Interesting to me are their habits and conversation who live along the shores of a great river.

April 27.

Haverhill. — The warbling vireo.

Talked with a fisherman, who was cracking and eating walnuts on a post before his hut.

He said he got twenty cents a stick for sawing marked logs, which were mostly owned at Lowell, but trees that fell in and whatever was not marked belonged to them. Much went by in the ice and could not be got.They haul it in and tie it.

He called it Little Concord where I lived. They got some small stuff which came from that river, and said he knew the ice, it was blue (it is not) and was turned over by the falls.

The Lawrence dam breaks up the ice so now that it will not be so likely to jam below and produce a freshet.

Said a thousand dollars' damage was done by a recent freshet to the farm just above, at the great bend. The wind blowing on to the shore ate it away, trees and all. In the greatest freshet he could remember, methinks about ten years ago, the water came up to his window-sill.

His family took refuge on the hillside.

His barn was moved and tipped over, his well filled up, and it took him, with help, a day or more to clear a passage through the ice from his door to his well. His trees were all prostrated by the ice. This was apparently between twenty and thirty feet above the present level.

Says the railroad bridge hurts the fishing by stopping the ice and wearing away and deepening the channel near the north shore, where they fish, — draw their seines. Call it sixty rods wide, — their seines being thirty rods long, and twenty-five feet deep in the middle.

Interesting to me are their habits and conversation who live along the shores of a great river.

The shore, here some seventy or eighty feet high, is broken by gullies, more or less sandy, where water has flowed down, and the cottages rise not more than one sixth or one seventh the way up.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 27, 1853

.

The warbling vireo. See May 6, 1852 ("Hear the first warbling vireo this morning on the elms. This almost makes a summer."): 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")

Haverhill. —  See April 11, 1853 ("To Haverhill via Cambridge and Boston."); April 13, 1853 (" First shad caught at Haverhill to-day.");April 19, 1853 ("Haverhill. — Willow and bass strip freely."); April 21, 1853 ("Haverhill. — A peach tree in bloom."); April 23, 1853 ("Haverhill — Martins."); April 24, 1863 ("Sunday. To and around Creek Pond and back over Parsonage hill, Haverhill."); April 29, 1853 (" Return to Concord."); May 16, 1853 ("Had thunder-shower while I was in Haverhill in April.")

They got some small stuff which came from that river. See November 4, 1858 ("When the Haverhill fishermen told me that they could distinguish the Concord River stuff (i. e. driftwood) I see they were right, for much of it is chestnut rails, and of these they have but few.")

Red-wings do not fly in flocks for ten days past

May 11. 

May 11, 2019

The river no lower than yesterday. 

Warbling vireo. 

2 P. M. — 77º. Very warm. To factory village. 

Redstart. 

Red-wings do not fly in flocks for ten days past, I think. 

I see at Damon’s Spring some dandelion seeds all blown away, and other perfectly ripe spheres much more at Clamshell the 13th). It is ripe, then, several days, or say just before elm seed, but the mouse-ear not on the 13th anywhere. 

The senecio shows its yellow. 

The warmth makes us notice the shade of houses and trees (even before the last have leafed) falling on the greened banks, as Harrington’s elm and house. June-like. 

See some large black birch stumps all covered with pink scum from the sap. 

The Ranunculus abortivus well out; say five days? 

Red cherry in bloom, how long? 

Yellow violet, almost; say to-morrow. 

William Brown’s nursery is now white (fine white) with the shepherd’s-purse, some twelve to eighteen inches high, covering it under his small trees, like buck wheat, though not nearly so white as that. I never saw so much. It also has green pods. Say it is in prime. 

E. Hosmer, as a proof that the river has been lower than now, says that his father, who was born about the middle of the last century, used to tell of a time, when he was a boy, when the river just below Derby’s Bridge did not run, and he could cross it dry-shod on the rocks, the water standing in pools when Conant’s mill (where the factory now is) was not running. 

I noticed the place to-day, and, low as the river is for the season, it must be at least a foot and a half deep there.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 11, 1860

 Red-wings do not fly in flocks for ten days past, I think. See April 30, 1855 ("Red-wing blackbirds now fly in large flocks, covering the tops of trees—willows, maples, apples, or oaks—like a black fruit , and keep up an incessant gurgling and whistling");  May 5, 1859 ("Red-wings fly in flocks yet."). May 13, 1860 ("Red wings are evidently busy building their nests.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Red-wing in  Early Spring

Dandelion seeds all blown away, and other perfectly ripe spheres. See May 9, 1858 ("A dandelion perfectly gone to seed, a complete globe, a system in itself.")

The senecio shows its yellow. See May 23, 1853 ("I am surprised by the dark orange-yellow of the senecio. At first we had the lighter, paler spring yellows of willows, dandelion, cinquefoil, then the darker and deeper yellow of the buttercup; and then this broad distinction between the buttercup and the senecio, as the seasons revolve toward July.")

Large black birch stumps all covered with pink scum from the sap. See April 26, 1856 ("The white birch at Clamshell, which I tapped long ago, still runs and is partly covered with a pink froth. Is not this the only birch which shows this colored froth?")

The Ranunculus abortivus [Kidneyleaf Crowfoot] well out; say five days? See May 16, 1859 ("Ranunculus abortivus well out (when?), southwest angle of Damon's farm.");May 25, 1858 ("See an abundance of Ranunculus abortivus in the wood-path behind Mr. E.'s house, going to seed and in bloom. The branches are fine and spreading, about eight or ten inches high.")

