What astronomer can calculate the orbit of my thistle-down?

September 29. 

Fine weather. P. M. — To White Pond. 

September 29, 2018

One or two myrtle-birds in their fall dress, with brown head and shoulders, two whitish bars on wings, and bright-yellow rump. 

Sit on Clamshell, looking up the smooth stream. Two blue herons, or “herns,” as Goodwin calls them, fly sluggishly up the stream. Interesting even is a stake, with its reflection, left standing in the still river by some fisherman. 

Again we have smooth waters, yellow foliage, and faint warbling birds, etc., as in spring. The year thus repeats itself. 

Catch some of those little fuzzy gnats dancing in the air there over the shelly bank, and these are black, with black plumes, unlike those last seen over the Cassandra Pond. 

Brushed a spectrum, ghost-horse, off my face in a birch wood, by the J. P. Brown cold Heart-Leaf Pond. Head somewhat like a striped snake. 

That pond is drier than I ever saw it, perhaps [No, have seen it so before.]—all but a couple of square rods in the middle, —and now covered with cyperus, etc. The mud is cracked into large polygonal figures of four to six sides and six to twelve inches across, with cracks a half to three quarters of an inch wide.

See what must be a solitary tattler feeding by the water’s edge, and it has tracked the mud all about. It cannot be the Tringa pectoralis, for it has no conspicuous white chin, nor black dashes on the throat, nor brown on the back and wings, and I think I see the round white spots on its wings. It has not the white on wing of the peetweet, yet utters the peetweet note!— short and faint, not protracted, and not the “sharp whistle” that Wilson speaks of. 

The lespedeza leaves are all withered and ready to fall in the frosty hollows near Nut Meadow, and [in] the swamps the ground is already strewn with the first maple leaves, concealing the springiness of the soil, and many plants are prostrate there, November-like.

High up in Nut Meadow, the very brook — push aside the half-withered grass which (the farmer disdaining to cut it) conceals it — is as cool as a spring, being near its sources. 

Take perhaps our last bath in White Pond for the year. Half a dozen F. hyemalis about. 

Looking toward the sun, some fields reflect a light sheen from low webs of gossamer which thickly cover the stubble and grass. 

On our way, near the Hosmer moraine, let off some pasture thistle-down. One steadily rose from my hand, freighted with its seed, till it was several hundred feet high, and then passed out of sight eastward. Its down was particularly spreading or open. Is not here a hint to balloonists? 

Astronomers can calculate the orbit of that thistle-down called the comet, now in the northwest sky, conveying its nucleus, which may not be so solid as a thistle’s seed, some whither, but what astronomer can calculate the orbit of my thistle-down and tell where it will deposit its precious freight at last? It may still be travelling when I am sleeping. 

Donati’s Comet 1858

Some Lobelia inflata leaves peculiar hoary-white.

September 29, 2018

H. D. Thoreau,  Journal, September 29, 1858

One or two myrtle-birds in their fall dress, with brown head and shoulders, two whitish bars on wings, and bright-yellow rump. See September 23, 1855 (“A little wren-like (or female goldfinch) bird on a.willow at Hubbard’s Causeway, eating a miller: with bright-yellow rump when wings open, and white on tail. Could it have been a yellow-rump warbler?”); October 14, 1855 ("Black bill and feet, yellow rump, brown above, yellowish-brown on head, cream-colored chin, two white bars on wings, tail black, edged with white, — the yellow-rump warbler or myrtle-bird without doubt.”)

Half a dozen F. hyemalis about. See  September 29, 1854 ("I hear a very pleasant and now unusual strain on the sunny side of an oak wood from many — I think F. hyemalis, though I do not get a clear view of them. Even their slight jingling strain is remarkable at this still season.") See also September 24, 1854 (" Do I see an F. hyemalis in the Deep Cut? It is a month earlier than last yea"); October 5, 1857 ("It is evident that some phenomena which belong only to spring and autumn here . . . the myrtle-bird and F. hyemalis which breed there, but only transiently visit us in spring and fall.") 

