I hear the clear, loud whistle of a purple finch.

April 11. 

I hear the clear, loud whistle of a purple finch, somewhat like and nearly as loud as the robin, from the elm by Whiting's.

The maple which I think is a red one, just this side of Wheildon's, is just out this morning.

9 A. M. – To Haverhill via Cambridge and Boston.

Dr. Harris says that that early black-winged, buff edged butterfly is the Vanessa Antiopa, and is introduced from Europe, and is sometimes found in this state alive in winter.

The orange-brown one with scalloped wings, and smaller somewhat, is Vanessa Progne.

The early pestle-shaped bug or beetle is a cicindela, of which there are three species, one of them named from a semicolon-like mark on it.

Vide Hassley on spiders in Boston Journal of Natural History.

At Natural History Rooms, saw the female red-wing, striped white and ash; female cow-bird, ashy-brown.

First.

The swamp sparrow is ferruginous-brown (spotted with black) and ash above about neck; brownish-white beneath; undivided chestnut crown.

Second.

The grass-bird, grayish-brown, mingled with ashy-whitish above; light, pencilled with dark brown beneath; no marked crown; outer tail feathers whitish, perhaps a faint bar on wing.

Third.

Field sparrow, smaller than either; marked like first, with less black, and less distinct ash on neck, and less ferruginous and no distinct crown.

Fourth.

Savannah sparrow, much like second, with more black, but not noticeable white in tail, and a little more brown; no crown marked.

Emberiza miliaria Gmel* (What is it in Nuttall?) appears to be my young of purple finch.

One Maryland yellow-throat, probably female, has no black on side head, and is like a summer yellow bird except that the latter has ends of the wings and tail black.

The yellow-rump warbler (what is it in Nuttall?) is bluish-gray, with two white bars on wings, a bright yellow crown, side breasts, and rump. Female less distinct.

Blackburnian is orange-throated.

American redstart, male, is black forward, coppery orange beneath and stripe on wings and near base of tail. Female dark ashy and fainter marks.

American Redstart

J. E. Cabot thought my small hawk might be Cooper's hawk.

Says that Gould, an Englishman, is the best authority on birds.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 11, 1853

I hear the clear, loud whistle of a purple finch from the elm by Whiting's. See April 15, 1854 ("The arrival of the purple finches appears to be coincident with the blossoming of the elm, on whose blossom it feeds"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Elms and the Purple Finch and note to April 10, 1861 ("Purple finch.")

The maple which I think is a red one, just this side of Wheildon's, is just out this morning. See April 10, 1853 (''The male red maple buds now show eight or ten (ten counting everything) scales, alternately crosswise, and the pairs successively brighter red or scarlet, which will account for the gradual reddening of their tops. They are about ready to open.");

Dr. Harris says that that early black-winged, buff edged butterfly is the Vanessa Antiopa. See  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Buff-edged Butterfly

The orange-brown one with scalloped wings, and smaller somewhat, is Vanessa Progne. See April 9, 1853 ("A middling-sized orange-copper butterfly on the mill road, at the clearing, with deeply scalloped wings. You see the buff-edged and this, etc., in warm, sunny southern exposures on the edge of woods or sides of rocky hills and cliffs, above dry leaves and twigs, where the wood has been lately cut and there are many dry leaves and twigs about.")

The grass-bird, grayish-brown, mingled with ashy-whitish above; light, pencilled with dark brown beneath; no marked crown; outer tail feathers whitish, perhaps a faint bar on wing.  [The Vesper Sparrow (Pooecetes gramineus).] See October 16, 1855 ("I look at a grass-bird on a wall in the dry Great Fields. There is a dirty-white or cream-colored line above the eye and another from the angle of the mouth beneath it and a white ring close about the eye. The breast is streaked with this creamy white and dark brown in streams, as on the cover of a book"); April 13, 1855 ("See a sparrow without marks on throat or breast, running peculiarly in the dry grass in the open field beyond, and hear its song, and then see its white feathers in tail; the bay-wing."); April 29, 1855 ("The bay on its wings is not obvious except when it opens them. The white circle about the eye is visible afar. . . . It is rather . . .concealed by its color . . . with its chestnut crown and light breast.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bay-Wing Sparrow

Field sparrow, . . . marked like [swamp sparrow], with less  black, and less distinct ash on neck, and less ferruginous and no distinct crown. See  April 8, 1853 ("Heard the field sparrow again"); April 27, 1852 ("Heard the field or rush sparrow this morning (Fringilla juncorum), George Minott's "huckleberry-bird." ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Field Sparrow