Yellow violet, almost; say to-morrow. See May 16, 1853 ("Yellow violets  yesterday at least. "); May 18, 1856 ("E. Emerson finds half a dozen yellow violets."); May 25, 1852 ("The large yellow woods violet (V. pubescens) by this brook now out"); 

A warbling vireo in the elm-tops

September 6. 

September 6, 2019

Hear the sounds nowadays — the lowing, tramp, and calls of the drivers — of cows coming down from up-country. 

Staghorn sumach berries probably some time, but ours are injured by worms. 

The fever-bush leaves are remarkably round and entire yet, as if by their odor defended from insects. 

The feverwort berries are apparently nearly in their prime, of a clear "corn yellow " and as large as a small cranberry, in whorls at the axils of the leaves of the half- prostrate plants. 

I hear occasionally a half-warbled strain from a warbling vireo in the elm-tops, as I go down the street nowadays. There is about as much life in their notes now as in the enfeebled and yellowing elm tree leaves at present. 

The liatris is, perhaps, a little past prime. It is a very rich purple in favorable lights and makes a great show where it grows. Any one to whom it is new will be surprised to learn that it is a wild plant. For prevalence and effect it may be put with the vernonia, and it has a general resemblance to thistles and knapweed, but is a handsomer plant than any of them.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 6, 1859

Cows coming down from up-country. See August 24, 1853 ("I see cattle coming down from up-country. Why? "); September 20, 1852 ("Droves of cattle have for some time been coming down from up-country"); October 28, 1858 ("Cattle coming down from up country.") See also  April 30, 1860 ("Cattle begin to go up-country."); May 4, 1853 ("Cattle are going up country."); May 6, 1855 ("Road full of cattle going up country.”); May 7, 1856 ("For a week the road has been full of cattle going up country. "); May 8, 1854 ("I hear the voices of farmers driving their cows past to their up-country pastures now."); May 10, 1852 ("This Monday the streets are full of cattle being driven up-country, — cows and calves and colts.").

The feverwort berries are apparently nearly in their prime. See August 23, 1853 ("The feverwort berries are yellowing and yellowed.")

A half-warbled strain from a warbling vireo in the elm-tops. See  September 6, 1858 ("Hear a warbling vireo, sounding very rare and rather imperfect. "); see also May 4, 1855 ("I think I hear a warbling vireo"); May 6, 1852 ("Hear the first warbling vireo this morning on the elms. This almost makes a summer. "): May 10, 1858 ("The warbling vireo cheers the elms with a strain for which they must have pined. "); May 29, 1855 ("the warbling vireo, with its smooth-flowing, continuous, one-barred, shorter strain, with methinks a dusky side-head ). August 9, 1856 (“The notes of the wood pewee and warbling vireo are more prominent of late, and of the goldfinch twittering over.”);August 25, 1858 ("The note of a warbling vireo sounds very rare"); September 4, 1853 ("Hear a warbling vireo, — something rare"); September 13, 1858 ("Hear many warbling vireos these mornings"); September 16, 1852 ("The jay screams; the goldfinch twitters; the barberries are red. The corn is topped. I hear a warbling vireo in the village, which I have not heard for long."); September 20, 1858 ("Hear warbling vireos still, in the elms");

The liatris is, perhaps, a little past prime. See August 1, 1856 ("Liatris will apparently open in a day or two.");August 26, 1858 ("The liatris is about (or nearly) in prime."); September 28, 1858 ("Liatris done, apparently some time."). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Liatris

The first thunder this afternoon.

May 9. 

Black birch May 9, 2015

Surveying for Stow near Flint's Pond. 

Hear the warbling vireo and oven-bird; yellow-throat vireo(?). 

One helping me says he scared up a whip-poor-will from the ground. 

See black birch bloom fallen effete. 

The first thunder this afternoon.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 9, 1859

Hear the warbling vireo and oven-bird; yellow-throat vireo See May 9, 1860 ("Oven-bird, how long? ). See also May 1, 1852 ("I think I heard an oven-bird just now, - wicher wicher whicher wich.");  May 6, 1852 ("Hear the first warbling vireo this morning on the elms. This almost makes a summer. "); May 6, 1859 ("  Hear yellow-throat vireo, and probably some new warblers."); May 10, 1858 ("As I paddle along, hear the Maryland yellow-throat, the bobolink, the oven-bird, and the yellow-throated vireo.")

The first thunder this afternoon. See May 11, 1859 (“In that first thunder-shower, the evening of the 9th, the grass evidently erected itself and grew darker, as it were instantaneously”); see also May 10, 1857 ("Before night a sudden shower with some thunder and lightning; the first.”); May 11, 1854 (“It is surprising what an electrifying effect this shower appears to have had. It is like the christening of the summer. I suspect that summer weather may be always ushered in in a similar manner, — thunder-shower, rainbow, smooth water, and warm night”); May 12, 1858 (“I see now, as I go forth on the river, the first summer shower coming up in the northwest, a dark and well defined cloud with rain falling sheaf-like from it, . . .The thunder-cloud is like the ovary of a perfect flower. Other showers are merely staminiferous or barren. There are twenty barren to one fertile. It is not commonly till thus late in the season that the fertile are seen. In the thunder-cloud, so distinct and condensed, there is a positive energy, and I notice the first as the bursting of the pollen-cells in the flower of the sky.”)

