Observed the spiders at work at the head of Willow Bay.

September 26.

P. M. — To Clamshell by boat. 

climbing nightshade/bittersweet 

(Solanum dulcamara)

The Solanum dulcamara berries are another kind which grows in drooping clusters. I do not know any clusters more graceful and beautiful than these drooping cymes of scarlet or translucent cherry-colored elliptical berries with steel-blue (or lead?) purple pedicels (not peduncles) like those leaves on the tips of the branches. These in the water at the bend of the river are peculiarly handsome, they are so long an oval or ellipse. No berries, methinks, are so well spaced and agreeably arranged in their drooping cymes, — some what hexagonally like a honeycomb. Then what a variety of color! The peduncle and its branches are green, the pedicels and sepals only that rare steel-blue purple, and the berries a clear translucent cherry red. They hang more gracefully over the river's brim than any pendants in a lady's ear. The cymes are of irregular yet regular form, not too crowded, elegantly spaced. 

Yet they are considered poisonous! Not to look at, surely. Is it not a reproach that so much that is beautiful is poisonous to us? Not in a stiff, flat cyme, but in different stages above and around, finding ample room in space. But why should they not be poisonous? Would it not be in bad taste to eat these berries which are ready to feed another sense? 

A drooping berry should always be of an oval or pear shape. Nature not only produces good wares, but puts them up handsomely. Witness these pretty-colored and variously shaped skins in which her harvests, the seeds of her various plants, are now being packed away. I know in what bags she puts her nightshade seeds, her cranberries, viburnums, cornels, by their form and color, often by their fragrance; and thus a legion of consumers find them. 

The celtis berries are still green. 

The pontederia is fast shedding its seeds of late. I saw a parcel suddenly rise to the surface of their own accord, leaving the axis nearly bare. Many are long since bare. They float, at present, but probably sink at last. There are a great many floating amid the pads and in the wreck washed up, of these singular green spidery(?)-looking seeds. Probably they are the food of returning water-fowl. They are ripe, like the seeds of different lilies, at the time the fowl return from the north. 

I hear a frog or two, either palusiris or halecina, croak and work faintly, as in spring, along the side of the river. So it is with flowers, birds, and frogs a renewal of spring. 

Hearing a sharp phe-phe and again phe-phe-phe, I look round and see two (probably larger) yellow-legs, like pigeons, standing in the water by the bare, flat ammannia shore, their whole forms reflected in the water. They allow me to paddle past them, though on the alert. 

Heavy Haynes says he has seen one or two fish hawks within a day or two. Also that a boy caught a very large snapping turtle on the meadow a day or two ago. He once dug one up two or three feet deep in the meadow in winter when digging mud. He was rather dormant. Says he remembers a fish-house that stood by the river at Clamshell. 

Observed the spiders at work at the head of Willow Bay. Their fine lines are extended from one flag or bur-reed to another, even six or eight feet, perfectly parallel with the surface of the water and only a few inches above it. I see some, — though it requires a very favorable light to detect them, they are so fine, — blowing off perfectly straight horizontally over the water, only half a dozen inches above it, as much as seven feet, one end fastened to a reed, the other free. They look as stiff as spears, yet the free end waves back and forth horizontally in the air several feet. They work thus in calm and fine weather when the water is smooth. Yet they can run over the surface of the water readily. 

The savage in man is never quite eradicated. I have just read of a family in Vermont who, several of its members having died of consumption, just burned the lungs, heart, and liver of the last deceased, in order to prevent any more from having it. 

How feeble women, or rather ladies, are! They can not bear to be shined on, but generally carry a parasol to keep off the sun.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 26, 1859

The Solanum dulcamara berries are another kind which grows in drooping clusters. See September 4, 1859 ("Three or four plants are peculiar now for bearing plentifully their fruit in drooping cymes, viz. the elder berry and the silky cornel and the Viburnum Lentago and Solanum Dulcamara.")

But why should they not be poisonous? Would it not be in bad taste to eat these berries which are ready to feed another sense? See September 3, 1853 ("Now is the season for those comparatively rare but beautiful wild berries which are not food for man . [I]t is strange that we do not devote an hour in the year to gathering those which are beautiful to the eye. It behooves me to go a-berrying in this sense once a year at least.")

They are ripe, like the seeds of different lilies, at the time the fowl return from the north. See September 13, 1859 ("The pontederia spike is now generally turned downward beneath the water . . So, too, probably (for I do not see them) the yellow and white lilies are ripening their seeds in the water and mud beneath the surface.")

