What is the earliest sign of spring?

March 7.

What is the earliest sign of spring? The motion of worms and insects? The flow of sap in trees and the swelling of buds? Do not the insects awake with the flow of the sap? Bluebirds, etc., probably do not come till insects come out. Or are there earlier signs in the water? - the tortoises, frogs, etc.

The only birds I see to-day are the lesser redpolls. I have not seen a fox-colored sparrow or a Fringilla hyemalis [snowbird].

Find the yellow bud of a Nuphar advena in the ditch on the Turnpike on E. Hosmer's land, bud nearly half an inch in diameter on a very thick stem, three fourths of an inch thick at base and ten inches long, four or five inches above the mud. This may have swollen somewhat during the warmest weather in the winter, after pushing up in the fall. And I see that it may, in such a case, in favorable locations, blossom at very early but irregular periods in the spring.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 7, 1853

What is the earliest sign of spring? See February 23, 1857("I have seen signs of the spring. I have seen a frog swiftly sinking in a pool, or where he dimpled the surface as he leapt in. I have seen the brilliant spotted tortoises stirring at the bottom of ditches. I have seen the clear sap trickling from the red maple.”)

Spring fog.

March 6.

Sunday. Last Sunday I plucked some alder twigs, some aspen, and some swamp willow, and put them in water in a warm room, Immediately the alder catkins were relaxed and began to lengthen and open, and by the second day to drop their pollen; like handsome pendants they hung round the pitcher, and at the same time the smaller female flower expanded and brightened. In about four days the aspens began to show their red anthers and feathery scales, being an inch in length and still extending. March 2d, I added the andromeda; March 3d, the rhodora.

This morning, the ground being still covered with snow, there was quite a fog over the river and meadows, which I think owing to a warm atmosphere over the cold snow.

The hemlock cones have shed their seeds, but there are some closed yet on the ground. 

Part of the pitch pine cones are yet closed.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 6, 1853

See : A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, I Have Seen Signs of the Spring

• Catkins expanding

 

Part of the pitch pine cones are yet closed. See April 19, 1856 (“As dryness will open the pitch pine cone, so moisture closes it up again. “); March 3, 1855 ("I find a cone which was probably dropped by a squirrel in the fall, [and] buried by the snow till now, for it has apparently just opened, and I shake its seeds out.”); March 1, 1856 ("I see a pitch pine seed with its wing, far out on Walden.”); February 27, 1853 (“ Each scale, which is very elaborately and perfectly constructed, is armed with a short spine, pointing downward, as if to protect its seed from squirrels and birds. That hard closed cone, which defied all violent attempts to open it has thus yielded to the gentle persuasion of warmth and dryness. The expanding of the pine cones, that, too, is a season.”); February 22, 1855 (“Pitch pine cones must be taken from the tree at the right season, else they will not open or “blossom” in a chamber.” ); February 1, 1856 ("I see a pitch pine seed, blown thirty rods from J. Hosmer’s little grove.”); January 25, 1856 (“A closed pitch pine cone gathered January 22d opened last night in my chamber.”); January 22, 1856 ("I find that many of those young pines are now full of unopened cones, which apparently will be two years old next summer, and these the squirrel now eats. “); January 8, 1856 ("All of the pitch pine cones that I see, but one, are open.”); November 20, 1855 ("the whole cone opens its scales with a smart crackling."); November 14, 1855 (“ . . . It is a general and sudden bursting or expanding of all the scales with a sharp crackling sound and motion of the whole cone, as by a force pent up within it. I suppose the strain only needed to be relieved in one point for the whole to go off..”); October 24, 1854 (" he chickadees are picking the seeds out of pitch pine cones.”) and Seasons of the Pitch Pine

The Lesser Redpoll

March 5.

F. Brown showed me to-day some lesser redpolls which he shot yesterday. They turn out to be my falsely-called chestnut-frontleted bird of the winter. They have a sharp bill, black legs and claws, and a bright-crimson crown or frontlet, in the male reaching to the base of the bill, with, in his case, a delicate rose or carmine on the breast and rump. Though this is described by Nuttall as an occasional visitor in the winter, it has been the prevailing bird here this winter.

 Yesterday I got my grape cuttings. The day before went to the Corner Spring to look at the tufts of green grass. Got some of the very common leptogium (??). Is it one of the Collemaceæ? 

Was pleased with the sight of the yellow osiers of the golden willow, and the red of the cornel, now colors are so rare. 