Savannah sparrow, much like [grass-bird], with more black, but not noticeable white in tail, and a little more brown; no crown marked. According to Guide to Thoreau’s Birds "Thoreau frequently called the Savannah Sparrow Passerculus sandwichensis the seringo or seringo-bird, but he also applied the name to other small birds."  See June 10, 1854 ("The bay-wing sparrow apparently is not my seringo, after all. What is the seringo? I see some with clear, dirty-yellow breasts, but others, as to-day, with white breasts, dark-streaked. Both have the yellow over eye and the white line on crown, and agree in size, but I have seen only one with distinct yellow on wings. Both the last, i. e. except only the bay-wing, utter the seringo note. Are they both yellow-winged sparrows? or is the white-breasted with streaks the Savannah sparrow?"); June 12, 1854 ("Do I not see two birds with the seringo note, — the Savannah (?) sparrow, larger with not so bright a yellow over eye, none on wing, and white breast, and beneath former streaked with dark and perhaps a dark spot, and the smaller yellow-winged, with spot on wing also and ochreous breast and throat ?"); July 16, 1854 ("Is it the yellow-winged or Savannah sparrow with yellow alternating with dark streaks on throat, as well as yellow over eye, reddish flesh-colored legs, and two light bars on wings?“); April 22, 1856 ("The seringo also sits on a post, with a very distinct yellow line over the eye,"); June 26, 1856 ("According to Audubon’s and Wilson’s plates, . . .the Savannah sparrow [has] no conspicuous yellow on shoulder, a yellow brow, and white crown line. . . .saw, apparently, the F. Savanna. . . Distinctly yellow-browed and spotted breast."); December 7, 1858  ("Dr. Bryant calls my seringo (i. e. the faint-noted bird) Savannah sparrow.”); April 27, 1859 (“Hear and see the seringo in fields next the shore. No noticeable yellow shoulder, pure whitish beneath, dashed throat and a dark-brown line of dashes along the sides of the body.”) 

One Maryland yellow-throat, probably female, has no black on side head, and is like a summer yellow bird. See May 18, 1856 ("I see. . .what you would call a Maryland yellow-throat, but less chubby, yellow throat, beneath, and vent, and dark under tail, black side; but hear no note."); May 17, 1860; ("I see a female Maryland yellow-throat busily seeking its food amid the dangling fruit of the early aspen, in the top of the tree.")

The yellow-rump warbler is bluish-gray, with two white bars on wings, a bright yellow crown, side breasts, and rump. See October 14, 1855 ("Black bill and feet, yellow rump, brown above, yellowish-brown on head, cream-colored chin, two white bars on wings, tail black, edged with white, — the yellow-rump warbler or myrtle-bird without doubt.");September 29, 1858 ("One or two myrtle-birds in their fall dress, with brown head and shoulders, two whitish bars on wings, and bright-yellow rump.")

Female [redstart] dark ashy and fainter marks. See May 29, 1855 ("females of the redstart, described by Wilson, — very different from the full-plumaged black males."); September 12, 1857 ("Crossing east through the spruce swamp, I think that I saw a female redstart.")  See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The American Redstart

Cabot thought my small hawk might be Cooper's hawk. See April 7, 1853 ("A hawk above Ball’s Hill which, though with a distinct white rump, I think was not the harrier but sharp-shinned, from its broadish, mothlike form, light and slightly spotted beneath, with head bent downward, watching for prey");April 10, 1853 ("What was that smaller, broader-winged hawk with white rump of April 7th ? For, after all, I do not find it described."); December 7, 1858 ("Dr. Bryant . . . says Cooper’s hawk is just like the sharp-shinned, only a little larger commonly. He could not tell them apart.")

I am struck with the beauty of the sorrel now.

June 12. 

Sunday. P. M. — To Gowing's Swamp. 

I am struck with the beauty of the sorrel now, e. g. Lepidium campestre field. What a wholesome red! It is densest in parallel lines according to the plowing or cultivation. There is hardly a more agreeable sight at this season. 

Maryland yellow-throat four eggs, fresh, in sphagnum in the interior omphalos.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 12, 1859

I am struck with the beauty of the sorrel now. There is hardly a more agreeable sight at this season. See June 12, 1852 ("It helps thus agreeably to paint the earth, contrasting even at a distance with the greener fields, blue sky, and dark or downy clouds. It is red, marbled, watered, mottled, or waved with greenish, like waving grain, — three or four acres of it.")  See also May 22, 1854 ("The sorrel beginning to redden the fields with ruddy health, — all these things make earth now a paradise. How many times I have been surprised thus, on turning about on this very spot, at the fairness of the earth!"); June 5, 1853 ("The distant fields are seen, reddened with sorrel, and the meadows wet green, full of fresh grass, and the trees in their first beautiful, bright, untarnished and unspotted green.");  June 6, 1857 (“A year is made up of a certain series and number of sensations and thoughts which have their language in nature. Now I am ice, now I am sorrel. Each experience reduces itself to a mood of the mind. ”); June 11, 1853 ("In the sorrel-fields, also, what lately was the ruddy, rosy cheek of health, now that the sorrel is ripening and dying, has become the tanned and imbrowned cheek of manhood.");  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Wood Sorrel (Oxalis) and also .June 12, 1854 ("Clover now reddens the fields.."); June 15, 1851 (“the clover gives whole fields a rich appearance, -- the rich red and the sweet-scented white. The fields are blushing with the red species as the western sky at evening.”); June 15, 1853 ("Clover now in its prime. What more luxuriant than a clover-field");  June 15, 1853 ("The rude health of the sorrel cheek has given place to the blush of clover") 

