The rich colors and the rich and varied notes of the blackbirds surpass them all.

May 14.

Saturday. 9 A. M.--To Wayland by boat. 

E. Wood has added a pair of ugly wings to his house, bare of trees and painted white, particularly conspicuous from the river. You might speak of the alar extent of this house, monopolizing so much of our horizon; but alas ! it is not formed for flight, after all. 

The water is considerably rough to-day, and higher than usual at this season. 

The black willows have started, but make no show of green. 

The button-bushes are yet apparently dead. 

The green buds of yellow lilies are bobbing up and down, already showing more or less yellow; this the most forward sign in the water. The great scalloped platters of their leaves have begun to show themselves on the surface, and the red round leaves of the white lily, now red above as well as below. 

A myriad of polygonums, potamogetons, and pontederias are pushing up from the bottom, but have not yet reached the surface. 

Dandelions and houstonias, etc., spot the meadows with yellow and white. 

The still dead-looking willows and button-bushes are alive with red-wings, now perched on a yielding twig, now pursuing a female swiftly over the meadow, now darting across the stream. No two have epaulets equally brilliant. Some are small and almost white, and others a brilliant vermilion. They are handsomer than the golden robin, methinks. 

The yellowbird, kingbird, and pewee, beside many swallows, are also seen. But the rich colors and the rich and varied notes of the blackbirds surpass them all. 

Passing Conantum under sail at 10 o’clock, the cows in this pasture are already chewing the cud in the thin shade of the apple trees, a picture of peace, already enjoying the luxury of their green pastures. 

I was not prepared to find the season so far advanced. 

The breeze which comes over the water, sensibly cooled or freshened by it, is already grateful. 

Suddenly there start up from the riverside at the entrance of Fair Haven Pond, scared by our sail, two great blue herons, — slate color rather, — slowly flapping and undulating, their projecting breast-bones very visible, — or is it possibly their necks bent back? — their legs stuck out straight behind. Getting higher by their flight, they straight come back to reconnoitre us. Land at Lee’s Cliff, where the herons have preceded us and are perched on the oaks, conspicuous from afar, and again we have a fair view of their flight. 

We find here, unexpectedly, the warmth of June. The hot, dry scent, or say warm and balmy, from ground amid the pitch pines carpeted with red needles, where a wiry green grass is springing up, reminds us of June and of wild pinks. 

Under the south side of the Cliff, vegetation seems a fortnight earlier than elsewhere. Not only the beautiful little veronicas (serpyllifolia) are abundantly out, and cowslips past their prime, columbines past prime, and saxifrage gone to seed, some of it, and dandelions, and the sod sparkling with the pure, brilliant, spotless yellow of cinquefoil, also violets and strawberries, but the glossy or varnished yellow of buttercups (bulbosus, also abundant, some days out) spots the hillside. 

The south side of these rocks is like a hothouse where the gardener has removed his glass. The air, scented with sweet briar, may almost make you faint in imagination. The nearer the base of the rock, the more forward each plant. 

The trees are equally forward, red and black; leaves an inch and a half long and shoots of three inches. The prospect from these rocks is early-June-like. You notice the tender light green of the birches, both white and paper, and the brown-red tops of the maples where their keys are. 

Close under the lee of the button-bushes which skirt the pond, as I look south, there is a narrow smooth strip of water, silvery and contrasting with the darker rippled body of the pond. Its edge, or the separation between this, which I will call the polished silvery border of the pond, and the dark and ruffled body, is not a straight line or film, but an ever-varying, irregularly and finely serrated or fringed border, ever changing as the breeze falls over the bushes at an angle more or less steep, so that this moment it is a rod wide, the next not half so much. Every feature is thus fluent in the landscape. 

Again we embark, now having furled our sail and taken to our oars. The air is clear and fine-grained, and as we glide by the hills I can look into the very roots of the grass amid the springing pines in their deepest valleys. The wind rises, but still it is not a cold wind. There is nothing but slate-colored water and a few red pads appearing at Lily Bay. 