Hear warbling vireos still, in the elms.

September 20. 

The river probably reaches its highest since June to-day. 

The Maryland yellow-throat is here. Hear warbling vireos still, in the elms. 

Miss Pratt shows me a small luminous bug found on the earth floor of their shed (I think a month ago). Had two bright points in its tail, as bright or brighter than the glow-worm. 

Vide it in paper. It is now dried, three eighths of an inch long by somewhat more than one eighth wide, ovate-oblong with a broad and blunt head, dull straw-color, clear rose—red on the sides, composed of many segments, which give it a dentate appearance on the edges. A broad flattish kind of shield in front, also red and straw-color.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 20, 1858

The Maryland yellow-throat is here. See August 22, 1856 ("The faint warbling I hear nowadays is from apparently the young Maryland yellow- throats, as it were practicing against another spring, — half-finished strains. ")

Hear warbling vireos still, in the elms. See August 25, 1858 ("The note of a warbling vireo sounds very rare");  September 6, 1858 ("Hear a warbling vireo, sounding very rare and rather imperfect.); September 13, 1858 ("Hear many warbling vireos these mornings"

Miss Pratt shows me a small luminous bug. Compare June 25, 1852 ("Nature loves variety in all things, and so she adds glow-worms to fireflies. . ."); June 15, 1856 ("A Miss Martha Le Barron describes to me a phosphorescence on the beach at night in Narragansett Bay. They wrote their names with some minute creatures on the sand."}; September 16, 1857 (“Watson gave me three glow-worms which he found by the roadside in Lincoln last night. They exhibit a greenish light, only under the caudal extremity, and intermittingly, or at will. As often as I touch one in a dark morning, it stretches and shows its light for a moment, only under the last segment.”);

Many yellow butterflies in road and fields all the country over.

September 13. 

P. M._—To Annursnack.

September 13, 2018

 Solidago puberula, apparently in prime and handsome, roadside, Colburn’s Hill. 

I noticed the black willows quite imbrowned on the 10th, and the button-bushes beginning to look yellowish. 

A. Hosmer is pleased because from the cupola of his new barn he can see a new round-topped mountain in the northwest. Is curious to know what one it is. Says that if he lived as near Annursnack as Heywood does, he should go up it once a week, but he supposes that Heywood does not go up it more than once a year. 

What is that grass still in bloom a foot or more in height in Heywood’s potato-field, some fifty rods west of house leek? It is somewhat like what I have wrongly called Danthonia spicata, but with a longer and a round spike, etc., etc. Vide press. 

There is a man there mowing the Panicum Crus-galli, which is exceedingly rank and dense, completely concealing the potatoes, which have never been hoed, it was so wet. He saves this grass and says the cattle like it well. 

I notice that the large ant-hills, though they prevent bushes and ferns from growing where they are built, keeping open a space four to seven feet wide in their midst, do not keep out grass, but they are commonly little grassy mounds with bare tops. 

Looking from the top of Annursnack, the aspect of the earth generally is still a fresh green, especially the woods, but many dry fields, where apparently the June-grass has withered uncut, are a very pale tawny or lighter still. It is fit that some animals should be nearly of this color. The cougar would hardly be observed stealing across these plains. In one place I still detect the ruddiness of sorrel. 

Euphorbia hypericifolia still, and gone to seed, on the top of Annursnack. 

From many a barn these days I hear the sound of the flail. For how many generations this sound will continue to be heard here! At least until they discover a new way of separating the chaff from the wheat.

Saw one raking cranberries on the 10th; rather early.

A small dense flock of wild pigeons dashes by over the side of the hill, from west to east, — perhaps from Wetherbee’s to Brooks’s, for I see the latter’s pigeon place. They make a dark slate-gray impression. 

Fringed gentian out well, on easternmost edge of the Painted-Cup Meadows, by wall.[Caroline Pratt tells me the 20th that her father found it out full a fortnight before that date!]

Saw a striped snake run into the wall, and just before it disappeared heard a loud sound like a hiss! I think it could hardly have been made by its tail among leaves. 

The squirrels know better than to open unsound hazelnuts. At most they only peep into them. I see some on the walls with a little hole gnawed in them, enough to show that they are empty. 

Muskmelons and squashes are turning yellow in the ‘  gardens, and ferns in the swamps. 

Hear many warbling vireos these mornings.

Many yellow butterflies in road and fields all the country over.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 13, 1858

Fringed gentian out well, on easternmost edge of the Painted-Cup Meadows, by wall. See October 12, 1857 ("To Annursnack. . . .The fringed gentian by the brook opposite is in its prime, and also along the north edge of the Painted-Cup Meadows")

Many yellow butterflies in road and fields all the country over. See September 4, 1856 ("Butterflies in road a day or two. "); September 3, 1854 (“I see some fleets of yellow butterflies in the damp road after the rain, as earlier.”); September 11, 1852 ("I see some yellow butterflies and others occasionally and singly only."); September 17, 1852 ("Still the oxalis blows, and yellow butterflies are on the flowers"); September 19, 1859 (" See many yellow butterflies in the road this very pleasant day after the rain of yesterday. One flutters across between the horse and the wagon safely enough, though it looks as if it would be run down.")

That swamp is a singularly wild place

September 6.