Maryland yellow-throat four eggs, fresh, in sphagnum. See June 7, 1857 ("In a tuft a little from under the east edge of an apple tree, below violet wood-sorrel, a nest well made outside of leaves, then grass, lined with fine grass, very deep and narrow, with thick sides, with four small somewhat cream-colored eggs with small brown and some black spots chiefly toward larger end. . . It was a Maryland yellow-throat. Egg fresh. She is very shy and will not return to nest while you wait, but keeps up a very faint chip in the bushes or grass at some distance."); June 8, 1855 ("What was that little nest on the ridge near by, made of fine grass lined with a few hairs and containing five small eggs (two hatched the 11th), nearly as broad as long, yet pointed, white with fine dull-brown spots especially on the large end—nearly hatched? . . .(June 11.—It is a Maryland yellow-throat.)”); June 10, 1858 ("Perfectly concealed under the loose withered grass at the base of a clump of birches, with no apparent entrance. The usual small deep nest (but not raised up) of dry leaves, fine grass stubble, and lined with a little hair. Four eggs, white, with brown spots, chiefly at larger end, and some small black specks or scratches. The bird flits out very low and swiftly and does not show herself, so that it is hard to find the nest or to identify the bird.”)

The interior omphalos. See May 31, 1857 ("That central meadow and pool in Gowing's Swamp is its very navel, omphalos, where the umbilical cord was cut that bound it to creation's womb.”)

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.”);

It is an early September afternoon.

September 7. 

P. M. — To Assabet Bath. 

September 7, 2018

I turn Anthony’s corner. It is an early September afternoon, melting warm and sunny; the thousands of grasshoppers leaping before you reflect gleams of light; a little distance off the field is yellowed with a Xerxean army of Solidago nemoralis between me and the sun; the earth-song of the cricket comes up through all; and ever and anon the hot z-ing of the locust is heard. (Poultry is now fattening on grasshoppers.) The dry deserted fields are one mass of yellow, like a color shoved to one side on Nature’s palette. You literally wade in yellow flowers knee-deep, and now the moist banks and low hollows are beginning to be abundantly sugared with Aster Tradescantia.

J. Farmer calls those Rubus sempervirens berries, now abundant, “snake blackberries.” 

Looking for my Maryland yellow-throat’s nest, I find that apparently a snake has made it the portico to his dwelling, there being a hole descending into the earth through it! 

In Shad-bush Meadow the prevailing grasses (not sedges) now are the slender Panicum clandestinum, whose seeds are generally dropped now, Panicum virgatum, in large tufts, and blue-joint, the last, of course, long since done. These are all the grasses that I notice there. 

What a contrast to sink your head so as to cover your ears with water, and hear only the confused noise of the rushing river, and then to raise your ears above water and hear the steady creaking of crickets in the aerial universe! 

While dressing, I see two small hawks, probably partridge hawks, soaring and circling about one hundred feet above the river. Suddenly one drops down from that height almost perfectly perpendicularly after some prey, till it is lost behind the bushes. 

Near the little bridge at the foot of Turtle Bank, Eragrostis capillaris in small but dense patches, apparently in prime (the Poa capillaris of Bigelow). What I have thus called in press is E. pectinacea (P. hirsuta of Bigelow). 

On the flat hill south of Abel Hosmer, Agrostis scabra, hair grass, flyaway grass, tickle grass, out of bloom; branches purplish. That of September 5th was the A. perennans, in lower ground. 

On the railroad between tracks above Red House, hardly yet out; forked aristida, or poverty grass. 

Storrow Higginson brings from Deerfield this evening some eggs to show me, — among others apparently that of the Virginian rail. It agrees in color, size, etc., according to Wilson, and is like (except, perhaps, in form) to one which E. Bartlett brought me a week or ten days ago, which dropped from a load of hay carried to Stow’s barn! So perhaps it breeds here. [Yes. Vide Sept. 9th. Vide Sept. 21st and Dec. 7th, and June 1st, 1859]

Also a smaller egg of same form, but dull white with very pale dusky spots, which may be that of the Carolina rail. 

He had also what I think the egg of the Falco fuscatus, it agreeing with MacGillivray’s sparrow hawk’s egg.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 7, 1858

Looking for my Maryland yellow-throat’s nest. See June 10, 1858 (“To Assebet Bath. . .A Maryland yellow-throat's nest near apple tree by the low path beyond the pear tree. Perfectly concealed under the loose withered grass at the base of a clump of birches, with no apparent entrance. ”)

In Shad-bush Meadow the prevailing grasses now are the slender Panicum clandestine, Panicum virgatum,  and blue-joint, the last, of course, long since done. These are all the grasses that I notice there. See August 2, 1858 (“Landed at the Bath-Place and walked the length of Shad-bush Meadow. . . .What I have called the Panicum latifoliumhas now its broad leaves, striped with red, abundant under Turtle Bank, above Bath-Place.”)