So it is with flowers, birds, and frogs a renewal of spring. See September 16, 1852 (“Some birds, like some flowers, begin to sing again in the fall.”); September 28, 1852 ("This is the commencement, then, of the second spring."):  October 23, 1853 ("Many phenomena remind me that now is to some extent a second spring, — not only the new-springing and blossoming of flowers, but the peeping of the hylodes for some time, and the faint warbling of their spring notes by many birds.") and note to October 10, 1856 ("Indian summer itself is a similar renewal of the year, with the faint warbling of birds and second blossoming of flowers.")

Hearing a sharp phe-phe and again phe-phe-phe, I look round and see two (probably larger) yellow-legs. See August 5, 1855 ("Hear a yellow-legs flying over,—phe' phe phe, phe' phe phe.”); September 14, 1854 ("A flock of thirteen tell tales, great yellow-legs, start up with their shrill whistle from the midst of the great Sudbury meadow, and away they sail in a flock. . .to alight in a more distant place.”);September 25, 1858 ("Melvin says . . . that he sometimes sees the larger yellow-legs here. Goodwin also"); October 20, 1859 ("Scare up a yellow-legs, apparently the larger, on the shore of Walden. It goes off with a sharp phe phe, phe phe.")

Observed the spiders at work at the head of Willow Bay. Their fine lines are extended from one flag or bur-reed to another, even six or eight feet, perfectly parallel with the surface of the water and only a few inches above it. Compare September 12, 1858 ("In Hubbard’s ditched meadow, this side his grove, I see a great many large spider’s webs stretched across the ditches, about two feet from bank to bank, though the thick woven part is ten or twelve inches. They are parallel, a few inches or a foot or more apart, and more or less vertical, and attached to a main cable stretched from bank to bank. They are the yellow-backed spider, commonly large and stout but of various sizes. I count sixty-four such webs there, and in each case the spider occupies the centre, head downward.")

C. says he heard a yellow-legs yesterday.

May 14. 

Saturday. 

Surveying for Damon. 

Rhodora out, says C. 

Yorrick heard the 12th. 

Did I hear a bobolink this morning? 

C. says he heard a yellow-legs yesterday. 

Bought a black sucker (?), just speared at the factory dam, fifteen inches long, blacker than I am used to, I think; at any rate a very good fish to eat, as I proved, while the other common sucker there is said not to be. This had very conspicuous corrugations on the lips. I suspect that their other one is the horned chub. They have speared the former a long time there, and it is getting late for them. 

Vernal grass quite common at Willis Spring now.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 14, 1859

Surveying for Damon. See May 6, 1859 ("Surveying for Willis & Damon at the factory [and] behind Willis's house on the shore of the mill-pond")

Rhodora out, says C. See  May 18, 1855 ("Rhodora; probably some yesterday."); May 18, 1856 ("The rhodora there [Kalmia Swamp] maybe to-morrow. Elsewhere I find it (on Hubbard’s meadow) to-day. "); May 18, 1857 ("Pratt says he saw the first rhodora . . . out yesterday"); May 17, 1858 ("Rhodora at Clamshell well out.")

Yorrick heard the 12th. See May 10, 1858 (" Hear in various woods the yorrick note of the veery.")
C. says he heard a yellow-legs yesterday. See May 18, 1855 ("See the yellow-legs feeding on shore. Legs not bright-yellow. Goes off with the usual whistle; also utters a long monotonous call as it is standing on the shore, not so whistling. Am inclined to think it the lesser yellow-legs (though I think the only one we see). Yet its bill appears quite two inches long. Is it curved up? "). Compare May 31, 1854 ( "See a greater telltale, and this is the only one I have seen probably. . .It acts the part of a telltale." "watchful, but not timid, ... while it stands on the lookout ... wades in the water to the middle of its yellow legs; goes off with a loud and sharp phe phe phe phe. ...")

Vernal grass quite common at Willis Spring now. See May 14, 1858 ("Look at White Avens Shore. See what I call vernal grass in bloom in many places. “)

So we get a late start on our walk which starts out as a short walk to the lower view but we press on this time down the rope trail and around on the logging road to the fort. I wear my rubber boots because it has been raining a lot lately so I can wade the stream here in the dark.The moon is past its first quarter and we haven’t seen it in days. But behind the clouds it is providing light and I notice shadows on the forest floor. Actually I notice  the shadows on the forest floor then turn around and see the moon through the clouds. The sky also is providing light enough to see the new leaflets silhouetted against it. It is spring and I’m happy to have spent more time on a daily basis here in the woods. I’m not thinking my blood pressure  on the trail. The moonlight and shadows of the new leaves already  in the canopy are pushing me to compose a haiku as we walk out.To avoid the wetness we go up to the base of the lower vies and then by the Lonepine Cliff Trail. I get hallucinations walking in the dark that I am in a bed of small leafy plants. The forest floor looks mottled dark and light but it is just after-images in my retina. In any event we  make it back without a headlamp and it is 10 PM.