 6 A. M. — To Merrick’s shore. 

Hear a warbling vireo, sounding very rare and rather imperfect. I think this is what I have mistaken for the young purple finch note. 

Also hear apparently a yellow-throated vireo. 

That fine spreading-panicled dark-purple grass, now rising all along the river near the waterside, is Panicum agrostoides; in prime. That finer and narrower-panicled, now out of bloom, is red-top, or else white bent; with the former.

River risen still higher, and weeds covered.

 P. M. — To Ledum Swamp. 

Going over Clamshell Plain, I see a very large flock of a hundred or more cowbirds about some cows. They whirl away on some alarm and alight on a neighboring rail fence, close together on the rails, one above another. Then away they whirl and settle on a white oak top near me. Half of them are evidently quite young birds, having glossy black breasts with a drab line down middle. The heads of all are light-colored, perhaps a slaty drab, and some apparently wholly of this color. 

On the hillside above Clamshell Ditch, grows that handsome grass of Sept. 1st (vide September 4th), evidently Sorghum nutans (Andropogon of Bigelow), chestnut beard grass, Indian grass, wood grass. It is much larger than what I saw before; is still abundantly in flower; four and a half feet high; leaves, perhaps arundinaceous, eighteen inches long; panicle, nine inches long. It is a very handsome, wild-looking grass, well enough called Indian grass, and I should have named it with the other andropogons, August 26th. 

With its narrow one-sided panicle of bright purple and yellow (I include the yellow anthers) often waving [?], raised high above the leaves, it looks like a narrow banner. It is of more vivid colors than its congeners, and might well have caught an Indian’s eye. These bright banners are now advanced on the distant hillsides, not in large armies, but scattered troops or single file, like the red men themselves. They stand thus fair and bright in our midst, as it were representative of the race which they are named after, but for the most part unobserved. It stands like an Indian chief taking a last look at his beloved hunting grounds. 

The expression of this grass haunted me for a week after I first passed and noticed it, like the glance of an eye. 

Aster patens past prime at Money-Diggers’ Hill. Polygonum tenue, how long? 

Solidago nemoralis is apparently in prime on Lupine Hill; some of it past. It is swarming with butterflies, — yellow, small red, and large, — fluttering over it. 

At Ledum Pool edge, I find the Woodwardia Virginica fern, its fruit mostly turned deep reddish-brown. It appears to grow only close to the pool, part of the fruit forming two lines parallel with the midrib. A third part of the nesaea there is turned scarlet. Kalmia glauca is again in bloom. The hairy huckleberries are rather scarce and soft. They are in sipid and leave a hairy skin in the month. 

That swamp is a singularly wild place, without any natural outlet. I hear of a marsh hawk’s nest there this summer. I see great spiders there of an uncommon kind, whose webs —the main supporting line — stretch six feet in the clear from spruce to spruce, as high as my head, with a dense web of the usual form some fifteen inches in diameter beneath. 

Stopped and talked with W. W. and ate a watermelon with him on the grass. Once his senseless democracy appeared. He spoke with an ignorant pride of Buchanan’s telegraphic message, of which most of us were ashamed; said he supposed he had more learning than Victoria! But the less said about them the better. 

Seeing a stake-driver flying up the river, he observed that when you saw that bird flying about it was a never failing sign of a storm approaching. How many of these sayings like this arise not from a close and frequent observation of the phenomena of nature, but from a distant and casual one!

I find very common in prime by roadsides, in dry ground, etc., Vilfa vaginaeflora, rush grass, hidden-flowered vilfa; also by Corner roadside, beyond brooks, Panicum filiforme with and like P. sanguinale, apparently in prime, and with last fills the old mullein-field in front of Bear Garden Hill. 

Is that narrowly-linear-leaved potamogeton, all immersed and now forming dense beds in the Assabet, a distinct species, or only the immersed leaves of one? Vide pressed. 

A year ago last spring I gave to Edith Emerson and to Sophia some clasping hound’s-tongue seeds, it being very rare hereabouts, wishing to spread it. Now and for a long time it has been a pest in the garden (it does not bloom till the second year), by its seeds clinging to our clothes. Mrs. E. has carried it to Boston thus, and I have spent twenty minutes at once in clearing myself of it. So it is in a fair way to be dispersed.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 6, 1858


Hear a warbling vireo, sounding very rare and rather imperfect. I think this is what I have mistaken for the young purple finch note. See note to  September 6, 1859 ("I hear occasionally a half-warbled strain from a warbling vireo in the elm-tops, as I go down the street nowadays"); also  September 3, 1858 ("I hear a faint warble from time to time from some young or old birds, from my window these days. Is it the purple finch again, — young birds practicing?"); August 25, 1858 ("The note of a warbling vireo sounds very rare")


Now and for a long time it has been a pest in the garden. See June 5, 1858 ("Clasping hound's-tongue in garden.")

Botanizing the grasses and sedges

August 25. 

It has been cool and especially windy from the northwest since the 19th, inclusive, but is stiller now.

The note of a warbling vireo sounds very rare. 

P. M. — To Lupine Hill and beyond. 

I see a mouse on the dry hillside this side of Clamshell. 

It is evidently the short-tailed meadow mouse, or Arvicola hirsuta. Generally above, it is very dark brown, almost blackish, being browner forward. It is also dark beneath. Tail but little more than one inch long. Its legs must be very short, for I can hardly glimpse them. Its nose is not sharp. It endeavors to escape down the hill to the meadow, and at first glides along in a sort of path (?), methinks. It glides close to the ground under the stubble and tries to conceal itself. 