Saw the green fine-threaded conferva in a ditch, commonly called frog-spittle. Brought it home in my pocket, and it expanded again in a tumbler. It appeared quite a fresh growth, with what looked like filmy air-bubbles, as big as large shot, in its midst.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 5, 1853

The lesser redpoll has been the prevailing bird here this winter. See . March 6, 1860 ("The linarias have been the most numerous birds the past winter"); December 11, 1855  (“There is no question about the existence of these delicate creatures, their adaptedness to their circumstances.”)  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Lesser Redpoll

Saw the green fine-threaded conferva in a ditch. See January 29, 1858 ("In the ditches on Holbrook's meadow near Copan, I see a Rana palustris swimming, and much conferva greening all the water. Even this green is exhilarating, like a spring in winter. I am affected by the sight even of a mass of conferva in a ditch")

The season of pine cones.

February 27

A week or two ago I brought home a handsome pitch pine cone which had freshly fallen and was closed perfectly tight. It was put into a table drawer. To-day I am agreeably surprised to find that it has there dried and opened with perfect regularity, filling the drawer, and from a solid, narrow, and sharp cone, has become a broad, rounded, open one, -- has, in fact, expanded with the regularity of a flower's petals into a conical flower of rigid scales, and has shed a remarkable quantity of delicate-winged seeds. 

Each scale, which is very elaborately and perfectly constructed, is armed with a short spine, pointing downward, as if to protect its seed from squirrels and birds. That hard closed cone, which defied all violent attempts to open it has thus yielded to the gentle persuasion of warmth and dryness. The expanding of the pine cones, that, too, is a season.

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

The expanding of the pine cones ... is a season. See February 22, 1855 ("Pitch pine cones must be taken from the tree at the right season, else they will not open or “blossom” in a chamber.")
 

Men of the woods.

February 23. 

I think myself in a wilder country, 
and a little nearer to primitive times,
when I read in old books 

which spell the word savages with an "l" 

   (salvages), 

like John Smith's 
"General Historie of Virginia," 
reminding me of 
the derivation of the word from

   sylva. 

There is some of the wild wood

and its bristling branches

still left in their language.
The savages they described

are really salvages,

Men of the woods.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 23, 1853 

The falling and driving snow

February 13

In the midst of the snow-storm on Sunday (to-day), I am called to window to see a dense flock of snow birds on and under the pigweed in the garden. It was so in the other storm. I have not observed them in the garden at any other time this winter. They come with the storm, the falling and driving snow. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 13, 1853

I am called to window to see a dense flock of snowbirds on and under the pigweed in the garden. See February 13, 1855 ("One of these pigweeds in the yard lasts the snow-birds all winter, and after every new storm they re-visit it. How inexhaustible their granary!");  See also  January 2, 1856 ("I see, near the back road and railroad, a small flock of eight snow buntings feeding on the the seeds of the pigweed.”); January 19, 1855 (“At noon it is still a driving snow-storm, and a little flock of redpolls is busily picking the seeds of the pigweed in the garden.”);  February 9, 1855 ("I was so sure this storm would bring snowbirds into the yard that I went to the window at ten to look for them, and there they were."); February 10, 1855 ("It is worth the while to let some pigweed grow in your garden, if only to attract these winter visitors.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Birds; A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Snow Bunting; A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Pigweed

February 13.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February 13 

They come with the storm

the falling and driving snow–

a flock of snowbirds.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The falling and driving snow

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-530213

A thick fog.

February 5.

February 5, 2012

A thick fog. The trees and woods look well through it. You are inclined to walk in the woods for objects. They are draped with mist, and you hear the sound of it dripping from them. 

It is a lichen day. Not a bit of rotten wood lies on the dead leaves, but it is covered with fresh, green cup lichens, etc., etc. All the world seems a great lichen and to grow like one to-day, - a sudden humid growth. 

I remember now that the mist was much thicker over the pond than elsewhere. I could not distinguish a man there more than ten rods off, and the woods, seen dimly across a bay, were mistaken for the opposite side of the pond. I could almost fancy a bay of an acre in extent the whole pond. Elsewhere, methinks, I could see twice as far. I felt the greater coolness of the air over the pond, which it was, I suppose, that condensed the vapor more there.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 5, 1853


It is a lichen day. See February 5, 1852 ("The stems of the white pines also are quite gray at this distance, with their lichens”);  February 5, 1860 (" I see where crows have pecked the tufts of cladonia lichens which peep out of the snow, pulling them to pieces, no doubt looking for worms.") See also January 26, 1852 ("The lichens look rather bright to-day, . . .The beauty of lichens, with their scalloped leaves, the small attractive fields, the crinkled edge! I could study a single piece of bark for hour.”);  January 26, 1858 ("This is a lichen day. The white lichens, partly encircling aspens and maples, look as if a painter had touched their trunks with his brush as he passed.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Lichens and the lichenst studying lichens.