Even behind clouds

tonight's moon casts shadows

on the forest floor.

Turning ‘round I see

a mist of leaflets

silhouetted against the sky.

Zphx20190514

Go a-graping up Assabet with some young ladies.

September 25. 

A smart white frost last night, which has killed the sweet potato vines and melons. 

P. M. — Go a-graping up Assabet with some young ladies. 

The zizania fruit is green yet, but mostly dropped or plucked. Does it fall, or do birds pluck it? 

The Gentiana Andrewsii are now in prime at Gentian Shore. Some are turned dark or reddish-purple with age. 

There is a very red osier-like cornel on the shore by the stone-heaps. 

Edward Hoar says he found last year Datum Stramomlum in their garden. Add it, then, to our plants. 

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. 

The catbird still mews occasionally, and the chewink is heard faintly. 

Melvin says he has found the pigeon hawk’s nest here (distinct from partridge hawk’s); also that he sometimes sees the larger yellow-legs here. Goodwin also says the last.

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

Go a-graping up Assabet with some young ladies. See August 12, 1853 ("To Conantum by boat, berrying, with three ladies.")

The Gentiana Andrewsii are now in prime at Gentian Shore. See  August 29, 1858  ("Gentiana Andrewsii, one not quite shedding pollen.")

The catbird still mews occasionally, and the chewink is heard faintly. See October 4, 1857 ("Hear a catbird and chewink, both faint."); also September 21, 1854 ("Hear the chewink and the cluck of the thrasher.");  September 25, 1855 ("Meanwhile the catbird mews in the alders by my side"); September 21, 1856 ("I hear of late faint chewink notes in the shrubbery, as if they were meditating their strains in a subdued tone against another year."); ; September 19, 1858 ("Hear a chewink’s chewink. But how ineffectual is the note of a bird now! We hear it as if we heard it not, and forget it immediately.")

Melvin says that he sometimes sees the large yellow-legs here. See September 14, 1854 ("A flock of thirteen tell tales, great yellow-legs, start up with their shrill whistle from the midst of the great Sudbury meadow")

Grapes for some time have perfumed the house.

September 8. 

6 A. M. —On river. 

September 8 2018

It flows with a full tide. When it is thus deep its current is swift, and then its surface (commonly smooth and dark) is freckled with ripples, or rather I should say that swifter currents are here and there bursting up from be low and spreading out on every side, as if the river were breaking over a thousand concealed rocks. The surface is broken and dimpled with upswelling currents. 

Red oak acorns, yet green, are abundantly cut off by the squirrels. 

The yellow-legs is nodding its head along the edge of the meadow. I hear also its creaking te te te.

Gather half my grapes, which for some time have perfumed the house. 

P. M. — To Owl Swamp. 

I perceive the dark-crimson leaves, quite crisp, of the white maple on the meadows, recently fallen. This is their first fall, i. e. of those leaves which changed long ago. They fall, then, with birches and chestnuts, etc. (lower leaves), before red maples generally begin to turn. 

It is good policy to be stirring about your affairs, for the reward of activity and energy is that if you do not accomplish the object you had professed to yourself, you do accomplish something else. So, in my botanizing or natural history walks, it commonly turns out that, going for one thing, I get another thing. 

“Though man proposeth, God disposeth all.”

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 8, 1858

Gather half my grapes, which for some time have perfumed the house. See September 8, 1852 (“Grapes ripe on the Assabet for some days”) and  note to September 8, 1854 ("I bring home a half-bushel of grapes to scent my chamber with..”); September 8, 1859 ("Grapes are turning purple, but are not ripe")

Red oak acorns, yet green, are abundantly cut off by the squirrels. See September 12, 1854 (“The red oak began to fall first.”)