I gather from Nut Meadow Brook, not far below the road, a potamogeton (perhaps P. Clayton heterophylus of Gray), which Russell said was the one by road at Jenny Dugan’s). It is still out. Has handsome broad, grassy immersed leaves and somewhat elliptic floating ones. 

I distinguish these plants this afternoon: 

• Cyperus filiculmis (mariscoides, or tuberous cyperus of Bigelow) in arid, sandy pastures, with globular green heads and slender, commonly slanting culms, five to twelve inches long. It is perhaps getting stale. 

• The prevalent grass in John Hosmer’s meadow I take to be cut-grass? [no] Long since done, and the leaves now commonly purplish, reflecting that color in the sun from a distance. 

• The Paspalum setaceum (ciliatifolium), my saw-grass, which I have seen for some time, commonly cut off by the mowers, apparently in prime or past. 

• Eragrostis pectinacea (Poa hirsuta), hair spear-grass, perhaps not quite so bright as heretofore. Money-Diggers’ Hollow has the most of it. Say a week in prime. 

• Fimbrystilis capillaris (Scirpus capillaris), that little scirpus turning yellowish in sandy soil, as our garden and Lupine Hill sand. Some time in prime. 

• Cyperus strigosus under Clamshell Hill, that yellowish fuzzy headed plant, five to twelve inches high, now apparently in prime. Also in Mrs. Hoar’s garden. 

• Also Cyperus phymatodes, very much like last, in Mrs. Hoar’s garden, which has little tubers at a distance from the base; apparently in prime. 

• Cyperus dentatus (?), with flat spikelets, under Solidago rigida Bank, apparently in prime; also Pout’s Nest, with round fascicles of leaves amid spikes. 

• Juncus scirpoides (?)[Is it not paradoxes? Vide Aug. 30] (polycephalus, many-headed of Bigelow), at Alder Ditch and in Great Meadows, etc., perhaps some time. 

• Andropogon furcatus, forked beard grass, Solidago rigida Bank, a slender grass three to seven feet high on dry soil, apparently in prime with digitate purple spikes, all over hillside behind Caesar’s. 

• Setaria glauca, glaucous panic grass, bottle grass, sometimes called fox-tail, tawny yellow, going to seed, Mrs. Hoar’s garden. 

• Setaria viridis, green bottle grass, in garden, some going to seed, but later than the last. These two I have called millet grass. 

• Aristida dichotomy  poverty grass, slender, curving, purplish, in tufts on sterile soil, looking White fuzzy as it goes to seed; apparently in prime.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 25, 1858

The note of a warbling vireo sounds very rare. See August 9, 1856 (“The notes of the wood pewee and warbling vireo are more prominent of late, and of the goldfinch twittering over.”)

I hear they had a snow-storm yesterday in Vermont.

May 11. 

Warbling vireo and chewink. 

May 11, 2016

May 9, 2020

A very cold northwest wind. I hear they had a snow-storm yesterday in Vermont.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 11, 1857

Warbling vireo. See  May 11, 1860 ("Warbling vireo."); See also,  May 6, 1852 ("Hear the first warbling vireo this morning on the elms. This almost makes a summer. "); May 10, 1853 (“ New days, then, have come, ushered in by the warbling vireo, yellowbird, Maryland yellow-throat, and small pewee . . .  The warbling vireo cheers the elms with a strain for which they must have pined. "); May 29, 1855 ("the warbling vireo, with its smooth-flowing, continuous, one-barred, shorter strain, with methinks a dusky side-head ). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Birds of May

I hear they had a snow-storm yesterday in Vermont. See April 12, 1855 ("From the Cliff Hill the mountains are again thickly clad with snow, and, the wind being northwest, this coldness is accounted for. I hear it fell fourteen or fifteen inches deep in Vermont.")

May 11. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, May 11

A cold northwest wind. 

I hear they had a snow-storm 

yesterday in Vermont.

A succession of thunder-storms merged into one long thunder-storm, lasting almost continuously two nights and two days.

August 9.

Saturday. 

Notwithstanding the very copious rain, with lightning, on the night of August 5th and the deluge which fell yesterday, raising the river still higher, it rained again and again with very vivid lightning, more copiously than ever, last night, and without long intervals all this day. 

Few, if any, can remember such a succession of thunder-storms merged into one long thunder-storm, lasting almost continuously (the storm does) two nights and two days. 

We are surprised to see that it can lighten just as vividly, thunder just as loud, rain just as copiously at last as at first. 

P. M. — Up Assabet. 

The river is raised about two feet! My boat is nearly even full, though under the willows. The water stands nearly a foot over the highest part of the large flat rock by Island. There is more current. The pads are drowned; hardly one to be seen afloat; the utmost length of their tethers does not permit them to come within a foot or ten inches of the surface. They lay smoothly on the top before, with considerable spare coil beneath; now they strain in vain toward the surface. All the Bidens Beckii is drowned too, and will be delayed, if not exterminated for this year. The water is cool to the bather after so much rain.

The notes of the wood pewee and warbling vireo are more prominent of late, and of the goldfinch twittering over. 

Does the last always utter his twitter when ascending? These are already feeding on the thistle seeds. 