Storrow Higginson brings from Deerfield this evening some eggs to show me, — among others apparently that of the Virginian rail. See September 9, 1858 (“My egg (named Sept. 7th) was undoubtedly a meadow-hen’s Rallus Virginiana.”)

A Maryland yellow-throat's nest, a painted turtle digging in the road

June 10. 

June 10, 2018

Smilacina racemosa well out, how long? 

Sophia has received the whorled arethusa from Northampton to-day. 

P.M.–To Assabet Bath and return by stone bridge. 

A Maryland yellow-throat's nest near apple tree by the low path beyond the pear tree. Saw a bird flit away low and stealthily through the birches, and was soon invisible. Did not discover the nest till after a long search. Perfectly concealed under the loose withered grass at the base of a clump of birches, with no apparent entrance. The usual small deep nest (but not raised up) of dry leaves, fine grass stubble, and lined with a little hair. Four eggs, white, with brown spots, chiefly at larger end, and some small black specks or scratches. The bird flits out very low and swiftly and does not show herself, so that it is hard to find the nest or to identify the bird. 

See a painted turtle digging her nest in the road at 5.45 P. M. 

At the west bank, by the bathing-place, I see that several turtles’ holes have already been opened and the eggs destroyed by the skunk or other animal. Some of them — I judge by the size of the egg — are Emys insculpta's eggs. (I saw several of them digging here on the 6th.) 

Among the shells at one hole I find one minute egg left unbroken. It is not only very small, but broad in proportion to length. Vide collection. 

One E. insculpta is digging there about 7 P. M. Another great place for the last-named turtle to lay her eggs is that rye-field of Abel Hosmer's just north of the stone bridge, and also the neighboring pitch pine wood. I saw them here on the 6th, and also I do this afternoon, in various parts of the field and in the rye, and two or three crawling up the very steep sand-bank there, some eighteen feet high, steeper than sand will lie, — for this keeps caving. They must often roll to the bottom again. 

Apparently the E. insculpta are in the very midst of their laying now. 

As we entered the north end of this rye field, I saw what I took to be a hawk fly up from the south end, though it may have been a crow. It was soon pursued by small birds. When I got there I found an E. insculpta on its back with its head and feet drawn in and motionless, and what looked like the track of a crow on the sand. Undoubtedly the bird which I saw had been pecking at it, and perhaps they get many of the eggs. [Vide June 11th, 1860.]

Common blue flag, how long?

June 10, 2018

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 10, 1858

Smilacina racemosa well out, how long? See June 18, 1857 [Cape Cod] ("The Smilacina racemosa was just out of bloom on the bank. They call it the " wood lily " there. Uncle Sam called it "snake-corn," and said it looked like corn when it first came up"); June 23, 1860 ( Smilacina racemosa, how long?");  September 1, 1856 ("The very dense clusters of the smilacina berries, finely purple-dotted on a pearly ground");  September 18, 1856 ("Smilacina berries of both kinds now commonly ripe"); October 10, 1857 ("I see in the woods some Smilacina racemosa leaves . . . The whole plant gracefully bent almost horizontally with the weight of its dense raceme of bright cherry-red berries at the end.”);See also note to June 19, 1856 ("Looked at a collection of the rarer plants made by Higginson and placed at the Natural History Rooms.) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, False Solomon's Seal

P.M.–To Assabet Bath and return by stone bridge. See May 14, 1857 (“To Assabet Bath and stone bridge. ”)

The usual small deep nest of dry leaves, fine grass stubble, and lined with a little hair. Four eggs, white, with brown spots, chiefly at larger end, and some small black specks or scratches.  See September 8, 1858 ("Looking for my Maryland yellow-throat’s nest, I find that apparently a snake has made it the portico to his dwelling, there being a hole descending into the earth through it!") See also June 7, 1857 (“A nest well made outside of leaves, then grass, lined with fine grass, very deep and narrow, with thick sides, with four small somewhat cream-colored eggs with small brown and some black spots chiefly toward larger end.”); June 8, 1855 ("What was that little nest on the ridge near by, made of fine grass lined with a few hairs and containing five small eggs ... nearly as broad as long, yet pointed, white with fine dull-brown spots especially on the large end—nearly hatched? The nest in the dry grass under a shrub, remarkably concealed. . . .—It is a Maryland yellow-throat.”); June 12, 1859 ("Maryland yellow-throat four eggs, fresh, in sphagnum in the interior omphalos.")