After leaving Rice’s harbor the wind is with us again. What a fine tender yellow green from the meadow-grass just pushed up, where the sun strikes it at the right angle! How it contrasts with the dark bluish-green of that rye, already beginning to wave, which covers that little rounded hill by Pantry Brook! Grain waves earlier than grass. 

How flat the top of the muskrat’s head as he swims, and his back, even with it, and then when he dives he ludicrously shows his tail. They look gray and brown, rabbit, now. 

At Forget-me not Spring the chrysosplenium beds are very large, rich and deep, almost out of bloom. I find none of the early blackberry in bloom. It is mostly destroyed. Already we pluck and eat the sweet flag and detect small critchicrotches. The handsome comandra leaves also are prominent. 

In the woods which skirt the river near Deacon Farrar’s swamp, the Populus grandidentata, just expanding its downy leaves, makes silvery patches in the sun. It is abundant and truly silvery. 

The paper birch woods at Fair Haven present this aspect : there is the somewhat dense light green of aspens (tremuliformis) and paper birches in the foreground next the water, both of one tint, and occasionally a red maple with brownish-red top, with — equally advanced, aye, more fully expanded, intermixed or a little higher up-very tall and slender amelanchiers (Botryapium), some twenty-five feet high, on which no signs of fruit, though I have seen them on some; some silvery grandidentata, and red and black oaks (some yellowish, some reddish, green), and still reddish-white oaks, just starting; and green pines for contrast, showing the silvery under sides of their leaves or the edges of their dark stages (contrasting with their shaded under sides).

These are the colors of the forest-top, — the rug, looking down on it. 

Tufts of coarse grass  are in full bloom along the riverside, — little islets big enough to support a fisherman. 

Again we scare up the herons, who, methinks, will build hereabouts. They were standing by the water side. And again they alight farther below, and we see their light-colored heads erect, and their bodies at various angles as they stoop to drink. And again they flap away with their great slate-blue wings, necks curled up (?) and legs straight out behind, and, having attained a great elevation, they circle back over our heads, now seemingly black as crows against the sky, — crows with long wings, they might be taken for, — but higher and higher they mount by stages in the sky, till heads and tails are lost and they are mere black wavelets amid the blue, one always following close behind the other. They are evidently mated. It would be worth the while if we could see them oftener in our sky. 

Some apple trees are fairly out. 

What is that small slate-colored hawk with black tips to wings?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 14, 1853

Red-wings, now perched on a yielding twig, now pursuing a female swiftly over the meadow, now darting across the stream. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Red-wing in  Early Spring

The Populus grandidentata, just expanding its downy leaves, makes silvery patches in the sun. See
May 10, 1853 ("The P. grandidentata which have flowered show no leaves yet; only very young ones, small downy leaves now"); May 13, 1852 (" The female Populus grandidentata, whose long catkins are now growing old, is now leafing out. The flowerless (male ?) ones show half-unfolded silvery leaves."); May 15, 1854 ("The large P. grandidentata by river not leafing yet.");  May 17, 1858 ("The Populus grandidentata now shows large, silvery, downy, but still folded, leafets.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Big-toothed Aspen (Populus grandidentata)

The yellowbird, kingbird, and pewee, beside many swallows, are also seen. See May 10, 1853 (" New days, then, have come, ushered in by the warbling vireo, yellowbird, Maryland yellow-throat, and small pewee, and now made perfect by the twittering of the kingbird and the whistle of the oriole amid the elms, which are but just beginning to leaf out, ")

It would be worth the while if we could see them oftener in our sky.  See April 22, 1852 ("It would affect our thoughts, deepen and perchance darken our reflections, if such huge birds flew in numbers in our sky. Have the effect of magnetic passes.")

