I hear the Hermit Thrush for the first time. Have I heard it before and not noticed? -- The Spring Arrival of the Hermit Thrush

April 16, 2017

 I hear the Hermit Thrush for the first time. Have I heard it before and not noticed?

Walking the dog just after 7 AM I notice that I am hearing a hermit thrush singing a call so familiar it seems like it had always been here.  The world can never be more beautiful. 

It’s hard to explain. I was present with the song until a moment when I noticed it. Then there was a flood of excitement and confusion whether the bird had been singing all along, or even yesterday. But clearly now later as I write, the bird has just first arrived. And, as I walk around the trails near the house with the dog this song both stops and starts —as the bird does not sing constantly— and the song also comes in and out of consciousness -- especially returning up the stairs, projecting my thoughts forward into the day and room ahead, the voice  comes to me again: it is here in my presence but I hear it only now. To hear without listening. To listen without hearing. To hear with the side of the ear.  zphx ~April 16, 2022 7AM

I am a body

connected to all bodies

awake in the world.

See   May 10, 1853 ("All at once a strain that sounds like old times and recalls a hundred associations. Not at once do I remember that a year has elapsed since I heard it, and then the idea of the bobolink is formed in my mind.”);May 23, 1841 ("All nature is a new impression every instant"); April 5, 1860 ("Thus gradually and moderately the year begins. It creeps into the ears so gradually that most do not observe it, and so our ears are gradually accustomed to the sound, and perchance we do not perceive it when at length it has become very much louder and more general."); April 15, 1859 ("[W]hether he is conscious of it or not, that the world is beautiful and life a fair enterprise to engage in . . . If you yield for a moment to the impressions of sense, you hear some bird giving expression to its happiness in a pleasant strain. We are provided with singing birds and with ears to hear them "); April 30, 1856 ("I was trying to get the exact course of a wall thickly beset with shrub oaks and birches, making an opening through them with axe and knife, while the hillside seemed to quiver or pulsate with the sudden melody. Again, it is with the side of the ear that you hear. The music or the beauty belong not to your work itself but some of its accompaniments. You would fain devote yourself to the melody, but you will hear more of it if you devote yourself to your work."); January 12, 1855 ("What a delicious sound! . . .for it speaks to me too. I am part of one great creature with him; if he has voice, I have ears. I can hear when he calls.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A body awake in the world.
I

The Spring Arrival of the Hermit Thrush

Aprill 6. l hear my first hermit thrush sing east of the house while walking the dog in the morning. April 6, 2025. 

April 10. Hear my first hermit thrush midafternoon at the fort. Vreee vreeen; then the song. She is looking at a trillium at the noisy stream and does not hear. April 10, 2021

April 10. I hear the vreeen call at sunset north of the house after a drizzly day, distinctly as a new sound and think hermit -- but no song.  April 10, 2024

April 11. On the way back on the road for the first time this spring  we both hear the hermits' song in the hemlocks  We stop and listen.  Heard the call note last night.

We stop and listen -

the song of the Hermit Thrush

among the hemlocks

April 11, 2024

April 12. The ice is out on Lake Champlain. April 12, 1856.  

April 12. This morning  it comes to me that I am listening to a hermit thrush while walking the dog. April 12, 2023

April 14. Hear my first hermit thrush of the season this morning before dawn on my way to work -- later I learn the ice is out of the Broad lake and it reaches 80° in Burlington. April 14, 2014

April 14. Just at dusk we hear the hermit thrush ( I for the first time) and then later in Eastland its clucking sound. I have to be reminded it is the hermit.  April 14, 2017 

April 15. Open the garage early this morning and hear the hermit thrush after a night of rain. April 15, 2019

April 16. She says that hermit thrush is back. Not singing, but clucking. April 16, 2016

April 16. A quarter moon in the sky follows us back through the old growth trees, coming home after our walk at dusk,  orange sky in the west, to end a perfect day we first hear the hermit thrush. April 16, 2016

April 16. I hear the hermit thrush singing it’s familiar song near the driveway first thing in the morning. April  16, 2022 

April 16.  I first hear the Hermit thrush singing this morning, west of the house. April 16, 2026

April 18.  Was surprised to see a wagtail thrush, the golden-crowned, at the Assabet Spring, which inquisitively followed me along the shore over the snow, hopping quite near. I should say this was the golden-crowned thrush without doubt, though I saw none of the gold, if this and several more which I saw had not kept close to the water. May possibly be the aquaticus. Have a jerk of the forked tail. April 18, 1854.