A painted turtle digging her nest in the road at 5.45 P. M. See June 10, 1856 (“A painted tortoise laying her eggs ten feet from the wheel-track on the Marlborough road. She paused at first, but I sat down within two feet, and she soon resumed her work. ”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Painted Turtle (Emys Picta)

Common blue flag, how long? See June 12, 1852 ("The blue flag (Iris versicolor). Its buds are a dark indigo-blue tip beyond the green calyx. It is rich but hardly delicate and simple enough; a very handsome sword-shaped leaf . . .The blue flag, notwithstanding its rich furniture, its fringed recurved parasols over its anthers, and its variously streaked and colored petals, is loose and coarse in its habit.");  June 14, 1851 ("Saw a blue flag blossom in the meadow while waiting for the stake-driver."); June 14, 1853 ("The blue flag (Iris versicolor) grows in this pure water, rising from the stony bottom all around the shores, and is very beautiful, — not too high-colored, — especially its reflections in the water."); June 15, 1859 ("Blue flag abundant."); June 30,1851 ("The blue flag (Iris versicolor) enlivens the meadow.”); June 30, 1852 ("Is not this period more than any distinguished for flowers, when roses, swamp-pinks, morning-glories, arethusas, pogonias, orchises, blue flags, epilobiums, mountain laurel, and white lilies are all in blossom at once?")

June 10. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 10

a painted turtle

digging her nest in the road

at 5:45

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, a painted turtle digging  in the road

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

We find only the world we look for.

July 2

Partridge-berry in bloom

(Mitchella repens)

July 2, 2017

(avesong)

P. M. — To Gowing's Swamp. 

Flannery says that there was a frost this morning in Moore's Swamp on the Bedford road, where he has potatoes. He observed something white on the potatoes about 3.30 a. m. and, stooping, breathed on and melted it. Minott says he has known a frost every month in the year, but at this season it would be a black frost, which bites harder than a white one. 

The Gaylussacia dumosa var. hirtella, not yet quite in prime. This is commonly an inconspicuous bush, eight to twelve inches high, half prostrate over the sphagnum in which it grows, together with the andromedas, European cranberry, etc., etc., but sometimes twenty inches high quite on the edge of the swamp. It has a very large and peculiar bell-shaped flower, with prominent ribs and a rosaceous tinge, and is not to be mistaken for the edible huckleberry or blueberry blossom. 

The flower deserves a more particular description than Gray gives it. But Bigelow says well of its corolla that it is "remarkable for its distinct, five angled form." Its segments are a little recurved. The calyx-segments are acute and pink at last; the racemes, elongated, about one inch long, one-sided; the corolla, narrowed at the mouth, but very wide above; the calyx, with its segments, pedicels, and the whole raceme (and indeed the leaves somewhat), glandular-hairy. 

Calla palustris (with its convolute point like the cultivated) at the south end of Gowing's Swamp. Having found this in one place, I now find it in another. 

Many an object is not seen, though it falls within the range of our visual ray, because it does not come within the range of our intellectual ray, i. e., we are not looking for it. So, in the largest sense, we find only the world we look for. 

July 2, 2017

I hear many Maryland yellow-throats about the edge of this swamp, and even [?] near their nests. Indeed, I find one or two old ones suspended much like a red-wing's amid the water andromeda. They are quite small and of such material as this bird chooses. 

I see amid the Andromeda Polifolia pure bright crimson leaves, and, looking closely, find that in many instances one branch, affected by a kind of disease, bears very handsome light-crimson leaves, two or three times as wide as usual, of the usual white color beneath, which contrast strangely with the slender green and glaucous ones on the contiguous branches. 

The water andromeda has similar crimson leaves, only proportionally larger and coarser, showing the dots. These are very common. Those of the Polifolia far more delicate. 

Pogonia ophioglossoides apparently in a day or two.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 2, 1857

The Gaylussacia dumosa var. hirtella, not yet quite in prime. . . . not to be mistaken for the edible huckleberry or blueberry blossom. See June 25, 1857 ("To Gowing's Swamp. . . . Gaylussacia dumosa apparently in a day or two.”):

• Dwarf huckleberry (Gaylussacia bigeloviana or Gaylussacia dumosa is a northern plant that occurs in bogs and fens. Its delicate, bell-like flowers tinged in pink mature into juicy black fruits, which are eaten by ruffed grouse, quail, turkeys, foxes, and squirrels.~ GoBotany

 See also   August 30, 1856 (“I noticed also a few small peculiar-looking huckleberries hanging on bushes amid the sphagnum, and, tasting, perceived that they were hispid, a new kind to me. Gaylussacia dumosa var. hirtella . . .. Has a small black hairy or hispid berry, shining but insipid and inedible, with a tough, hairy skin left in the mouth.”);August 8, 1858 (“the Gaylussacia dumosa var. hiriella . . . the only inedible species of  Vaccinieoe that I know in this town”)

It grows, together with the andromedas, European cranberry, etc., etc. See August 30, 1856 "(I have come out this afternoon a-cranberrying, chiefly to gather some of the small cranberry, Vaccinium Oxycoccus, which Emerson says is the common cranberry of the north of Europe.")

