle west wind and a blue haze. Thaws. 

The river has opened to an unusual extent, owing to the very long warm spell, — almost all this month. Even from Hubbard's Bridge up and down it is breaking up, is all mackerelled, with lunar-shaped openings  and some like a thick bow. * They [are] from one to twelve feet long. 

Yesterday's slight snow is all gone, leaving the ice, old snow, and bare ground; and as I walk up the river side, there is a brilliant sheen from the wet ice toward the sun, instead of the crystalline rainbow of yesterday. 

Think of that (of yesterday), — to have constantly before you, receding as fast as you advance, a bow formed of a myriad crystalline mirrors on the surface of the snow! ! What miracles, what beauty surrounds us! 

Then, another day, to do all your walking knee-deep in perfect six-rayed crystals of surpassing beauty but of ephemeral duration, which have fallen from the sky. 

The ice has so melted on the meadows that I see where the musquash has left his clamshells in a heap near the riverside, where there was a hollow in the bank. 

The small water-bugs are gyrating abundantly in Nut Meadow Brook. 

It is pleasant also to see the very distinct ripple-marks in the sand at its bottom, of late so rare a sight. 

I go through the piny field northwest of M. Miles's. There are no more beautiful natural parks than these pastures in which the white pines have sprung up spontaneously, standing at handsome intervals, where the wind chanced to let the seed lie at last, and the grass and blackberry vines have not yet been killed by them. 

There are certain sounds invariably heard in warm and thawing days in winter, such as the crowing of cocks, the cawing of crows, and sometimes the gobbling of turkeys. 

The crow, flying high, touches the tympanum of the sky for us, and reveals the tone of it. What does it avail to look at a thermometer or barometer compared with listening to his note? He informs me that Nature is in the tenderest mood possible, and I hear the very flutterings of her heart. Crows have singular wild and suspicious ways. You will [see] a couple flying high, as if about their business, but lo, they turn and circle and caw over your head again and again for a mile; and this is their business, — as if a mile and an afternoon were nothing for them to throw away. This even in winter, when they have no nests to be anxious about. 

But it is affecting to hear them cawing about their ancient seat (as at F. Wheeler's wood) which the choppers are laying low. 

I saw the other day (apparently) mouse(?)-tracks which had been made in slosh  on the Andromeda Ponds and then frozen, — little gutters about two inches wide and nearly one deep, looking very artificial with the nicks on the sides. 

I sit on the high hilltop south of Nut Meadow, near the pond. This hazy day even Nobscot is so blue that it looks like a mighty mountain. 

See how man has cleared commonly the most level ground, and left the woods to grow on the more uneven and rocky, or in the swamps.

I see, when I look over our landscape from any eminence as far as the horizon, certain rounded hills, amid the plains and ridges and cliffs, which have a marked family likeness, like eggs that belong to one nest though scattered. They suggest a relation geologically. Such are, for instance, Nashoba, Annursnack, Nawshawtuct, and Ponkawtasset, all which have Indian names, as if the Indian, too, had regarded them as peculiarly distinct. 

There is also Round Hill in Sudbury, and perhaps a hill in Acton. Perhaps one in Chelmsford. They are not apparently rocky. 

The snow-flea seems to be a creature whose summer and prime of life is a thaw in the winter. It seems not merely to enjoy this interval like other animals, but then chiefly to exist. It is the creature of the thaw. Moist snow is its element. That thaw which merely excites the cock to sound his clarion as it were calls to life the snow-flea.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 30, 1860

The crystalline rainbow of yesterday. See January 29, 1860 ("that conical rainbow, or parabola of rainbow-colored reflections, from the myriad reflecting crystals of the snow, . . . as I walk toward the sun, — always a little in advance of me")

The small water-bugs are gyrating abundantly in Nut Meadow Brook.  See January 17, 1860 ("See In the spring-hole ditches of the Close I see many little water-bugs (Gyrinus) gyrating, and some under water. It must be a common phenomenon there in mild weather in the winter. "); January 24, 1858 (" At Nut Meadow Brook the small-sized water-bugs are as abundant and active as in summer.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Water-bug (Gyrinus) and  Skaters (Hydrometridae)

It is pleasant also to see the very distinct ripple-marks in the sand at its bottom, of late so rare a sight. See July 30, 1852 ("The ripple-marks on the east shore of Flint's are nearly parallel firm ridges in the white sand, one inch or more apart. They are very distinctly felt by the naked feet of the wader."); March 10, 1853 ("At Nut Meadow Brook . . . gazing into the eddying stream. The ripple-marks on the sandy bottom [and].the shadows of the invisible dimples reflecting prismatic colors on the bottom,"); April 3, 1859 ("The water being quite shallow on [White Pond], it is very handsomely and freshly ripple-marked for a rod or more in width, the ripples only two or three inches apart and very regular and parallel.") August 1, 1859 ("The [river] bottom is occasionally — though quite rarely in Concord — of soft shifting sand, ripple-marked, in which the paddle sinks, under four or five feet of water (as below the ash tree hole)")