What is that small slate-colored hawk with black tips to wings? See April 24, 1853 ("Marsh (?) hawk, with black tips of wings."); March 27, 1855 ("Marsh hawk, male. Slate-colored; beating the bush; black tips to wings and white rump."); October 18, 1855 ("A large brown marsh hawk comes beating the bush along the river, and ere long a slate-colored one (male), with black tips, is seen circling against a distant wood-side."); May 14, 1857 ("See a pair of marsh hawks, the smaller and lighter-colored male, with black tips to wings, and the large brown female") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier)

I feel as if I could go to sleep under a hedge.

April 26. 

April 26, 2012

Chickweed (Stellaria media), naturalized, shows its humble star-like white flowers now on rather dirty weather-worn branches in low, damp gardens.

Also the smaller white flowers of the shepherd's-purse, which is already six or eight inches high, in the same places, i. e. Cheney's garden. Both, according to Dewey, introduced and naturalized.

What they call April weather, threatening rain notwithstanding the late long-continued rains.

P. M. — Rambled amid the shrub oak hills beyond Hayden's.

Lay on the dead grass in a cup-like hollow sprinkled with half-dead low shrub oaks. As I lie flat, looking close in among the roots of the grass, I perceive that its endless ribbon has pushed up about one inch and is green to that extent, — such is the length to which the spring has gone here, — though when you stand up the green is not perceptible.

It is a dull, rain dropping and threatening afternoon, inclining to drowsiness. I feel as if I could go to sleep under a hedge. The landscape wears a subdued tone, quite soothing to the feelings; no glaring colors.

I begin now to leave off my greatcoat.

The frogs at a distance are now so numerous that, instead of the distinct shrill peeps, it is one dreamy sound. It is not easy to tell where or how far off they are. When you have reached their pool, they seem to recede as you advance. As you squat by the side of the pool, you still see no motion in the water, though your ears ring with the sound, seemingly and probably within three feet.

I sat for ten minutes on the watch, waving my hand over the water that they might betray themselves, a tortoise, with his head out, a few feet off, watching me all the while, till at last I caught sight of a frog under a leaf, and caught and pocketed him; but when I looked afterward, he had escaped.

The moment the dog stepped into the water they stopped. They are very shy. Hundreds filled the air with their shrill peep. Yet two or three could be distinguished by some peculiarity or variation in their note. Are these different?

The Viola ovata budded.

Saw pollywogs two or three inches long.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 26, 1852

Chickweed shows its humble star-like white flowers. Also the smaller white flowers of the shepherd's-purse. See March 5, 1860 ("Chickweed and shepherd's-purse in bloom in C.'s garden");  April 13, 1858  ("Shepherd's-purse already going to seed; in bloom there some time. Also chickweed; how long? "); April 25, 1855 ("Shepherd’s-purse will bloom to-day")

I begin now to leave off my greatcoat. See April 26, 1854 ("It is now so warm that I go back to leave my greatcoat for the first time, and the cooler smell of possible rain is refreshing")

I sat for ten minutes on the watch, till at last I caught sight of a frog under a leaf, and caught and pocketed him. See March 27, 1853 (Stood perfectly still amid the bushes on the shore, before one showed himself; finally five or six, and all eyed me, gradually approached me within three feet to reconnoitre, and, though I waited about half an hour, would not utter a sound.")

The moment the dog stepped into the water they stopped. They are very shy. March 27, 1853 ("Tried to see the faint-croaking frogs at J. P. Brown's Pond in the woods. They are remarkably timid and shy; had their noses and eyes out, croaking, but all ceased, dove, and concealed themselves, before I got within a rod of the shore.")

How we enjoy a warm and pleasant day at this season! We dance like gnats in the sun.

March 25. 

A rainy day. 

P. M.— To Clamshell. 

I heard the what what what what of the nuthatch this forenoon. Do I ever hear it in the afternoon ? It is much like the cackle of the pigeon woodpecker and suggests a relation to that bird. 