Again I am surprised to see the Apocynum cannabinum close to the rock at the Island, several plants, apparently not more than ten days out; say July 25th, including the ones I saw before. The flowers of this are white, with divisions of the corolla erect or nearly so, corolla not one eighth of an inch wide, calyx-segments lanceolate, pointed, as long as the tube of the corolla. I now notice that all the branches are about equally upright, and hence the upper ones are much more upright than the upper ones of the A. andro-soemifolium. The plant is inclined to be taller and narrower than that, perhaps because it grows by water. The leaves are more oblong or lanceolate and pointed, the downiness and petioles about the same with that of the common; in this case, none heart-shaped. The one found the 5th was between this and the common, a rose-streaked one, in fact colored like the common; this, a white one with still longer calyx-segments and no heart-shaped leaves. This is rather smooth. Say, then, for that of the 5th and this, they are varieties of the A. cannabinum.

I scare up a couple of wood ducks separately, undoubtedly birds bred and dispersed about here. The rise of the river attracts them. 

What I have called Aster corymbosus out a day, above Hemlocks. It has eight to twelve white rays, smaller than those of the macrophyllus, and a dull-red stem commonly. It differs from Gray's corymbosus in the achenia being apparently not slender, not opening in July, and there being no need of distinguishing it from A. macrophyllus; from his cordifolius in the rays not being numerous, nor the panicled heads very numerous (sometimes pretty numerous), and the rays not pale-blue.

Perhaps I must call it A. cordifolius, yet the lower and principal petioles are naked (Gray makes them so commonly!), not at all winged, though the upper are. Found one individual at Miles Swamp whose lower petioles were winged. Its petioles (the lower) are only sometimes winged here. The flowers of A. macrophyllus are white with a very slight bluish tinge, in a coarse flat-topped corymb. Flowers nine to ten eighths of an inch in diameter. A. cordifolius flowers six eighths of an inch diameter.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 9, 1856

Few, if any, can remember such a succession of thunder-storms. See September 6, 1854 ("There is now approaching from the west one of the heaviest thunder-showers (apparently) and with the most incessant flashes that I remember to have seen. ")

 The water stands nearly a foot over the highest part of the large flat rock by Island. See March 17, 1859 ("Here is Mantatuket Rock, commonly a rocky peninsula with a low or swampy neck and all covered with wood. It is now a small rocky island, and not only the swampy neck but a considerable portion of the upland is blotted out by the flood, covered and concealed under water."); August 1, 1859 ("The west edge of the Rock above Island is eleven and a half inches above summer level. . . . Is this rise owing to the water let on from various mill-ponds this Monday morning?")

The notes of the wood pewee and warbling vireo are more prominent of late. See August 18, 1860 ("The note of the wood pewee sounds prominent of late.”)

The goldfinch twittering over. . . already feeding on the thistle seeds. See August 6, 1852 (“With the goldenrod comes the goldfinch. About the time his cool twitter is heard, does not the bobolink, thrasher, catbird, oven-bird, veery, etc ., cease?”); August 7, 1853 (“The river is dark and smooth these days, reflecting no brightness but dark clouds, and the goldfinch is heard twittering over.”); August 10, 1854 (“The tinkling notes of goldfinches and bobolinks which we hear nowadays are of one character and peculiar to the season. They are nuts of sound, --ripened seeds of sound. . . like the sparkle on water.”); August 12, 1854 (“I see goldfinches nowadays on the lanceolate thistles, apparently after the seeds.”); August 15, 1854 (“On the top of the Hill I see the goldfinch eating the seeds of the Canada thistle. I rarely approach a bed of them or other thistles nowadays but I hear the cool twitter of the goldfinch about it.“); August 14, 1858 ("The Canada thistle down is now begun to fly, and I see the goldfinch upon it."); September 4, 1860 (“The goldfinch is very busy pulling the thistle to pieces.”)

Again I am surprised to see theApocynum cannabinum close to the rock at the Island: . . . See August 1, 1857 ("Small Apocynum cannabinum on the rocks .") July 11, 1857 ("Apocynum cannabinum, with its small white flowers and narrow sepals . . "); August 5, 1856 ("At the Assabet stone bridge, apparently freshly in flower, . . . apparently the Apocynum cannabinum var. hypericifolium (?).”) and note to September 2, 1856 ("Some years ago I sought for Indian hemp (Apocynum cannabinum) hereabouts in vain, and concluded that it did not grow here. A month or two ago I read again, as many times before, that its blossoms were very small, scarcely a third as large as those of the common species, and for some unaccountable reason this distinction kept recurring to me, and I regarded the size of the flowers I saw, though I did not believe that it grew here; and in a day or two my eyes fell on it, aye, in three different places, and different varieties of it.")

Apocynum means "poisonous to dogs". All parts of the plant are poisonous and can cause cardiac arrest if ingested. The cannabinum in the scientific name and the common names Hemp Dogbane and Indian Hemp refer to its similarity to cannabis as a fiber plant.  ~ Wikipedia

What I have called Aster corymbosus out a day, above Hemlocks. Perhaps I must call it A. cordifolius. See August 11, 1852 ("Aster corymbosus, path beyond Corner Spring and in Miles Swamp "); September 22, 1858 [from Salem to Cape Ann on foot] ("I had seen in this day’s walk an abundance of Aster cordifolius . . . also saw A. corymbosus, which is a handsome white wood aster"); September 6, 1856 ("For the first time distinguish the Aster cordifolius, a prevailing one in B[rattleboro] and but just beginning to flower")

Aster corymbosus and Aster cordifolius -- white and blue wood asters. Wood asters are now classified as genus Eurybia This genus’s species in New England:
Eurybia divaricata [Aster corymbosus ]
Eurybia macrophylla
Eurybia radula
Eurybia schreberi
Eurybia spectabilis

August 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  August 9

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

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

Birding at Kalmia glauca Swamp.