April 18. Coming back next to the pond. There we stop and listen to the Hermit Thrush. The first clear song. Evoking memories. April 18, 2024 

April 19.  First thrush heard in the morning. April 19, 2015.

April 20. H. Mann brings me the hermit thrush. April 20, 1861

April 21. At Cliffs, I hear at a distance a wood [sic] thrush. It affects us as a part of our unfallen selves.  April 21, 1855

April 21. The hermit thrush loudly sounds it's vreeen note but does not sing. April 21, 2017.

April 21,  At the top of the upper ramp She sees a hermit thrush.  April 21, 2018

April 24. Returning, in the low wood just this side the first Second Division Brook, near the meadow, see a brown bird flit, and behold my hermit thrush, with one companion, flitting silently through the birches. I saw the fox-color on his tail-coverts, as well as the brown streaks on the breast. Both kept up a constant jerking of the tail as they sat on their perches.  April 24, 1856

April 25. Hermit thrush is back! The first day. Perhaps five in one spot. She teaches me how to distinguish its voice from the wood thrush. Aprill 25, 2009 

April 27. What a shy fellow my hermit thrush!  April 27, 1854

May 4.  Several larger thrushes on low limbs and on ground, with a dark eye (not the white around it of the wood thrush) and, I think, the nankeen spot on the secondaries. A hermit thrush?  May  4, 1855 

May 6. And on the way home at dusk the hermit thrush and Woodthrush (ee-oo-LAY) alternate.  May 6, 2017. 

May 7. A wood [sic] thrush which . . . betrayed himself by moving, like a large sparrow with ruffled feathers, and quirking his tail like a pewee,  on a low branch. May 7, 1852 . 

May 12. Hermit thrushes are still singing in the woods in the nearly complete darkness. May 12, 2016 

 

May 29. Dusk. We go out after the rain to find the Lady's slipper.  The woods are dripping wet, the hemlocks' bright new growth just beginning to show.   The hermit thrush sings. Along the cliff edge three Lady's slippers in bloom.  May 29, 2016

.

HDT needed brushing up on his thrushes. See May 7, 1852 ("A wood [sic] thrush which. . .betrayed himself by moving, like a large sparrow with ruffled feathers, and quirking his tail like a pewee, on a low branch.”); May 22, 1852 ("On my way to Plymouth, looked at Audubon in the State-House. The female (and male?) wood thrush spotted the whole length of belly; the hermit thrush not so.”);; April 18, 1854 ("Was surprised to see a wagtail thrush, the golden-crowned, at the Assabet Spring,”); September 29, 1855 ("At Natural History Library saw Dr. Cabot, who says that he has heard either the hermit, or else the olivaceous, thrush sing,—very like a wood thrush, but softer. Is sure that the hermit thrush sometimes breeds hereabouts.”); April 21, 1855 ("At Cliffs, I hear at a distance a wood [sic] thrush. It affects us as a part of our unfallen selves..”); May 4, 1855 ("Several larger thrushes on low limbs and on ground, with a dark eye (not the white around it of the wood thrush) and, I think, the nankeen spot on the secondaries. A hermit thrush?).

 

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 © 2009-2022

A Book of the Seasons, Signs of the Spring: I begin to think that my wood will last.

No mortal is alert enough to be present at the first dawn of the spring. 

Henry Thoreau, March 17, 1857

One attraction in coming to the woods to live was

 that I should have leisure and opportunity to see the spring come in.

 The days have grown sensibly longer; 

and I see how I shall get through the winter without adding to my wood-pile,

 for large fires are no longer necessary. 