It is good policy to be stirring about your affairs. See April 29, 1852 ("The art of life, not having anything to do, is to do something.”); September 13, 1852 ("To the . . . idle man, the stillness of a placid September day sounds like the din and whirl of a factory. Only employment can still this din in the air.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, To effect the quality of the day

In my botanizing or natural history walks, it commonly turns out that, going for one thing, I get another thing. See  March 18, 1858 ("Going by the epigaea on Fair Haven Hill, I thought I would follow down the shallow gully through the woods from it, that I might find more or something else.");  April 13, 1860 ("At first I had felt disinclined to make this excursion up the Assabet, but it distinctly occurred to me that, perhaps, if I came against my will, as it were, to look at the sweet-gale as a matter of business, I might discover something else interesting.”); compare September 2, 1856; (" I make my most interesting botanical discoveries when I am in a thrilled and expectant mood.”);  November 18 1851 ("A man can hardly be said to be there if he knows that he is there, or to go there if he knows where he is going. The man who is bent upon his work is frequently in the best attitude to observe what is irrelevant to his work."); April 12, 1854 ("I observe that it is when I have been intently, and it may be laboriously, at work . . . that the muse visits me, and I see or hear beauty. It is from out the shadow of my toil that I look into the light.")

  

Heard the night-warbler begin his strain just like an oven-bird!

May 19. 

A. M. – Surveying (by the eye) for Warner the meadow surveyed for John Hosmer in June, ’56. 

The black currant near southwest corner of his Saw Mill field (Ribes floridum) perfectly out; how long? 

P. M. – To Everett Spring.

May 19, 2019

There appears to be quite a variety in the colors of the Viola cucullata [blue marsh violet]. Some dark-blue, if not lilac (?), some with a very dark blue centre and whitish circum ference, others dark-blue within and dark without, others all very pale blue. 

May 19, 2019

Stellaria borealis well out, apparently several days. 

What I called the Ranunculus bulbosus there May 3d proves to be the R. repens. It would appear then to be the earliest ranunculus. It is a dense bed of yellow now. I am struck by the light spot in the sinuses of the leaves. 

The Equisetum sylvaticum there is now of a reddish cast. 

Starflower (Trientalis borealis)

May 19, 2023

R. W. E. says that Pratt found yesterday out the trientalis, Trillium cernuum, and Smilacina bifolia. 

Four rods plus south of the cross-fence over Everett's hill, on the west slope, I find the Ranunculus abortivus, two plants open only; but will not shed pollen till to-morrow. 

A rod or two further the Equisetum hyemale, apparently a little past bloom, or effete, all the heads open. 

Looking with my glass into the Gourgas pond-hole, I see three or four buck-bean blossoms. 

Two birds about the size and of the appearance of a pigeon or turtle dove start up with a loud alarm note from the shallow muddy flat there, — with a harsh shrill cry, phil phil phil or the like. At first I could not guess what they were, but since concluded that they were the larger yellow-legs. 

Could this bird have made the sound heard on the 15th? 

There remained feeding on the mud along the water's edge two peetweet-like birds, but apparently larger and less teetering. I thought they were T. solitaires. 

Heard the night-warbler begin his strain just like an oven-bird! I have noticed that when it drops down into the woods it darts suddenly one side to a perch when low.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 19, 1858

Surveying for Warner the meadow surveyed for John Hosmer in June, ’56. See June 3, 1856 ("Surveying for John Hosmer beyond pail-factory”); June 4, 1856 (“Surveying for J. Hosmer . . .running a line on the west edge of Loring’s Pond, south of the brook.”).  Also  June 6, 1856 ("J. Hosmer, who is prosecuting Warner for flowing his land, says that the trees are not only broken off when young by weight of ice, but, being rubbed and barked by it, become warty or bulge out there.")

There appears to be quite a variety in the colors of the Viola cucullata. See May 15, 1856  ("Viola cucullata abundant now.”); May 20, 1852 ("The Viola ovata is of a deep purple blue, is darkest and has most of the red in it; the V. pedata is smooth and pale-blue, delicately tinged with purple reflections; the cucullata is more decidedly blue, slaty-blue, and darkly striated.")

Two birds start up with a loud alarm note from the shallow muddy flat with a harsh shrill cry, phil phil phil or the like The larger yellow-legs. See May 31, 1854 ( "It acts the part of a telltale." "watchful, but not timid, ... while it stands on the lookout ... wades in the water to the middle of its yellow legs; goes off with a loud and sharp phe phe phe phe. ...”); August 5, 1855 (" Hear a yellow-legs flying over,—phe' phe phe, phe' phe phe.”); September 14, 1854 ("A flock of thirteen tell tales, great yellow-legs, start up with their shrill whistle from the midst of the great Sudbury meadow, and away they sail in a flock. . .to alight in a more distant place.”)