May 13. 

May 13, 2016

Hear a warbling vireo. 

Dandelions by road side; probably several days in some places.

P. M. — Up river to Kalmia glauca Swamp. 

In the swallows’ holes behind Dennis’s, I find two more dead bank swallows, and one on the sand beneath, and the feathers of two more which some creature has eaten. This makes at least seven dead bank swallows in consequence of the long, cold northeast rain. 

A male harrier, skimming low, had nearly reached this sand pit before he saw me and wheeled. Could it have been he that devoured the swallows? 

These swallows were 10 3/4+ alar extent, 4 3/4 inches long; a wing 4 3/4+ by 1 3/4+. Above they were a light brown on their backs, wings blackish, beneath white, with a dark-brown band over the breast and, again white throat and side of neck; bill small and black; reddish-brown legs, with long, sharp, slender claws. It chanced that each one of two I tried weighed between five and six sixteenths of an ounce, or between five and six drams avoirdupois. This seems to be the averge weight, or say six drams because they have pined a little. 

A man who weighs one hundred and fifty pounds weighs sixty-four hundred times as much as one. The wing of one contains about seven square inches, the body about five, or whole bird nineteen. If a man were to be provided with wings, etc., in proportion to his weight, they would measure about 844 square feet, and one wing would cover 311 feet, or be about 33 feet long by 14 wide. This is to say nothing of his muscles. 

The Kalmia glauca will not open for some days at least. At the swamp, hear the yorrick of Wilson’s thrush; the tweezer-bird or Sylvia Americana. Also the oven-bird sings.

Sylvia Americana (Northern Parula Warbler)

This species is found throughout the United States, 

and may be considered as one of the most beautiful of the birds of our country. 

It has no song, but merely a soft, greatly prolonged twitter, repeated at short intervals.~ J.J. Audubon

 

WILSON'S THRUSH or VEERY, Turdus Wilson,

The song of this species, although resembling that of the Wood Thrush in a great degree, is less powerful, and is composed of continued trills repeated with different variations, enunciated with great delicacy and mellowness, so as to be extremely pleasing to one listening to them in the dark solitudes where the sylvan songster resides. It now and then tunes its throat in the calm of evening, and is heard sometimes until after the day has closed. J.J. Audubon

Caterpillars’ nests on an apple two inches diameter. 

Downy amelanchier just out at Lupine Bank; elsewhere, maybe, a day or two. 

Where my sap has dried on the white birch bark it has now turned a bright light red. What a variety of colors it assumes! 

Potter has a remarkable field of mullein sown as thickly as if done with a machine (under Bear Garden Hill). I remarked them last year. William Wheeler thinks the seed lies in the ground an indefinite period ready to come up. I thought that it might have been introduced with his grain when it was sown lately. Wheeler says that many a pasture, if you plow it up after it has been lying still ten years, will produce an abundant crop of wormwood, and its seeds must have lain in the ground. Why do not the chemists in their analyses of soils oftener mention the seeds of plants? Would not  a careful analysis of old pasture sod settle the question? 

I suspect that I can throw a little light on the fact that when a dense pine wood is cut down oaks, etc., may take its place. There were only pines, no other tree. They are cut off, and, after two years have elapsed, you see oaks, or perhaps a few other hard woods, springing  up with scarcely a pine amid them, and you wonder how the acorns could have lain in the ground so long without decaying. There is a good example at Loring’s lot. 

But if you look through a thick pine wood, even the exclusively pitch pine ones, you will detect many little oaks, birches, etc., sprung probably from seeds carried into the thicket by squirrels, etc., and blown thither, but which are overshadowed and choked by the pines. This planting under the shelter of the pines may be carried on annually, and the plants annually die, but when the pines are cleared off, the oaks, etc., having got just the start they want, and now secured favorable conditions, immediately spring up to trees. 

Scarcely enough allowance has been made for the agency of squirrels and birds in dispersing seeds.

At the Kalmia Swamp, the parti-colored warbler, and was that switter switter switter switter swit also by it? [Probably by this or the redstart, which last I distinguish on the 17th.] 

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, May 13, 1856

Hear a warbling vireo. See  May 13, 1855 ("The air is filled with the song of birds, — warbling vireo, gold robin, yellowbirds, and occasionally the bobolink."); May 4, 1855 ("I think I hear a warbling vireo"); May 6, 1852 ("Hear the first warbling vireo this morning on the elms. This almost makes a summer. "):May 9, 1859 ("Hear the warbling vireo and oven-bird.") ;May 10, 1853 (“New days, then, have come, ushered in by the warbling vireo, yellowbird, Maryland yellow-throat, and small pewee"); May 10, 1858 ("The warbling vireo cheers the elms with a strain for which they must have pined."); May 29, 1855("the warbling vireo, with its smooth-flowing, continuous, one-barred, shorter strain, with methinks a dusky side-head )May 29, 1855("the warbling vireo, with its smooth-flowing, continuous, one-barred, shorter strain, with methinks a dusky side-head ) and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Birds of May

I find two more dead bank swallows, and one on the sand beneath, and the feathers of two more. See May 12, 1856 ("I see, in the road beyond Luther Hosmer’s, in different places, two bank swallows which were undoubtedly killed by the four days’ northeast rain we have just had.")

