26 March 1855 – 1 April 1855

6 a. mM.—Still cold and blustering; wind southwest, but clear. I see a muskrat-house just erected, two feet or more above the water and sharp; and, at the Hubbard Bath, a mink comes teetering along the ice by the side of the river. I am between him and the sun, and he does not notice me. He runs daintily, lifting his feet with a jerk as if his toes were sore. They seem to go a-hunting at night along the edge of the river; perhaps I notice them more at this season, when the shallow water freezes at night and there is no vegetation along the shore to conceal them. The lark sings, perched on the top of an apple tree, seel-yah seel-yah, and then perhaps seel-yah-see-e, and several other strains, quite sweet and plaintive, contrast- ing with the cheerless season and the bleak meadow. Further off I hear one like ah-tick-seel-yah. P. M. — Sail down to the Great Meadows. A strong wind with snow driving from the west and thickening the air. The farmers pause to see me scud before it. At last I land and walk further down on the meadow-bank. I scare up several flocks of ducks. There is but little water on the meadow, 1855 | DUCKS ON THE RIVER Q71 and that far down and partly frozen, but a great many acres of the meadow-crust have there been lifted and broken up by the ice and now make hundreds of slant- ing isles amid the shallow water, looking like waves of earth, and amid these the ducks are sailing and feeding. The nearest are two, apparently middle- sized with black heads, white breast and wings and apparently all above but the tail or tips of wings, which are black.’ A third with them is apparently all dark. I do not know what to call them. You are much more sure to see ducks in a stormy afternoon like this than in a bright and pleasant one. Returning, I see, near the Island, two ducks which have the marks (one of them) of the wood duck (1. e. one or two longi- tudinal white stripes down the head and neck), but when they go over I hear distinctly and for a long time the whistling of their wings, fine and sharp. Are they golden-eyes, or whistlers ? ”

6.30 a. mM. — To Island. The ducks sleep these nights in the shallowest water which does not freeze, and there may be found early in the morning. I think that they prefer that part of the shore which is permanently covered. Snow last evening, about one inch deep, and now it [is] fair and somewhat warmer. Again I see the tracks of rabbits, squirrels, etc. It would be a good time this forenoon to examine the tracks of wood- chucks and see what they are about. P. M. — To Hubbard’s Close and down brook. Measured a black oak just sawed down. Twenty- three inches in diameter on the ground, and fifty-four rings. It had grown twice as much on the east side as on the west. The Fringilla linaria still here. Saw a wood tortoise in the brook. Am surprised to see the cowslip so forward, showing so much green, in E. Hubbard’s Swamp, in the brook, where it is shel- tered from the winds. The already expanded leaves rise above the water. If this is a spring growth,’ it is the most forward herb I have seen, as forward as the celandine. Saw my frog hawk. (C. saw it about a week ago.) Probably Falco fuscus, or sharp-shinned, though not well described by Wilson. Slate-colored; beating the bush; black tips to wings and white rump.’

P. M. — To Cliffs, along river.

P. M. — To Flint’s Pond. Flint’s Pond is entirely open; may have been a day or two. There was only a slight opening about the © boat-house on the 2Ist, and the weather has been very cold ever since. Walden is more than half open, Goose Pond only a little about the shores, and Fair Haven Pond only just open over the channel of the river. There is washed up on the shore of Flint’s some pretty little whorls of the radical leaves of the Lobelia Dortmanna, with its white root-fibres. As I stand on Heywood’s Peak, looking over Walden, more than half its surface already sparkling blue water, I inhale with pleasure the cold but wholesome air like a draught of cold water, contrasting it in my memory with the wind of summer, which I do not thus eagerly swallow. This, which is a chilling wind to my fellow, is decidedly refreshing to me, and I swallow it with eagerness as a panacea. I feel an impulse, also, already, to jump into the half-melted pond. This cold wind is refreshing to my palate, as the warm air of summer is not, methinks. I love to stand there and be blown on as much as a horse in July. A field of ice nearly half as big as the pond has drifted against the eastern shore and crumbled up against it, forming a shining white wall of its fragments.