Calla palustris . . . at the south end of Gowing's Swamp. Having found this in one place, I now find it in another. See May 29, 1856 (“Where you find a rare flower, expect to find more rare ones.”); June 19, 1856 ("Looked at a collection of the rarer plants made by Higginson and placed at the Natural History Rooms. Among which noticed:. . . the Calla palustris”); June 7, 1857 (“Pratt has got the Calla palustris, in prime. . .from the bog near Bateman's Pond”); June 9, 1857( “The calla is generally past prime and going to seed. I had said to Pratt, "It will be worth the while to look for other rare plants in Calla Swamp, for I have observed that where one rare plant grows there will commonly be others." ”); June 24, 1857 ("Found [in Owl-Nest Swamp] the Calla palustris, out of bloom, and the naumbergia, now in prime, which was hardly begun on the 9th at Bateman Pond Swamp.”); August 29, 1857 ("I find the calla [in Owl-Nest Swamp] going to seed, but still the seed is green.”); May 29, 1858 ("At Calla Swamp. . .Calla apparently in two or three, or three or four days, the very earliest") The Owl-Nest Swamp , Bateman Pond Swamp and Calla Swamp are the same,  being the bog located south of Bateman’s Pond.

~ Calla (bog arum, marsh calla, wild calla, water-arum) is a genus of flowering plant containing the single species Calla palustris. Not to be confused with species from tropical Africa in a separate genus, often termed "calla lilies”.~ Wikipedia

One or two old yellow-throat nests quite small and of such material as this bird chooses.See note to June 7, 1857 (“A nest well made outside of leaves, then grass, lined with fine grass, very deep and narrow, with thick sides, with four small somewhat cream-colored eggs with small brown and some black spots chiefly toward larger end.”)

Looking closely, find that in many instances one branch, affected by a kind of disease, bears very handsome light-crimson leaves . . .See April 19 1852 ("How sweet is the perception of a new natural fact! suggesting what worlds remain to be unveiled. That phenomenon of the andromeda seen against the sun cheers me exceedingly. .... It is a natural magic. These little leaves are the stained windows in the cathedral of my world.”)

Having found this in one place, I now find it in another. Many an object is not seen, though it falls within the range of our visual ray, because it does not come within the range of our intellectual ray, i. e., we are not looking for it. See March 23, 1853 ("Man cannot afford to be a naturalist, to look at Nature directly, but only with the side of his eye. He must look through and beyond her. “); March 29, 1853 (“It is not till we are completely lost, or turned around, --for a man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost, --do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of Nature.”); June 14, 1853 (". . . you are in that favorable frame of mind described by De Quincey, open to great impressions, and you see those rare sights with the unconscious side of the eye, which you could not see by a direct gaze before.”) November 6, 1853 (“It is remarkable how little we attend to what is passing before us constantly, unless our genius directs our attention that way.”); December 11, 1855; ("I saw this familiar fact at a different angle. It is only necessary to behold thus the least fact or phenomenon, however familiar, from a point a hair’s breadth aside from our habitual path or routine, to be overcome, enchanted by its beauty and significance. To perceive freshly, with fresh senses, is to be inspired.”); September 2, 1856; ("It commonly chances that I make my most interesting botanical discoveries when I am in a thrilled and expectant mood,. . .”); September 9, 1858 (“A man sees only what concerns him.”); November 4, 1858 ("Objects are concealed from our view not so much because they are out of the course of our visual ray (continued) as because there is no intention of the mind and eye toward them. We do not realize how far and widely, or how near and narrowly, we are to look. The greater part of the phenomena of nature are for this reason concealed to us all our lives.. . . We cannot see any thing until we are possessed with the idea of it, and then we can hardly see anything else. In my botanical rambles I find that first the idea, or image, of a plant occupies my thoughts, though it may at first seem very foreign to this locality, and for some weeks or months I go thinking of it and expecting it unconsciously, and at length I surely see it, and it is henceforth an actual neighbor of mine. This is the history of my finding a score or more of rare plants which I could name.”); January 5, 1860 ("A man receives only what he is ready to receive. . . . He does not observe the phenomenon that cannot be linked with the rest which he has observed, however novel and remarkable it may be. A man tracks himself through life, apprehending only what he already half knows.”); Autumnal tints.("Objects are concealed from our view, not so much because they are out of the course of our visual ray as because we do not bring our minds and eyes to bear on them”)

Many an object

not seen as we find only

the world we look for.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, We find only the world we look for. 

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

I turn to listen to a hermit thrush by the Fisher Pond

The partridge-berry in bloom, a  pretty fringed flower in pairs.

The black throated blue sings at the view.

Hemlock cones form near the end of new branchlets.

Jane finds a miniature acorn, a tiny Hickory nut 

and a hop hornbeam flower on the forest floor.

We are out for five hours in mid-afternoon the sun just slanting through the trees as we come home at 6:30. The rain of the past week has washed all the trails clear of leaves and we improve natures work along the way,  first cutting up climb across the neighbors land to the double chair it is hot and still, then down around the Fisher pond and back up over the ridge detouring to the porcupine tree then bushwhacking side-hill towards the view.

Jane puts a blanket down for the dogs but ends up on it  herself it's like a beach she says without the water or the sand. Clouds float in the sky it seems clear and dry straight overhead we stay a long time listening to the black throated blue at the view 

We go down the long way deep into the big house swamp now overgrown with nettles that Jane clears out it is full of water and wet all the way out to our land and beyond.  we cross the stream by the fort (east side) and there's as much water there as I have seen. Sunlight slanting through the trees making spots on the cliffs as we walk out the Boulder trail home

I turn to listen 

to a hermit thrush by the 

Kendall-Fisher Pond.