The year thus repeats itself. See May 5, 1860 ("It takes us many years to find out that Nature repeats herself annually”)

Brushed a spectrum, ghost-horse, off my face in a birch wood. See ;  August 29, 1858 (“The ghost-horse (Spectrum) is seen nowadays, — several of them.”)

Take perhaps our last bath in White Pond for the year. See September 27, 1856 ("Bathed at Hubbard's Bath, but found the water very cold. Bathing about over”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Luxury of Bathing

The comet, now in the northwest sky. See September 23 , 1858 (Saw the comet very bright in the northwest. "); October 5, 1858 ("The comet makes a great show these nights.")

Thistle-down See September 1, 1852 ("These white faery vessels are annually wafted over the cope of their sky. Bethink thyself, O man, when the first thistle-down is in the air. Buoyantly it floated high in air over hills and fields all day, and now, weighed down with evening dews, perchance, it sinks gently to the surface of the lake. Nothing can stay the thistle-down, but with September winds it unfailingly sets sail. The irresistible revolution of time. It but comes down upon the sea in its ship, and is still perchance wafted to the shore with its delicate sails. The thistle-down is in the air. Tell me, is thy fruit also there? Dost thou approach maturity? ")

tinyurl.com/HDT580929

Cape Ann and the comet

September 23. 

September 23, 2018

Another fair day and wind northwest, but rather warmer. 

We kept along the road to Rockport, some two miles or more, to a “thundering big ledge” by the road, as a man called it; then turned off toward the south shore, at a house with two very large and old pear trees before it. Part of the house was built by a Witham, one of the first settlers, and the place or neighborhood used to be called “the Farms.” Saw the F. hyemalis flitting along the walls, and it was cool enough for them on this cape. 

In a marsh by the shore, where was a very broad curving sandy beach, the shore of a cove, found the Ranunculus Cymbalaria, still in bloom, but mostly in fruit. Glaux maritima (?), nearly prostrate, with oblong leaves. Triglochin palustris in fruit. An eleocharis, apparently marine, with lenticular fruit and a wrinkled mitre-shaped beak. Spergularia rubra, etc., samphire, etc. 

The narrow road — where we followed it — wound about big boulders, past small, often bevel-roofed cottages where sometimes was a small flag flying for a vane. The number and variety of bevelled roofs on the Cape is surprising. Some are so nearly flat that they reminded me of the low brows of monkeys. 

We had already seen a sort of bare rocky ridge, a bare boulder-covered back of the Cape, running northeasterly from Gloucester toward Rockport and for some three miles quite bare, the eastern extremity of the Cape being wooded. That would be a good place to walk. 

In this marsh, saw what I thought the solitary tattler, quite tame. 

Having reached the shore, we sat under the lee of the rocks on the beach, opposite Salt Island. A man was carting seaweed along the shore between us and the water, the leather-apron kind, which trailed from his cart like the tails of oxen, and, when it came between us and the sun, was of a warm purple-brown glow. 

Half a mile further, beyond a rocky head, we came to another curving sandy beach, with a marsh between it and the Cape on the north. Saw there, in the soft sand, with beach-grass, apparently Juncus Balticus (?), very like but not so stout (!) as Juncus effusus. 

Met a gunner from Lynn on the beach, who had several pigeons which he had killed in the woods by the shore. Said that they had been blown off the mainland. Second, also a kingfisher. Third, what he called the “ox eye,” about size of peetweet but with a short bill and a blackish-brown crescent on breast, and wing above like peetweet’s, but no broad white mark below. Could it be Charadrius semipalmatus? Fourth, what he called a sandpiper, very white with a long bill. Was this Tringa arenaria? Fifth, what I took to be a solitary tattler, but possibly it was the pectoral sandpiper, which I have seen since. 

On the edge of the beach you see small dunes, with white or fawn-colored sandy sides, crowned with now  yellowish smilax and with bayberry bushes. Just before reaching Loblolly Cove, near Thatcher’s Island, sat on a beach composed entirely of small paving-stones lying very loose and deep. 