Heard the night-warbler begin his strain just like an oven-bird!  Thoreau's night-warbler  is likely the oven-bird making its flight call. According to Emerson the night warbler is "a bird he had never identified, had been in search of twelve years, which always, when he saw it, was in the act of diving down into a tree or bush.” See  May 8, 1860 ("The night-warbler's note.");  May 9, 1852 ("Heard the night warbler.”); May 9, 1853 ("Again I think I heard the night-warbler.”); May 10, 1854 ("Heard the night-warbler. “);  May 12, 1857 ("A night-warbler, plainly light beneath. It always flies to a new perch immediately after its song");.  May 13, 1855 ("At 9.30 P.M. I hear from our gate my night-warbler. Never heard it in the village before.”); May 14, 1852 (“Most birds are silent in the storm.Hear the robin, oven-bird, night warbler, and [etc.]); May 16, 1858 ("Hear the night-warbler"); May 17, 1858 ("Just after hearing my night-warbler I see two birds on a tree. ...[One perhaps golden-crowned thrush. ]”); May 19, 1858 (“Heard the night-warbler begin his strain just like an oven-bird! I have noticed that when it drops down into the woods it darts suddenly one side to a perch when low."); May 28, 1854 ("The night-warbler, after his strain, drops down almost perpendicularly into a tree-top and is lost.”). See also May 12, 1855 (“We sit about half an hour, and it is surprising what various distinct sounds we hear there deep in the wood, as if the aisles of the wood were so many ear trumpets,-- the cawing of crows, the peeping of hylas in the swamp and perhaps 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, -- not all together but separately, distinctly, and musically, from where the partridge and the red-tailed hawk and the screech owl sit on their nests.”)

May 19.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 19

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

On the migration of swallows.

August 5. 

4 A. M. — On river to see swallows. They are all gone; yet Fay saw them there last night after we passed. Probably they started very early. 

I asked Minott if he ever saw swallows migrating, not telling him what I had seen, and he said that he used to get up and go out to mow very early in the morning on his meadow, as early as he could see to strike, and once, at that hour, hearing a noise, he looked up and could just distinguish high overhead fifty thousand swallows. He thought it was in the latter part of August. 

What I saw is like what White says of the swallows, in the autumn, roosting “every night in the osier beds of the aits” of the river Thames; and his editor, Jesse, says, “Swallows in countless numbers still assemble every autumn on the willows growing on the aits of the river Thames.” And Jardine, in his notes to Wilson, says that a clergyman of Rotherham describes in an anonymous pamphlet their assembling (in the words of the pamphlet) “at the willow ground, on the banks of the canal, preparatory to their migration,” early in September, 1815, daily increasing in numbers until there were tens of thousands. 

As I was paddling back at 6 A. M., saw, nearly half a mile off, a blue heron standing erect on the topmost twig of the great buttonwood on the street in front of Mr. Prichard’s house, while perhaps all within were abed and asleep. Little did they think of it, and how they were presided over. He looked at first like a spiring twig against the sky, till you saw him flap his wings. Presently he launched off and flew away over Mrs. Brooks’s house. 

It seems that I used to tie a regular granny’s knot in my shoe-strings, and I learned of myself —rediscovered—to tie a true square knot, or what sailors sometimes call a reef-knot. It needed to be as secure as a reef-knot in any gale, to withstand the wringing and twisting I gave it in my walks. 

The common small violet lespedeza out, elliptic leaved, one inch long. The small white spreading polygala, twenty rods behind Wyman site, some time. Very common this year. 

It is the wet season, and there is a luxuriant dark foliage. Hear a yellow-legs flying over,—phe' phe phe, phe' phe phe. 

8 P. M. — On river to see swallows. 

At this hour the robins fly to high, thick oaks (as this swamp white oak) to roost for the night. 

The wings of the chimney swallows flying near me make a whistling sound like a duck’s. Is not this peculiar among the swallows? They flutter much for want of tail. 

I see martins about. Now many swallows in the twilight, after circling eight feet high, come back two or three hundred feet high and then go down the river.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  August 5, 1855

Yellow-legs. See May 31, 1854 ( "It acts the part of a telltale." "watchful, but not timid, ... while it stands on the lookout ... wades in the water to the middle of its yellow legs; goes off with a loud and sharp phe phe phe phe. ..."); September 14, 1854 ("A flock of thirteen tell tales, great yellow-legs, start up with their shrill whistle from the midst of the great Sudbury meadow, and away they sail in a flock...").

August 5. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 5

 

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

Walked from post-office to lighthouse. Fog till eight or nine, and short grass very wet.

July 6.

Rode to North Truro very early in the stage or covered wagon, on the new road, which is just finished as far as East Harbor Creek. 

Blackfish on the shore. 

Walked from post-office to lighthouse. Fog till eight or nine, and short grass very wet. 

Board at James Small’s, the lighthouse, at $3.50 the week. 