I am on the alert for the first signs of spring.

Walden

February 3. It is a cold and windy Sunday . . . The wind whistles round the northwest corner of the house and penetrates every crevice and consumes the wood in the stoves, — soon blows it all away. An armful goes but little way. Such a day makes a great hole in the wood-pile. February 3, 1856

February 10. A very strong and a cold northwest wind to-day, shaking the house, — thermometer at 11 a. m., 14°, — consumes wood and yet we are cold, and drives the smoke down the chimney. February 10, 1860

February 12. It was very cold this morning, and I have been putting on wood in vain to warm my chamber, and lo! I come forth, and am surprised to find it warm and pleasant. February 12 , 1854

February 15. The fire needs no replenishing, and we save our fuel. February 15, 1855

February 18. I begin to think that my wood will last. February 18, 1854

February 18. Thermometer at 1 P.M., 65 . . . I sit all this day and evening without a fire, and some even have windows open. February 18, 1857

February 23. I have seen signs of the spring. February 23, 1857

March 5. This and the last four or five days very gusty. Most of the warmth of the fire is carried off by the draught, which consumes the wood very fast, faster than a much colder but still day in winter. My kindlings spend very fast now, for I do not commonly keep fire at night.  March 5, 1857

March 22. The phenomena of an average March are . . . some calm and pleasant days reminding us of summer, with a blue haze or a thicker mist wreathing the woods at last, in which, perchance, we take off our coats awhile and sit without a fire a day. March 22, 1860

March 31. Sit without fire. March 31, 1860

So I came in and

shut the door and passed my first

spring night in the woods.

Walden, Spring

See also Signs of the Spring:

• A Change in the Air
• A Sunny Nook in Spring
• Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding
• Braided Ripples of Melting Snow Shine in the Ruts
• Bright Blue Water
• Buzzing Flies
• Ducks Afar, Sailing on the Meadow
• Frogs, and Turtles Stirring
• Greening Grasses and Sedges
• I begin to think that my wood will last.
• Insects and Worms Come Forth and are Active
• Listening for the Bluebird
• March is famous for its Winds
• Mosses Bright Green
• My Greatcoat on my Arm
• Perla-like Insects Appear
• Red Maple Sap Flows
• Ripples made by Fishes
• The Anxious Peep of the Early Robin
• The Crowing of Cocks, the Cawing of crows
• The Days have grown Sensibly Longer
• The Eaves Begin to Run
• The Gobbling of Turkeys
• The Grackle Arrives
• The Hawks of March
• The New Warmth of the Sun
• The Note of the Dark-eyed Junco Going Northward
• The Red-Wing Arrives
• The Skunk Cabbage Blooms
• The Softened Air of these Warm February Days
• The Song Sparrow Sings
• The Spring Note of the Chickadee
• The Spring Note of the Nuthatch
• The Striped Squirrel Comes Out
• The Water Bug (Gyrinus)
• Walking without Gloves
• Woodpeckers Tapping

  <<<<< Signs of Spring                                                                               Early Spring >>>>>

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring; 

I begin to think that my wood will last

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

http://tinyurl.com/hdt-woodpile

A fresh and inspiring dazzling bright day.

March 1

The last day for skating. It is a very pleasant and warm day, the finest yet, with considerable coolness in the air however, — winter still. 

March 1, 2025

The air is beautifully clear, and I trace at a distance the roofs and outlines of farmhouses amid the woods. 

We go listening for bluebirds, but only hear crows and chickadees. 

A fine seething air over the fair russet fields. 

The dusty banks of snow by the railroad reflect a wonderfully dazzling white due to the higher sun.

I am surprised to find the North River more frozen than the South, and we can cross it in many places. The spring sun shining on the sloping icy shores makes numerous dazzling ice-blinks, still brighter and prolonged with rectilinear sides in the reflection. 