Again I walk in the rain and see the rich yellowish browns of the moist banks. These Clamshell hills and neighboring promontories, though it is a dark and rainy day, reflect a certain yellowish light from the wet withered grass which is very grateful to my eyes, as also the darker more reddish browns, as the radical leaves of the Andropogon scoparius in low tufts here and there. (Its culms, where they stand, are quite light yellow.) 

Surely russet is not the name which describes the fields and hillsides now, whether wet or dry. There is not red enough in it. I do not know a better name for this (when wet) yellowish brown than "tawny." 

On the south side of these warm hills, it may perhaps be called one of the fawn-colors, i. e. brown inclining to green. 

Much of this peculiar yellowish color on the surface of the Clamshell plain is due to a little curled sedge or grass growing at short intervals, loosely covering the ground (with green mosses intermixed) in little tufts  like curled hair. 

I saw yesterday, in Laurel Glen, where the early sedge had been grazed very close to the ground, and the same, perhaps digested, fine as green-paint dust, lay around. Was it the work of a mouse? 

Day before yesterday, in clear, dry weather, we had pale-brown or fawn-colored earth, i. e., a dry, withered grass blade [color]; to-day, a more yellow brown or tawny, the same being wet. The wet brings out an agreeable yellow light, as if the sun were shining through a mist on it. The earth is more truly russet in November, when there is more redness left in the withered and withering vegetation. Such is the change in the color of the bare portions of the earth (i. e. bare of trees and bushes) produced by rain. 

Also the oak leaves are much redder. In fair weather the light color of these objects was simply a light reflected from them, originating in the sun and sky; now it is a more proper and inward light, which attracts and confines our attention to moist sward itself. 

A snipe flies away from the moist Clamshell shore, uttering its cr-a-ack c-r-r-rack. 

I thought the other day, How we enjoy a warm and pleasant day at this season! We dance like gnats in the sun. 

A score of my townsmen have been shooting and trapping musquash and mink of late. Some have got nothing else to do. If they should strike for higher wages now, instead of going to the clam-banks, as the Lynn shoemakers propose, they would go to shooting musquash. They are gone all day; early and late they scan the rising tide; stealthily they set their traps in remote swamps, avoiding one another. 

Am not I a trapper too, early and late scanning the rising flood, ranging by distant wood-sides, setting my traps in solitude, and baiting them as well as I know how, that I may catch life and light, that my intellectual part may taste some venison and be invigorated, that my nakedness may be clad in some wild, furry warmth? 

The color of spring hitherto, — I should say that in dry weather it was fawn-colored, in wet more yellowish or tawny. When wet, the green of the fawn is supplied by the lichens and the mosses.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 25, 1859

Lynn shoemakers. See Lynn Shoeworkers Strike ("On March 17th,  1860 a demonstration by 10,000 shoeworkers from Lynn, Salem, Marblehead, and other Essex County towns caused Lynn officials to call in police and militia units from Boston. . . by the end of March growing numbers of shoeworkers had returned to their jobs. By early April, the historic strike was over.")

I heard the what what what what of the nuthatch this forenoon. It is much like the cackle of the pigeon woodpecker. See March 25, 1853 (“I see the white-breasted nuthatch, head downward, on the oaks. First heard his rapid and, as it were, angry gnah gnah gna, and a faint, wiry creaking note about grubs as he moved round the tree. ”); March 25, 1856 (“There have been few if any small migratory birds the past winter. I have not seen a tree sparrow, nuthatch, creeper, nor more than one redpoll since Christmas. ”)  See also note to March 5, 1859 ("Going down-town this forenoon, I heard a white-bellied nuthatch on an elm within twenty feet, uttering peculiar notes and more like a song than I remember to have heard from it. . . .It was something like to-what what what what what, rapidly repeated, and not the usual gnah gnah; and this instant it occurs to me that this may be that earliest spring note which I hear, and have referred to a woodpecker!. . . It is the spring note of the nuthatch”) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Nuthatch