Polygala polygama well out, flat, ray-wise, all over the fields. Cakile Americana, sea-rocket, the large weed of the beach, some time and going to seed, on beach. Pasture thistle (Cirsium pumilum), out some time. A great many white ones. 

The boy, Isaac Small, got eighty bank swallows’ eggs out of the clay-bank, i. e. above the clay. Small says there are a few great gulls here in summer.

I see small (?) yellow-legs. Many crow blackbirds in the dry fields hopping about. 

Upland plover near the lighthouse breeding. Small once cut off one’s wing when mowing in the field next the lighthouse as she sat on her eggs.

Many seringo-birds, apparently like ours. 

They say mackerel have just left the Bay, and fishermen have gone to the eastward for them. Some, however, are catching cod and halibut on the back side. 

Cape measures two miles in width here on the great chart.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 6, 1855

Board at James Small’s, the lighthouse, at $3.50 the week. See June 18, 1857 ("Small says that the lighthouse was built about sixty years ago.")

How important the dark evergreens now; how interesting the huckleberries.

May 27

P. M. —To Fair Haven Pond, taking boat opposite Puffer’s. 

Still a very strong wind from northerly, and hazy and rather cool for season. 

The fields now begin to wear the aspect of June, their grass just beginning to wave; the light-colored withered grass seen between the blades, foliage thickening and casting darker shadows over the meadows, elm-tree-tops thick in distance, deciduous trees rapidly investing evergreens, haze with the strong wind. How important the dark evergreens now seen through the haze in the distance  and contrasting with the gauze-like, as yet thin-clad deciduous trees! They are like solid protuberances of earth. 

A thrasher’s nest on the bare open ground with four eggs which were seen three days ago. The nest is as open and exposed as it well can be, lined with roots, on a slight ridge where a rail fence has been, some rods from any bush. 

Saw the yellow-legs on one side flying over the meadow against the strong wind and at first mistook it for a hawk. It appeared now quite brown, with its white rump; and, excepting for its bill and head, I should have taken it for a hawk; between the size of male harrier and the male pigeon hawk, or say the size of a dove. It alighted on the shore. And now again I think it must be the large one. 

The blue yellow-back or parti-colored warbler still, with the chestnut crescent on breast, near my Kalmia Swamp nest. 

See a painted turtle on a hill forty or fifty feet above river, probably laying eggs. 

Some mountain sumach has grown one inch, some not started; some button-bush three inches, some not started. The first must be put after the last. 

Myosotis stricta under Cliffs, how long? 

The meadow fragrance to-day. 

How interesting the huckleberries now generally in blossom on the knoll below the Cliff — countless wholesome red bells, beneath the fresh yellow green foliage! The berry-bearing vaccinium! It is a rich sight. 

Geranium at Bittern Cliff, apparently several days, -and Arabis rhomboidea there in meadow, apparently still longer — say seven or eight days; but I am doubtful about the “slender style tipped with a conspicuous stigma.” 

Carrion-flower a foot high. Crimson gall on a shrub oak. 

A loose-spiked sedge at Bittern Cliff Meadow, — forgot to bring, — a foot high.

May 27, 2015

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 27, 1855

The fields now begin to wear the aspect of June, their grass just beginning to wave. . . foliage thickening and casting darker shadows over the meadows, elm-tree-tops thick in distance, deciduous trees rapidly investing evergreens. See May 27, 1853 ("A new season has commenced - summer - leafy June. The elms begin to droop and are heavy with shade."); May 22, 1855 ("The deciduous trees leafing begin to clothe or invest the evergreens.");  May 18, 1852 ("They are now being invested with the light, sunny, yellowish-green of the deciduous trees.").  See also May 19, 1860 ("The grass, especially the meadow-grasses, are seen to wave distinctly, and the shadows of the bright fair-weather cumuli are sweeping over them."); May 26, 1854 (At sight of this deep and dense field all vibrating with motion and light, winter recedes many degrees in my memory. . . . The season of grass, now everywhere green and luxuriant.”); May 28, 1858 (“These various shades of grass remind me of June.”); May 30, 1852 (Now is the summer come. . . . A day for shadows, even of moving clouds, over fields in which the grass is beginning to wave."); June 30, 1860 ("The foliage of deciduous trees is now so nearly as dark as evergreens that I am not struck by the contrast. The shadows under the edge of woods are less noticed now because the woods themselves are darker.")  See also note to June 6, 1855 ("The dark eye and shade of June").