There are certain sounds invariably heard in warm and thawing days in winter, such as the crowing of cocks, the cawing of crows, and sometimes the gobbling of turkeys. See January 12, 1855 ("Perhaps what most moves us in winter is some reminiscence of far-off summer. . . .It is in the cawing of the crow, the crowing of the cock, the warmth of the sun on our backs. "); March 16, 1858 (" The crowing of cocks and the cawing of crows tell the same story. The ice is soggy and dangerous to be walked on.")

But lo, they turn and circle and caw over your head again and again for a mile. See May 11, 1855 ("You can hardly walk in a thick pine wood now, especially a swamp, but presently you will have a crow or two over your head, either silently flitting over, to spy what you would be at and if its nest is in danger, or angrily cawing.") September 18, 1852 ("The crows congregate and pursue me through the half-covered woodland path, cawing loud and angrily above me, and when they cease, I hear the winnowing sound of their wings."); October 9, 1858 (" Crows fly over and caw at you now."); November 18, 1857 (" Crows will often come flying much out of their way to caw at me.")

Mouse-tracks which had been made in slosh on the Andromeda Ponds and then frozen, — little gutters about two inches wide and nearly one deep. See December 27, 1853 (“ I had not seen a meadow mouse all summer, but no sooner does the snow come and spread its mantle over the earth than it is printed with the tracks of countless mice"); January 15, 1857 ("And for a week, or fortnight even, of pretty still weather the tracks will remain, to tell of the nocturnal adventures of a tiny mouse")

This hazy day even Nobscot is so blue that it looks like a mighty mountain. Compare June 26, 1853 ("Nobscot has lost all its blue, and the northwest mountains are too . . .firmly defined to be mistaken for clouds.")

The snow-flea is the creature of the thaw. Moist snow is its element. See January 22, 1860 ("This must be as peculiarly a winter animal as any. It may truly be said to live in snow."). See also A Book of the Seasons: The Snow Flea

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  January 30

Beauty surrounds us!

Crystalline mirrors on the

surface of the snow.

The crow, flying high, 

touches the tympanum 

of the sky for us.

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 ©  2009-2023

Birds are commonly very rare in the winter

January 22. 

P. M. — Up river to Fair Haven Pond; return via Andromeda Ponds and railroad. 

Overcast, but some clear sky in southwest horizon; mild weather still. 

Where the sedge grows rankly and is uncut, as along the edge of the river and meadows, what fine coverts are made for mice, etc., at this season! It is arched over, and the snow rests chiefly on its ends, while the middle part is elevated from six inches to a foot and forms a thick thatch, as it were, even when all is covered with snow, under which the mice and so forth can run freely, out of the way of the wind and of foxes. 

After a pretty deep snow has just partially melted, you are surprised to find, as you walk through such a meadow, how high and lightly the sedge lies up, as if there had been no pressure upon it. It grows, perhaps, in dense tufts or tussocks, and when it falls over, it forms a thickly thatched roof. Nature provides shelter for her creatures in various ways. 

If the musquash, etc., has no longer extensive fields of weed and grass to crawl in, what an extensive range it has under the ice of the meadows and river sides! for, the water settling directly after freezing, an icy roof of indefinite extent is thus provided for it, and it passes almost its whole winter under shelter, out of the wind and invisible to men. 

The ice is so much rotted that I observe in many places those lunar-shaped holes, and dark places in the ice, convex up-stream, some times double-lunar. 

I perceive that the open places in the river do not preserve the same relative importance that they had December 29th. Then the largest four or five stood in this order: (1) below boat's place, (2) below junction, (3) Barrett's Bar, (4) Clamshell or else Hubbard's large as Hubbard's Bath. Which of the others is largest I am not quite sure. 

In other words, below junction and Hubbard's Bath (if not also Clamshell, not seen) retain about their former size, while below boat's place and Barrett's Bar have been diminished, especially below boat's place. 

Birds are commonly very rare in the winter. They are much more common at some times than at others. I see more tree sparrows in the beginning of the winter (especially when snow is falling) than in the course of it. I think that by observation I could tell in what kind of weather afterward these were most to be seen. 

Crows come about houses and streets in very cold weather and deep snows, and they are heard cawing in pleasant, thawing winter weather, and their note is then a pulse by which you feel the quality of the air, i. e., when cocks crow. 

For the most part, lesser redpolls and pine grosbeaks do not appear at all. 

Snow buntings are very wandering. They were quite numerous a month ago, and now seem to have quit the town. They seem to ramble about the country at will. 