I did well to walk in the forenoon, the fresh and inspiring half of this bright day.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 1, 1855

The last day for skating. See February 3, 1855 ("This will deserve to be called the winter of skating."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Winter of Skating

It is a very pleasant and warm day, the finest yet.  See March 2, 1855 ("Another still, warm, beautiful day like yesterday. "); March 15, 1860 ("On the whole the finest day yet . . . Here is the first fair, and at the same time calm and warm, day") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

I am surprised to find the North River more frozen than the South. See March 1, 1856 ("Ask the sheldrake whether the rivers are completely sealed up.") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Ice-out

The spring sun shining on the sloping icy shores. See March 1, 1854 ("For some days past the surface of the earth, covered with water, or with ice where the snow is washed off, has shone in the sun as it does only at the approach of spring.")

We go listening for bluebirds, but only hear crows and chickadees.  A fine seething air over the fair russet fields. See February 22, 1855 ("Remarkably warm and pleasant weather, perfect spring. I even listen for the first bluebird. I see a seething in the air over clean russet fields. "); March 1, 1854 ("I hear the phoebe or spring note of the chickadee, and the scream of the jay is perfectly repeated by the echo from a neighboring wood "); March 1, 1856 ("I hear several times the fine-drawn phe-be note of the chickadee. . .Singular that I should hear this on the first spring day."). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring:   

• Listening for the Bluebird 
• The Spring Note of the Chickadee 
• The crowing of cocks, the cawing of crows

March 1.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,   March 1

I did well to waik

the fresh and inspiring half

of this bright day.

We go listening 

for bluebirds, but only hear 

crows and chickadees. 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A fresh and inspiring dazzling bright day.

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-550301

***

March 1. 10 A. M. — To Derby's Bridge and return by Sam Barrett's, to see ice cakes and meadow crust.

The last day for skating.

It is a very pleasant and warm day, the finest yet, with considerable coolness in the air, however, — winter still.

The air is beautifully clear, and through [ it ] I love to trace at a distance the roofs and outlines of sober - colored farmhouses amid the woods.

We go listening for bluebirds, but only hear crows and chickadees.

A fine seething air over the fair russet fields.

The dusty banks of snow by the railroad reflect a wonderfully dazzling white from their pure crannies, being melted into an uneven, sharp, wavy surface.

This more dazzling white must be due to the higher sun.

I see some thick cakes of ice where an ice - car has broken up : I detect a large bubble four inches in diameter about a foot be neath the upper surface and six inches from the lower.

In confirmation of my theory, the grain of the ice, as indicated by the linear bubbles within it, was converging beneath this bubble, as the rays of light under a burning glass, and what was the under surface at that time was melted in a concave manner to within one and a half inches of the bubble, as appeared by the curvature in the horizontal grain of the more recently formed ice beneath.

I omit to draw the other horizontal grain.

The situation of this bubble also suggests that ice perhaps increases more above than below the plane of its first freezing in the course of a winter, by the addition of surface water and snow ice.

Examined again the ice and meadow - crust deposited just south of Derby's Bridge.

The river is almost down to summer level there now, being only three to four feet deep at that bridge.

It has fallen about eight feet since February 17. The ice is piled up there three or four feet deep, and no water beneath, and most of the cakes, which are about one foot thick, have a crust of meadow of equal thickness (i. e. from six inches to a foot) attached beneath.

I saw in one place three cakes of ice each with a crust of meadow frozen to it beneath, lying one directly upon another and all upon the original ice there, alternately ice and meadow, and the middle crust of meadow measured twenty eight by twenty - two feet.

In this case the earth was about six inches thick only for the most part, three to four feet high in all above original ice.

This lay on a gentle ridge or swell between the main Derby Bridge and the little one beyond, and it suggested that that swell might have been thus formed or increased.

As we went down the bank through A. Hosmer's land we saw great cakes, and even fields of ice, lying up high and dry where you would not suspect otherwise that water had been.

Some have much of the withered pickerel - weed, stem and leaves, in it, causing it to melt and break up soon in the sun.

I saw one cake of ice, six inches thick and more than six feet in diameter, with a cake of meadow of exactly equal dimensions attached to its underside, exactly and evenly balanced on the top of a wall in a pasture forty rods from the river, and where you would not have thought the water ever came.