We boiled our tea for dinner on the mainland opposite Straitsmouth Island, just this side the middle of Rockport, under the lee of a boulder, using, as usual, dead bay berry bushes for fuel. This was, indeed, all we could get. They make a very quick fire, and I noticed that their smoke covered our dippers with a kind of japan which did not crock or come off nearly so much as ordinary soot. 

We could see the Salvages very plainly, apparently ex tending north and south, the Main Rock some fifteen or twenty rods long and east-northeast of Straitsmouth Island, apparently one and a half or two miles distant, with half-sunken ledges north and south of it, over which the sea was breaking in white foam. The ledges all together half a mile long. 

We could see from our dining-place Agamenticus, some forty miles distant in the north. Its two sides loomed so that about a third of the whole was lifted up, while a small elevation close to it on the east, which afterward was seen to be a part of it, was wholly lifted up. 

Rockport well deserves its name, — several little rocky harbors protected by a breakwater, the houses at Rockport Village backing directly on the beach. 

At Folly Cove, a wild rocky point running north, covered with beach—grass. See now a mountain on the east of Agamenticus. Isles of Shoals too low to be seen. Probably land at Boar’s Head, seen on the west of Agamenticus, and then the coast all the way from New Hampshire to Cape Ann plainly, Newburyport included and Plum Island. Hog Island looks like a high hill on the mainland. 

It is evident that a discoverer, having got as far west as Agamenticus, off the coast of Maine, would in clear weather discern the coast trending southerly beyond him as far round as Cape Ann, and if he did not wish to be embayed would stand across to Cape Ann, where the Salvages would be the outmost point. 

At Annisquam we found ourselves in the midst of boulders scattered over bare hills and fields, such as we had seen on the ridge northerly in the morning, i. e., they abound chiefly in the central and northwesterly part of the Cape. This was the most peculiar scenery of the Cape. 

We struck inland southerly, just before sundown, and boiled our tea with bayberry bushes by a swamp on the hills, in the midst of these great boulders, about half way to Gloucester, having carried our water a quarter of a mile, from a swamp, spilling a part in threading swamps and getting over rough places. 

Two oxen feeding in the swamp came up to reconnoitre our fire. We could see no house, but hills strewn with boulders, as if they had rained down, on every side, we sitting under a shelving one. When the moon rose, what had appeared like immense boulders half a mile off in the horizon now looked by contrast no larger than nutshells or buri-nut against the moon’s disk, and she was the biggest boulder of all. 

When we had put out our bayberry fire, we heard a squawk, and, looking up, saw five geese fly low in the twilight over our heads. We then set out to find our way to Gloucester over the hills, and saw the comet very bright in the northwest. 

Donati’s Comet 1858

After going astray a little in the moonlight, we fell into a road which at length conducted us to the town.

As we bought our lodging and breakfast, a pound of good ship-bread, which cost seven cents, and six herring, which cost three cents, with sugar and tea, supplied us amply the rest of the two days. The selection of suitable spots to get our dinner or supper led us into interesting scenery, and it was amusing to watch the boiling of our water for tea. There is a scarcity of fresh water on the Cape, so that you must carry your water a good way in a dipper.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 23, 1858

A walk round the two-mile square.

April 7.

Round the two-mile square. I see where the common great tufted sedge (Carex stricta) has started under the water on the meadows, now fast falling.

The white maple at the bridge not quite out.

See a water-bug and a frog. Hylas are heard to-day.

I see where the meadow flood has gone down in a bay on the southeast side of the meadow, whither the foam had been driven. A delicate scum now left an inch high on the grass  It is a dirty white, yet silvery, and as thin as the thinnest foil, often unbroken and apparently air-tight for two or three inches across and al most as light as gossamer. What is the material? It is a kind of paper, but far more delicate than man makes. 