I do not know a better name for this (when wet) yellowish brown than "tawny." The wet brings out an agreeable yellow light, as if the sun were shining through a mist on it. When wet, the green of the fawn is supplied by the lichens and the mosses. See March 26, 1860 ("The brown season extends from about the 6th of March ordinarily into April. . . .. The latter part is dry, the whitish-tawny pastures being parded with brown and green mosses and pale-brown lecheas, which mottle it very pleasingly. This dry whitish-tawny or drab color of the fields - withered grass lit by the sun - is the color of a teamster's coat. It is one of the most interesting effects of light now, when the sun, coming out of clouds, shines brightly on it. It is the fore-glow of the year");  March 16, 1859 ("This first sight of the bare tawny and russet earth, seen afar, perhaps, over the meadow flood in the spring, affects me as the first glimpse of land, his native land, does the voyager who has not seen it a long time.")

Like the note of an alarm-clock set last fall so as to wake Nature up at exactly this date.

March 23. 

March 23, 2019

P. M. — Walk to Cardinal Shore and sail to Well Meadow and Lee's Cliff. 

It clears up at 2 p. m. The Lycoperdon stellatum are numerous and blossomed out widely in Potter's Path by Bare Hill, after the rain of the night. 

As we sail upward toward the pond, we scare up two or three golden-eyes, or whistlers, showing their large black heads and black backs, and afterward I watch one swimming not far before us and see the white spot, amid the black, on the side of his head. I have now no doubt that I saw some on the 21st flying here, and it is very likely that Rice saw them here on the 17th, as he says. 

The pond may be said to be open to-day. There is, however, quite a large mass of ice, which has drifted, since the east wind arose yesterday noon, from the east side over to the north of the Island. 

This ice, of which there may be eight or ten acres, is so very dark, almost black, that it is hard to discern till you are just upon it, though some little pieces which we broke off and left on its edge were very visible for half a mile. When at the edge of this field of ice, it was a very dark gray in color, had none of the usual whiteness of ice. It was about six inches thick, but was most completely honeycombed. The upper surface was not only thus dark, dusky, or blackish, but full of little hollows three to six inches across, and the whole mass undulated with the waves very much, irregular cracks alternately opening and closing in it, yet it was well knitted together. 

With my paddle I could depress it six inches on the edge, and cause it to undulate like a blanket for a rod or more, and yet it bore us securely when we stepped out upon it, and it was by no means easy to break off or detach a piece a foot wide. In short, it was thoroughly honeycombed and, as it were, saturated with water. The masses broken off reminded me of some very decayed and worm-eaten interiors of trees. Yet the small cakes into which it visibly cracked when you bent it and made it undulate were knitted together or dovetailed somewhat like the plates of a tortoise-shell, and immediately returned to their places.  

Though it would bear you, the creaking of one such part on another was a quite general and considerable noise, and one detached mass, rubbed in your hand upon the edge of the field, yielded a singular metallic or ringing sound, evidently owing to its hollowness or innumerable perforations. It had a metallic ring. The moment you raised a mass from the water, it was very distinctly white and brilliant, the water running out from it. This was the relic of that great mass which I saw on the 21st on the east side. 

There was a great quantity of bayonet rush, also, drifted over here and strewn along the shore. This and the pontederia are the coarsest of the wrack. 

Now is the time, then, that it is added to the wrack, probably being ripped up by the ice. It reminds you of the collections of seaweed after a storm, — this river-weed after the spring freshets have melted and dispersed the ice. The ice thus helps essentially to clear the shore. 

I am surprised to see one of those sluggish ghost-horses alive on the ice. It was probably drifted from the shore by the flood and here lodged. 