A thrasher’s nest on the bare open ground with four eggs which were seen three days ago. See May 23, 1858 ("Brown thrasher's nest on ground, under a small tree, with four eggs"); May 28, 1855 ("I find the feathers apparently of a brown thrasher in the path, plucked since we passed here last night."); June 5, 1856 (" A brown thrasher’s nest with four eggs considerably developed, under a small white pine on the old north edge of the desert, lined with root-fibres.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Brown Thrasher

My Kalmia Swamp nest.  See May 26, 1855 ("What that neat song-sparrow-like nest of grass merely, in the wet sphagnum under the andromeda there, with three eggs, -- in that very secluded place, surrounded by the watery swamp and andromeda?")

How interesting the huckleberries now generally in blossom.  See May 26, 1859 ("Tall swamp huckleberry just budded to bloom."); May 28, 1854 ('' huckleberries . . . now generally in blossom, their rich clear red contrasting with the light-green leaves; frequented by honey-bees, full of promise for the summer."). See also December 30, 1860 ("the whortleberry family")

May 27. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 27

The fields now begin

to wear the aspect of June –

their grass just waving.

Now seen through the haze

dark evergreens contrast with 

deciduous trees.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  How important the dark evergreens now

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 © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550527

The clump of golden willows west of new stone bridge is very handsome now seen from hill.

May 18.

P. M. — Boat to Nut Meadow. 

MAY 18, 2015

Large devil’s-needle. 

Sassafras well open. How long? Celtis will probably shed pollen to-morrow; shoots already an inch long. Sorrel pollen. 

First veery strain. 

Green-briar leafed several days. Veronica serpylli folia well out (how long?) at Ash Bank Spring. 


See the yellow-legs feeding on shore. Legs not bright-yellow. Goes off with the usual whistle; also utters a long monotonous call as it is standing on the shore, not so whistling. Am inclined to think it the lesser yellow-legs (though I think the only one we see). Yet its bill appears quite two inches long. Is it curved up? 

Observe a blackbird’s (red-wing’s) nest finished. At Clamshell a bay-wing sparrow’s nest, four eggs (young half hatched) -- some black-spotted, others not.

These last warmer days a great many fishes dart away from close to the shore, where they seem to lie now more than ever. I see some darting about and rippling the water there with large back fins out, either pouts or suckers (not pickerel certainly). Apparently their breeding-season arrived. Is not this where the fish hawks get them? 

Rhodora; probably some yesterday. Black scrub oak pollen. Fir balsam pollen; say begins to leaf at same time. 

The clump of golden willows west of new stone bridge is very handsome now seen from hill, with its light-yellowish foliage, because the stems of the trees are seen through it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 18, 1855

Large devil’s-needle. See April 27, 1856 ("I see a rather large devil’s-needle coursing over the low osiers in Pinxter Swamp. Is it not early for one?"); May 23, 1856("A warm summer-like night. A bullfrog trumps once. A large devil’s—needle goes by after sundown."); May 30, 1860 ("Saw some devil’s-needles (the first) about the 25th."); June 6, 1852 ("First devil's-needles in the air, and some smaller, bright-green ones on flowers."); June 8, 1855  ("A great many devil’s-needles in woods within a day or two."); June 6, 1857 ("I see many great devil's-needles in an open wood") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Devil's-needle

First veery strain. See  May 17, 1852 ("The first veery note."); May 17, 1853 ("the veery constantly now.");  May 17, 1856  ("Hear the first veery note."); May 23, 1857 ("Hear the first veery strain.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Veery

Tell tale, great yellow-legs. See May 31, 1854 ( "It acts the part of a telltale."   "watchful, but not timid, ... while it stands on the lookout ... wades in the water to the middle of its yellow legs; goes off with a loud and sharp phe phe phe phe. ...")

The clump of golden willows west of new stone bridge is very handsome now seen from hill, with its light-yellowish foliage. See   January 21, 1855 ("Few twigs are conspicuous at a distance like those of the golden willow. The tree is easily distinguished at a distance by its color."); May 14, 1852 ("These willows have yellow bark, bear yellow flowers and yellowish-green leaves, and are now haunted by the summer yellowbird and Maryland yellow-throat") ; May 15, 1853 ("The golden willow catkins begin to fall; their prime is past."); May 16, 1854 ("Yesterday, when the blossoms of the golden willow began to fall, the blossoms of the apple began to open."); May 19, 1853  ("The days of the golden willow are over for this season; their withered catkins strew the causeways and cover the water and also my boat, which is moored beneath them. ") See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau. Willows on the Causeway.   Compare May 18, 1853 ("A singular effect produced by a mass of ferns at a little distance, some rods square, their light yellow green tops seen above the dark masses of their fruit. ")

The clump of golden 

willows west of new stone bridge 

handsome seen from hill.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The clump of golden willows west of new stone bridge 

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 © 2009-2025

Confusing spring hawks: frog hawk, broad-winged hawk, partridge hawk, hen hawk, marsh hawk, hen harrier, Falco fuscus (or sharp-shinned hawk)?? The books are very unsatisfactory.