We saw three white maples about nine inches in diameter which had been torn up, roots and sod together, and in some cases carried a long distance.

One quite sound, of equal size, had been bent flat and broken by the ice striking it some six or seven feet from the ground.

Saw some very large pieces of meadow lifted up or carried off at mouth of G. M. Barrett's Bay.

One measured seventy - four by twenty - seven feet.

Topped with ice almost always, and the old ice still beneath.

In some cases the black, peaty soil thus floated was more than one and a half feet thick, and some of this last was carried a quarter of a mile without trace of ice to buoy it, but probably it was first lifted by ice.

Saw one piece more than a rod long and two feet thick of black, peaty soil brought from I know not where.

The edge of these meadow - crusts is singularly abrupt, as if cut with a turf - knife.

Of course a great surface is now covered with ice on each side of the river, under which there is no water, and we go constantly getting in with impunity.

The spring sun shining on the sloping icy shores makes numerous dazzling ice - blinks, still brighter, and prolonged with rectilinear sides, in the reflection.

I am surprised to find the North River more frozen than the South, and we can cross it in many places.

I think the meadow is lifted in this wise: First, you have a considerable freshet in midwinter, succeeded by severe cold before the water ' has run off much.

Then, as the water goes down, the ice for a certain width on each side the river meadows rests on the ground, which freezes to it.

Then comes another freshet, which rises a little higher than the former.

This gently lifts up the river ice, and that meadow ice on each side of it which still has water under it, without breaking them, but overflows the ice which is frozen to the bot tom.

Then, after some days of thaw and wind, the latter ice is broken up and rises in cakes, larger or smaller with or without the meadow - crust beneath it, and is floated off before the wind and current till it grounds somewhere, or melts and so sinks, frequently three cakes one upon another, on some swell in the meadow or the edge of the upland.

The ice is thus with us a wonderful agent in changing the aspect of the surface of the river - valley.

I think that there has been more meadow than usual moved this year, because we had so great a freshet in midwinter succeeded by severe cold, and that by another still greater freshet before the cold weather was past.

Saw a butcher-bird, as usual on top of a tree, and distinguished from a jay by black wings and tail and streak side of head.

I did well to walk in the forenoon, the fresh and inspiring half of this bright day, for now, at mid afternoon, its brightness is dulled, and a fine stratus is spread over the sky.

Is not “the starry puff (Lycoperdon stellatum)” of the “Journal of a Naturalist,” which “remains driving about the pastures, little altered until spring," my five fingered fungus ?

The same tells of goldfinches (Fringilla carduelis) (Bewick calls it the " thistle - finch ”) "scattering all over the turf the down of the thistle, as they pick out the seed for their food.” It is singular that in this particular it should resemble our goldfinch, a different bird.

 

A Book of the Seasons, Signs of the Spring: Walking without Gloves

No mortal is alert enough 

to be present at the first dawn of the spring. 

Henry Thoreau, March 17, 1857

I am on the alert for the first signs of spring, 

to hear the chance note of some arriving bird, 

or the striped squirrel’s chirp . . .

or see the woodchuck venture out of his winter quarters.

 ~ Walden

Dreaming of summer

this warm and pleasant day – I

take off my mittens.

February 12, 1854

January 15

A bright day, not cold.

Celestial blue shadow,

walking without gloves.

January 15, 1856

January 23. A fine afternoon. There has been but little use for gloves this winter, though I have been surveying a great deal for three months. The sun, and cockcrowing, bare ground, etc., etc., remind me of March. Standing on the bridge over the Mill Brook on the Turnpike, there being but little ice on the south side, I see several small water-bugs (Gyrinus) swimming about, as in the spring. January 23, 1858

January 25. A very cold day. Saw a man in Worcester this morning who took a pride in never wearing gloves or mittens. But this morning he had to give up. The 22d, 23d, 24th, and 25th of this month have been the coldest spell of weather this winter. January 25, 1854