That dark, uneven ice has a peculiarly coarse-grained appearance, it is so much decomposed. The pieces are interlocked by the irregularities of the perpendicular combing. The underside presents the most continuous surface, and it is held together chiefly on that side. One piece rings when struck on another, like a trowel on a brick, and as we rested against the edge of this ice, we heard a singular wheezing and grating sound, which was the creaking of the ice, which was undulating under the waves and wind. 

As we entered Well Meadow, we saw a hen-hawk perch on the topmost plume of one of the tall pines at the head of the meadow. Soon another appeared, probably its mate, but we looked in vain for a nest there. It was a fine sight, their soaring above our heads, presenting a perfect outline and, as they came round, showing their rust-colored tails with a whitish rump, or, as they sailed away from us, that slight teetering or quivering motion of their dark-tipped wings seen edgewise, now on this side, now that, by which they balanced and directed themselves. 

These are the most eagle-like of our common hawks. They very commonly perch upon the very topmost plume of a pine, and, if motionless, are rather hard to distinguish there. 

The cowslip and most of the skunk-cabbage there have been and are still drowned by flood; else we should find more in bloom. As it is, I see the skunk- cabbage in bloom, but generally the growth of both has been completely checked by the water. 

While reconnoitring there, we hear the peep of one hylodes somewhere in this sheltered recess in the woods. And afterward, on the Lee side, I hear a single croak from a wood frog. 

We cross to Lee's shore and sit upon the bare rocky ridge overlooking the flood southwest and northeast. It is quite sunny and sufficiently warm. I see one or two of the small fuzzy gnats in the air. The prospect thence is a fine one, especially at this season, when the water is high. 

The landscape is very agreeably diversified with hill and vale and meadow and cliff. As we look southwest, how attractive the shores of russet capes and peninsulas laved by the flood! Indeed, that large tract east of the bridge is now an island. How fair that low, undulating russet land! 

At this season and under these circumstances, the sun just come out and the flood high around it, russet, so reflecting the light of the sun, appears to me the most agreeable of colors, and I begin to dream of a russet fairyland and elysium. How dark and terrene must be green! but this smooth russet surface reflects almost all the light. 

That broad and low but firm island, with but few trees to conceal the contour of the ground and its outline, with its fine russet sward, firm and soft as velvet, reflecting so much light, — all the undulations of the earth, its nerves and muscles, revealed by the light and shade, and even the sharper ridgy edge of steep banks where the plow has heaped up the earth from year to year, — this is a sort of fairyland and elysium to my eye. 

The tawny couchant island! Dry land for the Indian's wigwam in the spring, and still strewn with his arrow-points. The sight of such land reminds me of the pleasant spring days in which I have walked over such tracts, looking for these relics. How well, too, this smooth, firm, light-reflecting, tawny earth contrasts with the darker water which surrounds it, — or perchance lighter sometimes! 

At this season, when the russet colors prevail, the contrast of water and land is more agreeable to behold. What an inexpressibly soft curving line is the shore! Or if the water is perfectly smooth and yet rising, you seem to see it raised an eighth of an inch with swelling up above the immediate shore it kisses, as in a cup or the of [sic] a saucer. Indian isles and promontories. 

Thus we sit on that rock, hear the first wood frog's croak, and dream of a russet elysium. Enough for the season is the beauty thereof. Spring has a beauty of its own which we would not exchange for that of summer, and at this moment, if I imagine the fairest earth I can, it is still russet, such is the color of its blessed isles, and they are surrounded with the phenomena of spring. 

The qualities of the land that are most attractive to our eyes now are dryness and firmness. It is not the rich black soil, but warm and sandy hills and plains which tempt our steps. We love to sit on and walk over sandy tracts in the spring like cicindelas. 

These tongues of russet land tapering and sloping into the flood do almost speak to one. They are alternately in sun and shade. When the cloud is passed, and they reflect their pale-brown light to me, I am tempted to go to them. 