Clouds float in the sky 

a long time listening to 

the black throated blue 

We are out five hours 

the sun just slanting through the 

trees as we come home.

zphx 20170702

Now I notice many bubbles left on the water in my wake.

June 7. 

Sunday. P.M. — To river and Ponkawtasset with M. Pratt. 

June 7, 2017

Now I notice many bubbles left on the water in my wake, as if it were more sluggish or had more viscidity than earlier. Far behind me they rest without bursting. 

Pratt has got the Calla palustris, in prime, — some was withering, so it may have been out ten days,— from the bog near Bateman's Pond; also Oxalis violacea, which he says began about last Sunday, or May 31st, larger and handsomer than the yellow, though it blossoms but sparingly. Red huckleberry about same time. It is sticky like the black. His geranium from Fitzwilliam is well in bloom. It seems to be herb-robert, but without any offensive odor! (?)

A small elm in front of Pratt's which he says three years ago had flowers in flat cymes, like a cornel! ! [He must be mistaken.] I have pressed some leaves. 

At the cross-wall below N. Hunt's, some way from road, the red cohush, one plant only in flower, the rest going to seed. Probably, therefore, with the white. It has slender pedicels and petals shorter than the white. 

Garlic grows there, not yet out. 

Rubus triflorus still in bloom there. 

At the base of some hellebore, in a tuft a little from under the east edge of an apple tree, below violet wood-sorrel, a nest well made outside of leaves, then grass, lined with fine grass, very deep and narrow, with thick sides, with four small somewhat cream-colored eggs with small brown and some black spots chiefly toward larger end. 

The bird, which flew off quickly, made me think of a wren and of a Maryland yellow-throat, though I saw no yellow. 

It was a Maryland yellow-throat. 

Egg fresh. She is very shy and will not return to nest while you wait, but keeps up a very faint chip in the bushes or grass at some distance.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 7, 1857

Now I notice many bubbles left on the water in my wake. See September 14, 1854 ("Now our oars leave a broad wake of large bubbles, which are slow to burst.”)

Oxalis violacea, which [Pratt] says began about last Sunday, or May 31st, larger and handsomer than the yellow, though it blossoms but sparingly . . . under the east edge of an apple tree, below violet wood-sorrel, a nest . . . See June 7, 1858 ("Oxalis violacea in garden.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Wood Sorrel (Oxalis)

A nest well made outside of leaves, then grass, lined with fine grass, very deep and narrow, with thick sides, with four small somewhat cream-colored eggs with small brown and some black spots chiefly toward larger end. See June 8, 1855 ("What was that little nest on the ridge near by, made of fine grass lined with a few hairs and containing five small eggs (two hatched the 11th), nearly as broad as long, yet pointed, white with fine dull-brown spots especially on the large end—nearly hatched? . . .(June 11.—It is a Maryland yellow-throat.)”); June 10, 1858 ("Perfectly concealed under the loose withered grass at the base of a clump of birches, with no apparent entrance. The usual small deep nest (but not raised up) of dry leaves, fine grass stubble, and lined with a little hair. Four eggs, white, with brown spots, chiefly at larger end, and some small black specks or scratches. The bird flits out very low and swiftly and does not show herself, so that it is hard to find the nest or to identify the bird.”); June 12, 1859 ("To Gowing's Swamp . . .Maryland yellow-throat four eggs, fresh, in sphagnum in the interior omphalos.")

June 7. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, June 7

Bubbles left behind

on the water in my wake 

rest without bursting.

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

Who saw the otter?

May 9. 

Another fine day. 

6 a. m. — On water. 

Maryland yellow-throat. Aspen leaves one inch over.

Hear stake-driver. Black and white creeper's fine note. Er-te-ter-twee, or evergreen-forest note. Golden-crowned thrush note. Kingbird. 

P. M. To Gilson's Mill, Littleton. 

George Brooks points to an old house of which one half the roof only has been shingled, etc., etc., and says he guessed it to be a widow's dower from this, and on inquiry found it so. 

Went to Gilson's tumble-down mill and house. He appeared, licking his chaps after dinner, in a mealy coat, and suddenly asked in the midst of a sentence, with a shrug of his shoulders, 

"Isn't there something painted on my back ?" 

There were some marks in red chalk they used to chalk the bags with, and he said he thought he had felt his son at the mill chalking his back. He feared he was making an exhibition before strangers. 

The boy speared fishes, chiefly suckers, pouts, etc. A fire in a hand-crate carried along the bank of the brook (Stony Brook). He had lately speared a sucker weighing five and a quarter pounds, which he sold; went back and forth some twenty-five rods and found the suckers less shy at last than at first. 

Saw otter there. 

I saw many perch at the foot of the falls. 