January 25. It is a rare day for winter, clear and bright, yet warm. The warmth and stillness in the hollows about the Andromeda Ponds are charming. You dispense with gloves. January 25, 1855

February 12. I am not aware till I come out how pleasant a day it is. It was very cold this morning, and I have been putting on wood in vain to warm my chamber, and lo! I come forth, and am surprised to find it warm and pleasant. There is very little wind, here under Fair Haven especially. I begin to dream of summer even. I take off my mittens. February 12, 1854

February 23. I have seen signs of the spring. February 23, 1857

March 7. At 9 o'clock P.M to the woods by the full moon. It is rather mild to-night. I can walk without gloves. There is no snow on the trees. The ground is thinly covered with a crusted snow, through which the dead grass and weeds appear, telling the nearness of spring. March 7, 1852

The first pleasant days

of spring come out like a squirrel

and go in again.

March 7, 1855

March 19. A fine clear and warm day for the season. Launch my boat. P. M. — Paddled to Fair Haven Pond. Very pleasant and warm, when the wind lulls and the water is perfectly smooth. I make the voyage without gloves. March 19, 1855

March 20. It is remarkable by what a gradation of days which we call pleasant and warm, beginning in the last of February, we come at last to real summer warmth. At first a sunny, calm, serene winter day is pronounced spring, or reminds us of it; and then the first pleasant spring day perhaps we walk with our greatcoat buttoned up and gloves on. March 20, 1855

So I came in and

shut the door and passed my first

spring night in the woods.

Walden, Spring

April 3. About 8.30 P. M. I walked to the Clamshell Hill. It is very cold and windy, and I miss my gloves, left at home.  Colder than the last moon. April 3, 1852

April 3. It is somewhat warmer, but still windy, and I go to sail down to the Island and up to Hubbard’s Causeway.  Most would call it cold to-day. I paddle without gloves. April 3, 1855

April 9. 5.15 A. M. —To Red Bridge just before sunrise. Fine clear morning, but still cold enough for gloves. A slight frost, and mist as yesterday curling over the smooth water. April 9, 1855

April 10. The morning of the 6th, when I found the skunk cabbage out, it was so cold I suffered from numbed fingers, having left my gloves behind. Since April came in, however, you have needed gloves only in the morning. April 10, 1855

April 22. Though my hands are cold this morning I have not worn gloves for a few mornings past, — a week or ten days. April 22, 1855

May 6. To-day it has spit a little snow and is very windy (northwest) and cold enough for gloves. Is not that the true spring when the F. hyemalis and tree sparrows are with us singing in the cold mornings with the song sparrows, and ducks and gulls are about? May 6, 1854

*****

So I came in and

shut the door and passed my first

spring night in the woods.

Walden, Spring

See also Signs of the Spring:

• Frogs, and Turtles Stirring 
• Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding
• Mosses Bright Green
• My Greatcoat on my Arm
• The spring note of the chickadee
• Buzzing Flies
• Perla-like Insects Appear
• Insects and worms come forth and are active
• The Softened Air of these Warm February Days
• The gobbling of turkeys
• The Red-wing Arrives
• Red Maple Sap Flows
• The Skunk Cabbage Blooms
• Ducks afar, sailing on the meadow
• Listening for the bluebird
• A Sunny Nook in Spring
• A Change in the Air
• Bright blue water
• Greening grasses and sedges
• Braided Ripples of Melting Snow Shine in the Ruts
• Skunks Active
• The Striped Squirrel Comes Out
• The crowing of cocks, the cawing of crows
• The Eaves Begin to Run
• The Hawks of March
• March is famous for its winds
• The anxious peep of the early robin
• Ripples made by fishes
• The note of the dark-eyed junco going northward
• The Spring Note of the Nuthatch
• The Song Sparrow Sings
• The grackle arrives
• Woodpeckers tapping

<<<<< Signs of Spring     Early Spring >>>>>

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Walking without Gloves

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 ©  2009-2026

http://tinyurl.com/hdtgloves

Striped squirrel spring

March 4

P. M. — To Bee Tree Hill over Fair Haven Pond.

March 4, 2021

For some time, or since the ground has been bare, I have noticed the spider-holes in the plowed land. 