At the swamp, hear the yorrick of Wilson’s thrush. See May 13, 1860  ("Hear the yorrick"). See  also  May 8, 1857 (“From amid the alders, etc., I hear the mew of the catbird and the yorrick of Wilson's thrush”);  May 10, 1853 ("In the woods, the veery note."); May 10, 1858 (" Hear in various woods the yorrick note of the veery."); May 12, 1855("The cawing of crows, the peeping of hyla [and] the croaking of a tree-toad, the oven-bird, the yorrick of Wilson’s thrush, a distant stake-driver, the night-warbler and black and white creeper, the lowing of cows, the late supper horn, the voices of boys, the singing of girls”); May 12, 1857 (“I hear a yorrick, apparently anxious, near me, utter from time to time a sharp grating char-r-r, like a fine watchman’s rattle. As usual, I have not heard them sing yet.”);  May 14, 1859 ("Yorrick heard the 12th");  May 17, 1853 ("The sweetest singers among the birds are heard more distinctly now, as the reflections are seen more distinctly in the water, — the veery constantly now."); May 17, 1856 ("Hear the first veery note”); May 18, 1855 ("First veery strain."); May 23, 1857 ("Hear the first veery strain.")
.
The tweezer-bird or Sylvia Americana.  . . . the parti-colored warbler, and was that switter switter switter switter swit also by it [or the redstart]?  See May 13, 1860 ("At Holden Swamp, hear plenty of parti-colored warblers (tweezer-birds) and redstarts."); See also May 15, 1856 (" see also, for a moment, in dry woods, a warbler with blue-slate head and apparently all yellow beneath for a minute, nothing else conspicuous; note slightly like tseep, tseep, tseep, tseep, tsit sitter ra-re-ra, the last fast, on maples, etc. Maybe I heard the same yesterday. [No doubt the Sylvia Americana, blue yellow-back or parti-colored warbler; heard before.]”); May 17, 1856 ("The Sylvia Americana (parti-colored warbler, etc.) is very numerous there, darting about amid the hoary buds of the maples and oaks, etc. It seems the most restless of all birds, blue more or less deep above, with yellow dust on the back, yellow breast, and white beneath (the male with bright—orange throat, and some with a rufous crescent on breast); wings and tail, dark, black, with two white bars or marks, dark bill and legs."); May 18, 1856 ("A Sylvia Americana, — parti-colored warbler, — in the Holden Wood, sings a, tshrea tshrea tshrea, tshre’ tshritty tshrit’."); June 30, 1856 [in New Bedford]("my tweezer-bird, which is extremely restless, flitting from bough to bough and apple tree to apple tree. Its note like ah, zre zre zre, zritter zritter zrit’. Sylvia Americana, parti-colored warbler, with golden-green reflections on the back, two white bars on wings, all beneath white, large orange mark on breast, bordered broadly with lemon yellow, and yellow throat.");  May 27, 1855 ("The blue yellow-back or parti-colored warbler still, with the chestnut crescent on breast, near my Kalmia Swamp nest."); May 4, 1858 (“Heard the tweezer note, or screeper note, of the particolored warbler, bluish above, yellow or orange throat and breast, white vent, and white on wings, neck above yellowish, going restlessly over the trees”); May 9, 1858 ("The parti-colored warbler . . .— my tweezer-bird, – making the screep screep screep note. It is an almost incessant singer . . . utters its humble notes, like ah twze twze twze, or ah twze twze twze twze."); May 12, 1857 ("Hear the screep of the parti-colored warbler”):    June 11, 1858 ("Hear the parti-colored warbler. ") June 25, 1860 (" As near as I can make out with my glass, I see and hear the parti-colored warbler at Ledum Swamp on the larches and pines. A bluish back, yellow breast with a reddish crescent above, and white belly, and a continuous screeping note to the end.") and  A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Parti-Colored (Parula) Warbler (Sylvia Americana

Downy amelanchier just out at Lupine Bank. See May 13, 1852 ( The amelanchiers are now the prevailing flowers in the woods and swamps and sprout-lands, a very beautiful flower, with its purplish stipules and delicate drooping white blossoms. The shad-blossom days in the woods.");  May 13, 1855 ("Saw an amelanchier with downy leaf (apparently oblongifolia) on the southeast edge of Yellow Birch Swamp, about eighteen feet high and five or six inches in diameter, —a clump of them about as big as an apple tree.")

I suspect that I can throw a little light on the fact that when a dense pine wood is cut down oaks, etc., may take its place. See May 10, 1856 ("Where the pitch pines were cut some years ago on Thrush Alley, I now see birches, oaks, and pitch and white pines. "); April 29, 1860 ("Henry Shattuck’s is a new pitch pine wood, say thirty years old . . . It is a remarkable proof of my theory, for it contains thousands of little white pines but scarcely one little pitch pine. It is also well stocked with minute oak seedlings.");  The Succession of Forest Trees (“If a pine wood is surrounded by a white-oak one chiefly, white-oaks may be expected to succeed when the pines are cut.”)