April 23

River higher than before since winter. Whole of Lee Meadow covered. 

Saw two pigeon woodpeckers approach and, I think, put their bills together and utter that o-week, o-week. 

The currant and second gooseberry are bursting into leaf. 

April 23, 2015

P.M. — To Cedar Swamp via Assabet. 

Warm and pretty still. Even the riversides are quiet at this hour (3 P.M.) as in summer; the birds are neither seen nor heard. 

The anthers of the larch are conspicuous, but I see no pollen. White cedar to-morrow.

See a frog hawk beating the bushes regularly. What a peculiarly formed wing! It should be called the kite. Its wings are very narrow and pointed, and its form in front is a remarkable curve, and its body is not heavy and buzzard-like. It occasionally hovers over some parts of the meadow or hedge and circles back over it, only rising enough from time to time to clear the trees and fences. 

Soon after I see hovering over Sam Barrett’s, high sailing, a more buzzard-like brown hawk, black-barred beneath and on tail, with short, broad, ragged wings and perhaps a white mark on under side of wings. The chickens utter a note of alarm. Is it the broad-winged hawk (Falco Pennsylvanicus)? (Probably not.)

But why should the other be called F. fuscus? I think this is called the partridge hawk. The books are very unsatisfactory on these two hawks. 

Apparently barn swallows over the river. And do I see bank swallows also? 

C. says he has seen a yellow-legs. 

I have seen also for some weeks occasionally a brown hawk with white rump, flying low, which I have thought the frog hawk in a different stage of plumage; but can it be at this season? and is it not the marsh hawk? Yet it is not so heavy nearly as the hen-hawk -- probably female hen-harrier [i. e. marsh hawk].

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 23, 1855


Saw two pigeon woodpeckers approach and, I think, put their bills together and utter that o-week, o-week. See  April 8, 1855 (" Hear and see a pigeon woodpecker, something like week-up week-up. April 15, 1858 (" See a pair of woodpeckers on a rail and on the ground a-courting. One keeps hopping near the other, and the latter hops away a few feet, and so they accompany one another a long distance, uttering sometimes a faint or short a-week"); April 22, 1856 ("Going through Hubbard’s root-fence field, see a pigeon woodpecker on a fence post. He shows his lighter back between his wings cassock-like and like the smaller woodpeckers. Joins his mate on a tree and utters the wooing note o-week o-week,");  October 5, 1857 ("The pigeon woodpecker utters his whimsical ah-week ah-week, etc., as in spring."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker).

Is it the broad-winged hawk (Falco Pennsylvanicus)? (Probably not.) See October 11, 1856 (“Farrar gave me a wing and foot of a hawk which he shot about three weeks ago . . . This foot has a sharp shin and stout claws, but the wing is much larger than that of the Falco fuscus (or sharp-shinned hawk), being . . . the size of the F. Pennsylvanicus. This wing corresponds in its markings very exactly with the description of that, and I must so consider it . . . Nuttall describes it as very rare, — apparently he has not seen one, — and says that Wilson had seen only two ”)

The books are very unsatisfactory on these two hawks. See May 4, 1855 ("I think that what I have called the sparrow hawk falsely, and latterly pigeon hawk, is also the sharp-shinned (vide April 26th and May 8th, 1854, and April 16th, 1855), for the pigeon hawk’s tail is white-barred. “); July 2, 1856 (“Looked at the birds in the Natural History Rooms in Boston. Observed no white spots on the sparrow hawk’s wing, or on the pigeon or sharp-shinned hawk’s. Indeed they were so closed that I could not have seen them. Am uncertain to which my wing belongs.”) See also  A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Hawk (Merlin); and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the sharp-shinned hawk. 

A brown hawk with white rump, flying low, which I have thought the frog hawk in a different stage of plumage. . . probably female hen-harrier.  See May 1, 1855 (" What I have called the frog hawk is probably the male hen-harrier, . . .MacGillivray . . .says . . . the large brown bird with white rump is the female"); March 21, 1859 ("I see a female marsh hawk. . I not only see the white rump but the very peculiar crescent-shaped curve of its wings. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier)

April 23. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, April 23

Buzzard-like brown hawk

black-barred beneath and on tail –

Is it the broad-winged?

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The books are very unsatisfactory

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 © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550423