We go over the Cliffs. Though a cold and strong wind, it is very warm in the sun, and we can sit in the sun where sheltered on these rocks with impunity. It is a genial warmth. The rustle of the dry leaves on the earth and in the crannies of the rocks, and gathered in deep windrows just under their edge, midleg deep, reminds me of fires in the woods. They are almost ready to burn. 

I see a fly on the rock. 

The ice is so much rotted and softened by the sun that it looks white like snow now as I look down on the meadows. There is considerable snow on the north side of hills in the woods. 

River channel fairly open.

At the Bee Hill-side, a striped squirrel quickly dives into his hole at our approach. May not this season of springlike weather between the first decidedly springlike day and the first blue bird, already fourteen days long, be called the striped squirrel spring -- In which we go listening for the blue bird, but hear him not.

Returning by the Andromeda Ponds, I am surprised to see the red ice visible still, half a dozen rods off. It is melted down to the red bubbles, and I can tinge my finger with it there by rubbing it in the rotted ice.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 4, 1855

Though a cold and strong wind, it is very warm in the sun, and we can sit in the sun where sheltered on these rocks with impunity. It is a genial warmth. March 4, 1852 (“ Seeking a sunny nook on the south side of a wood which keeps off the cold wind, sitting among the maples and the swamp white oaks which are frozen in, I hear the chickadees and the belching of the ice. The sun has got a new power in his rays after all, cold as the weather is. . . .I find a place on the south side of this rocky hill where the snow is melted and the bare gray rock appears, covered with mosses and lichens and beds of oak leaves in the hollows. As I sit an invisible flame and smoke seems to ascend from the leaves, and the sun shines with a genial warmth.”)

I see a fly on the rock. See February 25, 1857 ("The leaves rustle and look all dry on the ground in the woods, as if quite ready to burn. The flies buzz out of doors . . . The thermometer is at 65° at noon.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Buzzing Flies

River channel fairly open. See March 4, 1854 (“I can no longer get on to the river ice.”); Compare March 4, 1852 ("The river is frozen solidly, and I do not have to look out for openings.”)

This season of springlike weather between the first decidedly springlike day and the first bluebird, already fourteen days long, See February 22, 1855 ("Remarkably warm and pleasant weather, perfect spring. I even listen for the first bluebird.”); March 1, 1855 ("We go listening for bluebirds, but only hear crows and chickadees.”) March 2, 1855 (" I go listening, but in vain, for the warble of a bluebird from the old orchard across the river. “); March 11, 1855 ("A bluebird day before yesterday in Stow.”); March 12, 1855 ("Elbridge Hayden saw a bluebird yesterday."); March 19, 1855 ("And when I reach my landing I hear my first bluebird, somewhere about Cheney’s trees by the river. I hear him out of the blue deeps, but do not yet see his blue body. He comes with a warble.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring:

• A Sunny Nook in Spring
• Listening for the Bluebird
• The Striped Squirrel Comes Ou
• The New Warmth of the Sun

I am surprised to see the red ice visible still. See January 24, 1855 ("I was surprised to find the ice in the middle of the last [Andromeda] pond a beautiful delicate rose-color for two or three rods, deeper in spots. . . .This beautiful blushing ice! What are we coming to?"); January 25, 1855 ("I have come with basket and hatchet to get a specimen of the rose-colored ice . . . The redness is all about an inch below the surface, the little bubbles in the ice there for half an inch vertically being coated interruptedly within or without with what looks like a minute red dust when seen through a microscope."); March 7, 1855 ("The redness in the ice appears mostly to have evaporated, so that, melted, it does not color the water in a bottle.")

March 4. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, March 4

At Bee Hill-side a 

striped squirrel dives into his 

hole at our approach.

The striped squirrel spring –

we listen for the bluebird

but we hear him not.

A cold and strong wind

yet very warm in the sun –

a fly on this rock.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Striped squirrel spring

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

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