I think I have already noticed within a week how very agreeably and strongly the green of small pines contrasts with the russet of a hillside pasture now. Perhaps there is no color with which green contrasts more strongly. 

I see the shadow of a cloud — and it chances to be a hollow ring with sunlight in its midst — passing over the hilly sprout-land toward the Baker house, a sprout-land of oaks and birches; and, owing to the color of the birch twigs, perhaps, this shadow turns all from russet to a decided dark-purplish color as it moves along. 

And then, as I look further along eastward in the horizon, I am surprised to see strong purple and violet tinges in the sun, from a hillside a mile off densely covered with full-grown birches. It is the steep old corn-field hillside of Jacob Baker's. 

I would not have believed that under the spring sun so many colors were brought out. 

It is not the willows only that shine, but, under favorable circumstances, many other twigs, even a mile or two off. 

The dense birches, so far that their white stems are not distinct, reflect deep, strong purple and violet colors from the distant hillsides opposite to the sun.

Can this have to do with the sap flowing in them? 

As we sit there, we see coming, swift and straight, northeast along the river valley, not seeing us and therefore not changing his course, a male goosander, so near that the green reflections of his head and neck are plainly visible. He looks like a paddle-wheel steamer, so oddly painted up, black and white and green, and moves along swift and straight like one. Ere long the same returns with his mate, the red-throated, the male taking the lead. 

The loud peop (?) of a pigeon woodpecker is heard in our sea [?], and anon the prolonged loud and shrill cackle, calling the thin-wooded hillsides and pastures to life. It is like the note of an alarm-clock set last fall so as to wake Nature up at exactly this date. Up up up up up up up up up ! What a rustling it seems to make among the dry leaves! 

You can now sit on sunny sheltered sprout-land hillsides and enjoy the sight and sound of rustling dry leaves. 

Then I see come slowly flying from the southwest a great gull, of voracious form, which at length by a sudden and steep descent alights in Fair Haven Pond, scaring up a crow which was seeking its food on the edge of the ice. This shows that the crows get along the meadow's edge also what has washed up.

 It is suggested that the blue is darkest when reflected from the most agitated water, because of the shadow (occasioned by the inequalities) mingled with it. Some Indians of the north have but one word for blue and black, and blue is with us considered the darkest color, though it is the color of the sky or air. Light, I should say, was white; the absence of it, black. Hold up to the light a perfectly opaque body and you get black, but hold up to it the least opaque body, such as air, and you get blue. Hence you may say that blue is light seen through a veil.

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

A male goosander, so near that the green reflections of his head and neck are plainly visible. He looks like a paddle-wheel steamer, so oddly painted up, black and white and green, and moves along swift and straight like one. See March 17, 1860 (“See a large flock of sheldrakes . . . flying with great force and rapidity over my head in the woods. Now I hear the whistling of their wings, and in a moment they are lost in the horizon. Like swift propellers of the air.”); April 6, 1855 (“I am near enough to see its green head and neck. I am delighted to find a perfect specimen of the Mergus merganser, or goosander, undoubtedly shot yesterday by the Fast-Day sportsmen”); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Merganser, Goosander)

A single croak from a wood frog . . . Thus we sit on that rock, hear the first wood frog's croak. See March 15, 1860 ("Am surprised to hear, from the pool behind Lee's Cliff, the croaking of the wood frog. . . . As Walden opens eight days earlier than I have known it, so this frog croaks about as much earlier.."); March 24, 1859 ("I am sitting in Laurel Glen, listening to hear the earliest wood frogs croaking . . . Now, when the leaves get to be dry and rustle under your feet, dried by the March winds, the peculiar dry note, wurrk wurrk wur-r-r-k wurk of the wood frog is heard faintly by ears on the alert, borne up from some unseen pool in a woodland hollow which is open to the influences of the sun. ")

An alarm-clock set

as to wake Nature up at

exactly this date.

Spring has a beauty –

beauty we would not exchange

for that of summer.