6.30 a. mM. — To Island. It is a little warmer than of late, though still the shallows are skimmed over. The pickerel begin to dart from the shallowest parts not frozen. I hear many phe-be notes from the chick- adees, as if they appreciated this slightly warmer and sunny morning. A fine day. As I look through the window, I actu- ally see a warmer atmosphere with its fine shimmer against the russet hills and the dry leaves, though the warmth has not got into the house and it is no more bright nor less windy than yesterday, or many days past. I find that the difference to the eye is a slight haze, though it is but very little warmer than yester- day. To-day and yesterday have been bright, windy days, — west wind, cool, yet, compared with the previous colder ones, pleasantly, gratefully cool to me on my cheek. There is a very perceptible greenness on our south bank now, but I cannot detect the slightest greenness on the south side of Lee’s Hill as I sail by it. It is a perfectly dead russet. The river is but about a foot above the lowest sum- mer level. I have seen a few fF. hyemalis about the house in the morning the last few days. You see a few blackbirds, robins, bluebirds, tree sparrows, larks, etc., but the song sparrow chiefly is heard these days. He must have a great deal of life in him to draw upon, who can pick up a subsistence in November and March. Man comes out of his winter quarters this month as lean as a woodchuck. Not till late could the skunk find a place where the ground was thawed on the surface. Except for science, do not travel in such a climate as this in November and March. . I tried if a fish would take the bait to-day; but in vain; I did not get a nibble. Where are they? I read that a great many bass were taken in the Merri- mack last week. Do not the suckers move at the same time ?

I see through the window that it is a very fine day, the first really warm one. I did not know the whole till I came out at 3 p. m. and walked to the Cliffs. The slight haze of yesterday has become very thick, with a southwest wind, concealing the mountains. I can see it in the air within two or three rods, as I look against the bushes. The fuzzy gnats are in the air, and bluebirds, whose warble is thawed out. I am uncomfortably warm, gradually unbutton both my coats, and wish that I had left the outside one at home. I go listening for the croak of the first frog, or peep of a hylodes.

The month comes in true to its reputa- tion. We wake, though late, to hear the sound of a strong, steady, and rather warm rain on the roof, and see the puddles shining in the road. It lasts till the middle of the day, and then is succeeded by a cold northwest wind. This pattering rain and Sabbath morning combined make us all sluggards. When I look out the window I see that the grass on the bank on the south side of the house is already much greener than it was yesterday. As it cannot have grown so suddenly, how shall I account for it? I sus- pect that the reason is that the few green blades are not merely washed bright by the rain, but erect them- selves to imbibe its influence, and so are more promi- nent, while the withered blades are beaten down and flattened by it. It is remarkable how much more fatal to all superficial vegetation or greenness is a morning frost in March than a covering of snow or ice. In hol- lows where the ice is still melting I see the grass con- siderably green about its edges, though further off it shows no sign of life. P. M. — To Conantum End. This rain will help take the frost out of the ground. At the first Conantum Cliff I am surprised to see how much the columbine leaves have grown in a sheltered cleft; also the cinquefoil, dandelion (?), yarrow (?), sorrel, saxifrage, etc., etc. They seem to improve the least warmer ray to advance themselves, and they hold all they get. One of the earliest-looking plants in water is the golden saxifrage. The last half of last month was cold and windy, —excepting the 19th,— wind northwest, west, and southwest. It at last ceased to be chilling the 29th and 30th, which were fine clear, cool, but windy days; on the 30th a slight haze; then the 3lst was suddenly warm with a thick haze, thawing man and earth; and this succeeded by to-day’s rain. See, resting on the edge of the ice in Fair Haven Pond, a white duck with black head, and a dark one. They take to the water when I appear on the hill a quarter of a mile off, and soon fly down the river rather low over the water. Were they not the same with those of the 16th wilt. ? Apri 2. Not only the grass but the pines also were greener yesterday for being wet. ‘To-day, the grass being dry, the green blades are less conspicuous than yesterday. It would seem, then, that this color is more vivid when wet, and perhaps all green plants, like. lichens, are to some extent greener in moist weather. Green is essentially vivid, or the color of life, and it is therefore most brilliant when a plant is moist or most alive. A plant is said to be green in opposition to being withered and dead. The word, according to Webster, is from the Saxon grene, to grow, and hence is the color of herbage when growing. High winds all night, rocking the house, opening doors, etc. ‘To-day also. It is wintry cold also, and ice has formed nearly an inch thick in my boat. P. M. — Down the river-bank. The wind is still very strong and cold from the north- west, filling the air with dust and blowing the water, which has slightly risen, over the rocks and bushes along the shore, where it freezes in the shape of bulls’ horns about the osiers, making coarse rakes with its dependent icicles when the osiers are horizontal, also turtle-shells over the rocks. It is just such a wind and freezing as that of last March (18th, I think), and, if the meadow were flooded, there would probably be as much ice as then on the bushes. There may be wind enough for this phenomenon in the winter, but then there is no open water to be blown.