He said that they and trout could get up five or six feet over the rocks there into the pond, it being a much broken fall.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 9, 1857

Saw otter there. Consider. Did Thoreau, while visiting the falls at Littleton, see an otter? Or is he recounting a second-hand story about Gilson the miller's son? See March 31, 1857 ("The existence of the otter, our largest wild animal, is not betrayed to any of our senses (or at least not to more than one in a thousand)!"); April 6, 1855 ("it reminds me of an otter, which however I have never seen."); February 20, 1855 (among the quadrupeds of Concord, the otter is "very rare."); January 30, 1854 ("How retired an otter manages to live! He grows to be four feet long without any mortal getting a glimpse of him,");  January 21, 1853 ("Otter are very rare here now.”); and the Natural History of Massachusetts (1842) ("The bear, wolf, lynx, wildcat, deer, beaver, and marten have disappeared ; the otter is rarely if ever seen here at present; and the mink is less common than formerly..")

The river is now rising fast.

August 22.
Fair weather at last. 

P. M. — Up Assabet. 

Owing to the rain of the 8th and before, two days and two nights, the river rose to within six inches of the top of Hoar's wall. It had fallen about one half, when the rain began again on the night of the 20th, and again continued about two nights and two days, though so much did not fall as before; but, the river being high, it is now rising fast. 

The Assabet is apparently at its height, and rushing very swiftly past the Hemlocks, where it is narrow and choked with rocks, I can hardly row against it there. I see much hay floating, and two or three cocks, quite black, carried round and round in a great eddy by the side of the stream, which will ere long be released and continue their voyage down-stream. 

The water is backing up the main stream so that there is no current what ever in that, as far up as my boat's place, at least. When I rest on my oars the boat will not after any waiting drift down-stream.  It is within three inches of the top of Hoar's wall at 7 p. m. 

I notice three or four clumps of white maples, at the swamp up the Assabet, which have turned as red (dull red) as ever they do, fairly put on their autumnal hue. But we have had no dry weather and no frost, and this is apparently a premature ripening of the leaves. The water stands around and affects them as it does the weeds and grass, — steams them too. They, as it were, take these for the fall rains, the latter rain, accept their fates, and put on the suitable dress. 

This shows how little frost has to do with such changes, except as a ripener of the leaves. The trees are so ready for this change that only a copious rain and rise of the waters as in the fall produces the same effect. 

Also some red maples on hillsides have a crisped look for the same reason, actually ripening and drying without turning and without drought or frost. 

I find that much of the faint warbling I hear nowadays is from apparently the young Maryland yellow- throats, as it were practicing against another spring, — half-finished strains. They are also more inquisitive and bold than usual, hopping quite near. 

The creak of the mole cricket is heard along the shore.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 22, 1856

It is within three inches of the top of Hoar's wall at 7 p. m. Compare August 22, 1854 ("I go again to the Great Meadows, to improve this remarkably dry season and walk where in ordinary times I cannot go. . . ")

Surrounded by whiteweed

June 24. 

June 24.

To Sassacowen Pond and to Long Pond. 

Common yellow thistle abundant about R’s; open a good while. 

Maryland yellow-throats very common in bushes behind his house; nest with young. 

American holly now in prime. 

The light-colored masses of mountain laurel were visible across Sassacowen. 

A kingbird’s nest just completed in an apple tree. 

Lunched by the spring on the Brady farm in Freetown, and there it occurred to me how to get clear water from a spring when the surface is covered with dust or insects. Thrust your dipper down deep in the middle of the spring and lift it up quickly straight and square. This will heap up the water in the middle so that the scum will run off. 

We were surrounded by whiteweed. The week before I had seen it equally abundant in Worcester (in many fields the flowers placed in one plane would more than cover the surface), and here as there each flower had a dark ring of small black insects on its disk. Think of the many dense white fields between here and there, aye and for a thousand miles around, and then calculate the amount of insect life of one obscure species! 

Went off to Nelson’s Island (now Briggs’s) in Long Pond by a long, very narrow bar (fifty rods as I paced it), in some places the water over shoes and the sand commonly only three or four feet wide. This is a noble island, maybe of eight or ten acres, some thirty feet high and just enough wooded, with grass ground and grassy hollows. 

There was a beech wood at the west end, where R.’s son Walton found an arrowhead when they were here before, and the hemlocks resounded with the note of the tweezer-bird (Sylvia Americana). 

There were many ephemerae half dead on the bushes. 

R. dreams of residing here.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 24, 1856

A kingbird’s nest just completed in an apple tree. See June 13, 1855 ("Two kingbirds’ nests with eggs in an apple and in a willow by riverside.") and note to June 8, 1858 ("A kingbird's nest with three eggs, lined with some hair, in a fork — or against upright part — of a willow, just above near stone bridge.")
Sassacowen Pond . . . See September 30, 1856 ("Rode with R. to Sassacowens Pond, in the north part of New Bedford on the Taunton road, called also Toby’s Pond . . .”)

The hemlocks resounded with the note of the tweezer-bird (Sylvia Americana). See June 30, 1856 ("The tweezer-birds were lively in the hemlocks")