Birches reflect deep 

strong purple and violet 

colors from the hillsides.

Sitting on this rock

we hear the first wood frog’s croak

and begin to dream.

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

 

the brightest object in the landscape these days.

March 20.  

7 a. m. — River no higher than three days ago, notwithstanding the rain of two days ago, the wind being southwest and very strong. 

P. M. — I see under the east side of the house amid the evergreens, where they were sheltered from the cold northwest wind, quite a parcel of sparrows, chiefly F. hyemalis, two or three tree sparrows, and one song sparrow, quietly feeding together. I watch them through a window within six or eight feet. They evidently love to be sheltered from the wind, and at least are not averse to each other's society. 

The tree sparrows sing a little. One perches on a bush to sing, while others are feeding on the ground, but he is very restless on his perch, hopping about and stooping as if dodging those that fly over. He must perch on some bit of stubble or twig to sing. They are evidently picking up the seeds of weeds which lie on the surface of the ground invisible to our eyes. They suffer their wings to hang rather loose. 

The F. hyemalis is the largest of the three. They have remarkably distinct light-colored bills, and when they stretch, show very distinct clear-white lateral tail-feathers. This stretching seems to be contagious among them, like yawning with us. They have considerable brown on the quill-feathers. 

The tree sparrows are much brighter brown and white than the song sparrow. 

The latter alone scratches once or twice, and is more inclined to hop or creep close to the ground, under the fallen weeds. Perhaps it deserves most to be called the ground-bird. 

P. M. — Up Assabet. 

Very strong northwest wind. 

When I get opposite the end of the willow-row, the sun comes out and they are very handsome, like a rosette, pale-tawny or fawn-colored at base and a rich yellow or orange yellow in the upper three or four feet. 

This is, methinks, the brightest object in the landscape these days. Nothing so betrays the spring sun. I am aware that the sun has come out of a cloud first by seeing it lighting up the osiers. Such a willow-row, cut off within a year or two, might be called a heliometer, or measure of the sun's brightness. 

The last year's shoots of many trees — as maples, both white and red — retain a permanent bright color, red or scarlet, all winter and spring, till new ones  grow. The top of the forest is thus very agreeably tinged. 

The river is so high that I leave it at Pinxter Swamp, and come into it again only at the swift narrow place above, near the road.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 20, 1859

The F. hyemalis have remarkably distinct light-colored bills, and when they stretch, show very distinct clear-white lateral tail-feathers.. . . They have considerable brown on the quill-feathers See March 20, 1852 ("And now, within a day or two, I have noticed the chubby slate-colored snowbird (Fringilla hyemalis?), and I drive the flocks before me on the railroad causeway as I walk. It has two white feathers in its tail")'; March 20, 1855 ("At my landing I hear the F. hyemalis, in company with a few tree sparrows. They take refuge from the cold wind, half a dozen in all, behind an arbor-vitae hedge, and there plume themselves with puffed-up feathers."); March 20, 1858 ("The note of the F. hyemalis, or chill-lill, is a jingle, with also a shorter and drier crackling or shuffling chip as it flits by."); March 28, 1853 ("The woods ring with the cheerful jingle of the F. hyemalis. This is a very trig and compact little bird, and appears to be in good condition. The straight edge of slate on their breasts contrasts remarkably with the white from beneath ; the short, light-colored bill is also very conspicuous amid the dark slate ; and when they fly from you, the two white feathers in their tails are very distinct at a good distance. They are very lively, pursuing each other from bush to bush."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Dark-eyed Junco.

The tree sparrows sing a little. See March 20, 1855 ("At my landing I hear the F. hyemalis, in company with a few tree sparrows. They take refuge from the cold wind, half a dozen in all, behind an arbor-vitae hedge, and there plume themselves with puffed-up feathers.");March 20, 1858 ("The tree sparrow is perhaps the sweetest and most melodious warbler at present and for some days."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Tree Sparrow.