C. says that he followed the track of a fox all yesterday afternoon, though with some difficulty, and then lost it at twilight. I suggested that he should begin next day where he had left off, and that following it up thus for many days he might catch him at last. 

"By the way," I asked, "did you go the same way the fox did, or did you take the back track?" 

"Oh," said he, "I took the back track. It would be of no use to go the other way, you know." 

Minott says that a hound which pursues a fox by scent cannot tell which way he is going; that the fox is very cunning and will often return on its track over which the dog had already run. It will ascend a high rock and then leap off very far to one side; so throw the dogs off the scent for a while and gain a breathing-spell. 

I see, in one of those pieces of drifted meadow (of last spring) in A. Wheeler's cranberry meadow, a black willow thus transplanted more than ten feet high and five inches in diameter. It is quite alive. 

The snow-fleas are thickest along the edge of the wood here, but I find that they extend quite across the river, though there are comparatively few over the middle. There are generally fewer and fewer the further you are from the shore. Nay, I find that they extend quite across Fair Haven Pond. There are two or three inches of snow on the ice, and thus they are revealed. There are a dozen or twenty to a square rod on the very middle of the pond. When I approach one, it commonly hops away, and if it gets a good spring it hops a foot or more, so that it is at first lost to me. Though they are scarcely the twentieth of an inch long they make these surprising bounds, or else conceal themselves by entering the snow. We have now had many days of this thawing weather, and I believe that these fleas have been gradually hopping further and further out from the shore. 

To-day, perchance, it is water, a day or two later ice, and no fleas are seen on it. Then snow comes and covers the ice, and if there is no thaw for a month, you see no fleas for so long. But, at least soon after a thaw, they are to be seen on the centre of ponds at least half a mile across. Though this is my opinion, it is by no means certain that they come here thus, for I am prepared to believe that the water in the middle may have had as many floating on it, and that these were afterward on the surface of the ice, though unseen, and hence under the snow when it fell, and ready to come up through it when the thaw came. 

But what do they find to eat in apparently pure snow so far from any land? Has their food come down from the sky with the snow? They must themselves be food for many creatures. This must be as peculiarly a winter animal as any. It may truly be said to live in snow. 

I see some insects, of about this form on the snow: 

I scare a partridge that was eating the buds and ends of twigs of the Vaccinium vacillans on a hillside. 

At the west or nesaea end of the largest Andromeda Pond, I see that there has been much red ice, more than I ever saw, but now spoiled by the thaw and snow. 

The leaves of the water andromeda are evidently more appressed to the twigs, and showing the gray under sides, than in summer.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 22, 1860

See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Winter Birds

The water settling directly after freezing, an icy roof of indefinite extent is thus provided for it, and it passes almost its whole winter under shelter, out of the wind and invisible to men.   Compare January 22, 1859 (".Many are out in boats, steering outside the ice of the river over the newly flooded meadows, shooting musquash."); January 22, 1855 ("The muskrats driven out of their holes by the water are exceedingly numerous . . .We saw fifteen or twenty, at least, between Derby's Bridge and the Tarbell Spring, either swimming with surprising swiftness up or down or across the stream to avoid us, or sitting at the water's edge, or resting on the edge of the ice.") See also January 3, 1860 ("Melvin thinks that the musquash eat more clams now than ever, and that they leave the shells in heaps under the ice. As the river falls it leaves them space enough under the ice along the meadow's edge and bushes. I think he is right. He speaks of the mark of the tail, which is dragged behind them, in the snow."); January 24, 1856 ("I have not been able to find any tracks of muskrats this winter. I suspect that they very rarely venture out in winter with their wet coats "); January 27, 1860 (" I occasionally hear a musquash plunge under the ice next the shore.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musquash

Snow buntings are very wandering. They were quite numerous a month ago, and now seem to have quit the town.  See December 23, 1859 ("Then here they come, with a stiff rip of their wings as they suddenly wheel, and those peculiar rippling notes, flying low quite across the meadow, . . . Indeed, the flock, flying about as high as my head, divides, and half passes on each side of me. Thus they sport over these broad meadows of ice this pleasant winter day. ")

Crows are heard cawing in pleasant, thawing winter weather, and their note is then a pulse by which you feel the quality of the air, i. e., when cocks crow. See January 12, 1855 ("Perhaps what most moves us in winter is some reminiscence of far-off summer. . . .It is in the cawing of the crow, the crowing of the cock, the warmth of the sun on our backs. I hear faintly the cawing of a crow far, far away, echoing from some unseen wood-side. What a delicious sound! It is not merely crow calling to crow, for it speaks to me too. I am part of one great creature with him; if he has voice, I have ears. I can hear when he calls."); . March 16, 1858 ("The crowing of cocks and the cawing of crows tell the same story. The ice is soggy and dangerous to be walked on.")