Saw in a roadside gutter at Simon Brown's barn a bird like the solitary tattler, with a long bill, which at length flew off to the river. But it may have been a small species of snipe.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 7, 1861

Hylas are heard to-day. See March 23, 1859 ("We hear the peep of one hylodes somewhere in this sheltered recess in the woods."); April 1, 1860 (" I hear the first hylodes by chance, but no doubt they have been heard some time."); April 5, 1854 ("Hark! while I write down this field note, the shrill peep of the hylodes is borne to me from afar through the woods."); April 6, 1858 (" I hear hylas in full blast 2.30 P. M."); April 8, 1852 ("To-day I hear the croak of frogs in small pond-holes in the woods, "); April 8, 1853 ("The hylas have fairly begun now.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The first frogs to begin calling

The white maple at the bridge not quite out.  See April 7, 1853 ("he staminiferous flowers look light yellowish, the female dark crimson. These white maples flower branches droop quite low, striking the head of the rower, and curve gracefully upward at the ends. ") See also April 9, 1852 ("The maple by the bridge in bloom”) and note to April 6, 1855 ("White maple stamens stand out already loosely enough to blow in the wind.")  and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, White Maple Buds and Flowers

A bird like the solitary tattler, with a long bill, but it may have been a small species of snipe. [Probably Solitary Sandpiper (Tringa solitaria)] See September 23, 1858 (''In this marsh, saw what I thought the solitary tattler, quite tame. . . Met a gunner from Lynn on the beach, who had . . . what he called a sandpiper, very white with a long bill. Was this Tringa arenaria? [and] what I took to be a solitary tattler, but possibly it was the pectoral sandpiper, which I have seen since."); September 29, 1858 ("See what must be a solitary tattler feeding by the water’s edge, and it has tracked the mud all about. It cannot be the Tringa pectoralis, for it has no conspicuous white chin, nor black dashes on the throat, nor brown on the back and wings, and I think I see the round white spots on its wings. It has not the white on wing of the peetweet, yet utters the peetweet note!— short and faint, not protracted, and not the “sharp whistle” that Wilson speaks of. ") See also September 24, 1855 (" suppose it was the solitary sandpiper (Totanus solitarius) which I saw feeding at the water’s edge on Cardinal Shore, like a snipe. It was very tame; we did not scare it even by shouting. . . . It was about as large as a snipe; had a bluish dusky bill about an inch and a quarter long, apparently straight, which it kept thrusting into the shallow water with a nibbling motion, a perfectly white belly, dusky-green legs; bright brown and black above, with duskier wings. When it flew, its wings, which were uniformly dark, hung down much, and I noticed no white above, and heard no note."); September 25, 1858 ("In the evening Mr. Warren brings me a snipe and a pectoral sandpiper. This last, which is a little less than the snipe but with a longer wing, must be much like T. solitarius, and I may have confounded them. The shaft of the first primary is conspicuously white above.")

*****

Note per All About Birds: The the pectoral sandpiper (Calidris melanotos) has  distinctively stippled breast that ends neatly at a white belly. the solitary sandpiper (Tringa solitaria) has a black-and-white tail, bold eyering, a back marked with small white spots and blackish underwings in flight. 

The genus Tringa was introduced in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus iThe genus  nowcontains 13 species.^[7]

• Green sandpiper, Tringa ochropus
• Solitary sandpiper, Tringa solitaria
• Grey-tailed tattler, Tringa brevipes – formerly Heteroscelus brevipes
• Wandering tattler, Tringa incana – formerly Heteroscelus incanus
• Spotted redshank, Tringa erythropus
• Greater yellowlegs, Tringa melanoleuca
• Common greenshank, Tringa nebularia
• Willet, Tringa semipalmata – formerly Catoptrophorus semipalmatus
• Lesser yellowlegs, Tringa flavipes
• Nordmann's greenshank, Tringa guttifer
• Marsh sandpiper, Tringa stagnatilis
• Common redshank, Tringa totanus
• Wood sandpiper, Tringa glareola

The genus Calidris was introduced in 1804 by  Blasius Merrem with the red knot as the type species.  The genus contain 24 species: including Pectoral sandpiper, Calidris melanotos

Thoreau's Peetweet  is the Spotted Sandpiper  (Actitis macularia). His Upland Plover is the Upland Sandpiper (Bartramia longicauda).  He also obserfve the Lesser Golden-Plover (Pluvialis dominica ) and Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus) See Thoreau's Birds