"By the way," I asked, "did you go the same way the fox did, or did you take the back track?" See February 5, 1854 ("I followed on this trail so long that my thoughts grew foxy; though I was on the back track, I drew nearer and nearer to the fox each step.")

Minott says the fox is very cunning and will often return on its track over which the dog had already run. It will ascend a high rock and then leap off very far to one side; so throw the dogs off the scent. See January 30, 1855 (" Minott . . .told how Jake Lakin lost a dog, a very valuable one, by a fox leading him on to the ice on the Great Meadows and drowning him.")

At the west end of the largest Andromeda Pond, I see that there has been much red ice, more than I ever saw. See January 24, 1855 ("I was surprised to find the ice in the middle of the last [Andromeda] pond a beautiful delicate rose-color for two or three rods, deeper in spots. . . .This beautiful blushing ice! What are we coming to?"); January 25, 1855 ("I have come with basket and hatchet to get a specimen of the rose-colored ice.. . . The redness is all about an inch below the surface, the little bubbles in the ice there for half an inch vertically being coated interruptedly within or without with what looks like a minute red dust when seen through a microscope. . ."); March 4, 1855 ("Returning by the Andromeda Ponds, I am surprised to see the red ice visible still . . .It is melted down to the red bubbles, and I can tinge my finger with it there by rubbing it in the rotted ice.")

A distinct rosy light (or pink) reflected from the ice, half an hour before sunset.

January 23

January 23, 2019

The freshet is now frozen over, but not thick enough to bear without cracking, and that peculiar whitish ice like bread or mortar that has run over is seen four to six feet in width all along the shore and about trees, posts, rocks, etc. It is produced by the water, probably, still rising after the freezing in the night and flowing back over the ice in a semiliquid state, or like soft solder, —a rough or wrinkled or rippled dirty white surface, often stained with the bank, yellowish or brown. 

There is a cold northwest wind, and I notice that the snow-fleas which were so abundant on this water yesterday have hopped to some lee, i. e., are collected like powder under the southeast side of posts or trees or sticks or ridges in the ice. You are surprised to see that they manage to get out of the wind. On the southeast side of every such barrier along the shore there is a dark line or heap of them. 

I see one of those glow-worm like creatures frozen in, sticking up perpendicular, half above the ice.

Going over the Hosmer pasture this side Clamshell southwestward, I thought I saw much gossamer on the grass, but was surprised to find that it was the light reflected from the withered grass stems which had been bent or broken by the snow (now melted). It looked just like gossamer even within ten [?] feet,— most would have taken it for that, — also these fine gleaming lines (like those of the alders and birch twigs, etc.) were very distinctly parts of an arc of a large circle,— the lower side of it,—as you looked toward the sun, the light being necessarily so reflected. This is a remarkable instance of the November, or rather winter, light reflected from twigs and stubble. The grass stood just like an abundant gossamer. 

The earth being generally bare, I notice on the ice where it slopes up eastward a little, a distinct rosy light (or pink) reflected from it generally, half an hour before sunset. This is a colder evening than of late, and there is so much the more of it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 23, 1859

The snow-fleas which were so abundant on this water yesterday have hopped to some lee. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Snow Flea

I see one of those glow-worm like creatures frozen in. See January 22, 1859 ("It is about half an inch long by one eleventh of an inch wide, dusky reddish brown above, lighter beneath, with a small black flattish head and about four short antennae, six legs under the forward part of the body, which last consists of twelve ring-like segments. There is one row of minute light-colored dots down the middle of the back,")

A remarkable instance of the winter light reflected from twigs and stubble. See January 4, 1858 ("It is surprising how much sunny light a little straw that survives the winter will reflect. ")

Distinct rosy light (or pink) half an hour before sunset. This is a colder evening than of late, and there is so much the more of it. See January 10, 1859  ("This is one of the phenomena of the winter sunset, this distinct pink light reflected from the brows of snow-clad hills on one side of you as you are facing the sun. "); January 19, 1859 ("I see a rosy tinge like dust on the snow when I look directly toward the setting sun, but very little on the hills. Methinks this pink on snow (as well as blue shadows) requires a clear, cold evening."). Compare January 24, 1855 ("I was surprised to find the ice in the middle of the last  pond a beautiful delicate rose-color"); January 25, 1855 ("I have come with basket and hatchet to get a specimen of the rose-colored ice"); February 23, 1855 ("See at Walden . . .ice formed over the large square where ice has been taken out for Brown’s ice-house has a decided pink or rosaceous tinge."); March 4, 1855 ("Returning by the Andromeda Ponds, I am surprised to see the red ice visible still . . .It is melted down to the red bubbles, and I can tinge my finger with it there by rubbing it in the rotted ice.");