23 April 1855 – 29 April 1855

River higher than before since winter. Whole of Lee Meadow covered. Saw two pigeon wood- peckers approach and, I think, put their bills together and utter that o-week, o-week. The currant and second — gooseberry are bursting into leaf. P. M. — To Cedar Swamp via Assabet. Warm and pretty still. Even the riversides are quiet at this hour (3 Pp. M.) as in summer; the birds are neither seen nor heard. The anthers of the larch are conspicuous, but I see no pollen. White cedar to-morrow.’ See a frog hawk beating the bushes regu- larly. What a peculiarly formed wing! It should be called the kite. Its wings are very narrow and pointed, and its form in front is a remarkable curve, and its body is not heavy and buzzard-like. It occasionally hovers over some parts of the meadow or hedge and circles back over it, only rising enough from time to time to clear the trees and fences. Soon after I see hovering over Sam Barrett’s, high sailing, a more buz- zard-like brown hawk, black-barred beneath and on tail, with short, broad, ragged wings and perhaps a white mark on under side of wings. The chickens utter a note of alarm. Is it the broad-winged hawk (Falco Pennsylvanicus)?* But why should the other be called F. fuscus? I think this is called the partridge hawk. ‘The books are very unsatisfactory on these two hawks. Apparently barn swallows over the river. And do I see bank swallows also? C. says he has seen a yellow-legs. I have seen also for some weeks occasionally a brown hawk with white rump, flying low, which I have thought the frog hawk in a different stage of plumage; but can it be at this season? and is it not the marsh hawk? Yet it is not so heavy nearly as the hen-hawk.’

P. M.— To Flint’s Pond. Warm and quite a thick haze. Cannot see distant hills, nor use my glass to advantage. The Equisetum arvense on the causeway sheds its green pollen, which looks like lint on the hand abundantly, and may have done so when I first saw it upon the 21st. Young cater- pillars’ nests are just hatched on the wild cherry. Some are an inch in diameter, others just come out. The little creatures have crawled at once to the ex- tremity of the twigs and commenced at once on the green buds just about to burst, eating holes into them. They do not come forth till the buds are about to burst. I see on the pitch pines at Thrush Alley that golden- crested wren or the other, ashy-olive above and whitish beneath, with a white bar on wings, restlessly darting at insects like a flycatcher, — into the air after them. It is quite tame. A very neat bird, but does not sing now. I see a bee like a small bumble-bee go into a little hole under a leaf in the road, which apparently it has made, and come out again back foremost. That fine slaty-blue butterfly, bigger than the small red, in wood-paths. I see a cone-bearing willow in dry woods, which will begin to leaf to-morrow, and appar- ently to show cones. Pyrus arbutifolia will begin to leaf to-morrow. Its buds are red while those of the shad-bush are green. I can find no red cedar in bloom, but it will undoubtedly shed pollen to-morrow. It is on the point of it. I am not sure that the white cedar is any earlier. The sprigs of red cedar, now full of the buff-colored staminate flowers, like fruit, are very rich. ‘The next day they shed an abundance of pollen in the house. It is a clear buff color, while that of the white cedar is very different, being a faint salmon. It would be very pleasant to make a collection of these powders, — like dry ground paints. They would be the right kind of chemicals to have. I see the black birch stumps, where they have cut by Flint’s Pond the past winter, completely covered with a greasy-looking pink- ish-colored cream, yet without any particular taste or smell, — what the sap has turned to. The Salix alba begins to leaf. Have not seen the F. hyemalis for a week.

A moist April morning. A small native willow leafing ' and showing catkins to-day; also the black cherry in some places. The common wild rose to-morrow. Balm-of-Gilead will not shed pollen appar- ently for a day or more. Shepherd’s-purse will bloom to-day, — the first I have noticed which has sprung from the ground this season, or of an age. Say lilac begins to leaf with common currant. P. M. — To Beck Stow’s. Hear a faint cheep and at length detect the white- throated sparrow, the handsome and well-marked bird, the largest of the sparrows, with a yellow spot . on each side of the front, hopping along under the rubbish left by the woodchopper. I afterward hear a faint cheep very rapidly repeated, making a faint sharp jingle, —no doubt by the same.’ Many sparrows have a similar faint metallic cheep, — the tree spar- row and field sparrow, for instance. I first saw the white-throated sparrow at this date last year. Hear the peculiar squeaking notes of a pigeon woodpecker. Two black ducks circle around me three or four times, wishing to alight in the swamp, but finally go to the river meadows. I hear the whistling of their wings. Their bills point downward in flying. The Andromeda calyculata is out in water, in the little swamp east of Beck Stow’s, some perhaps yes- terday; and C. says he saw many bluets yesterday, and also that he saw two F’. hyemalis yesterday. I have noticed three or four upper jaws of musk- rats on the meadow lately, which, added to the dead bodies floating, make more than half a dozen perhaps drowned out last winter.

A cloudy, still, damp, and at length driz- zling day. P. M. — To Bayberry and Black Ash Cellar. Wheildon’s arbor-vitee well out, maybe for a week. The silvery abele, probably to-day or yesterday, but I do not see pollen. The blossoms of the red maple (some a yellowish green) are now most generally conspicuous and handsome scarlet crescents over the swamps. Go- ing over Ponkawtasset, hear a golden-crested (?) wren, — the robin’s note, etc., —in the tops of the high wood; see myrtle-birds and half a dozen pigeons. The prate of the last is much like the creaking of a tree. They lift their wings at the same moment as they sit. There are said to be many about now. See their warm-colored breasts. I see pigeon woodpeckers billing on an oak at a distance. Young apple leafing, say with the com- mon rose, also some early large ones. Bayberry not started much. Fever-bush out apparently a day or two, between Black Birch Cellar and Easterbrook’s. It shows plainly now, before the leaves have come out on bushes, twenty rods off. See and hear chewinks, — all their strains; the same date with last year, by ac- cident. Many male and female white-throated spar- rows feeding on the pasture with the song sparrow. The male’s white is buff in the female. A brown thrasher (?) seen at a little distance.’ We see and hear more birds than usual this mizzling and still day, and the robin sings with more vigor and promise than later in the season.

5 a. mM. —S. tristis Path around Cliffs. Cold and windy, but fair. The earliest willow by rail- road begins to leaf and is out of bloom. Few birds are heard this cold and windy morning. Hear a partridge drum before 6 A. M., also a golden-crested (?) wren. Salix tristis, probably to-day, the female more for- ward than the male. Heard a singular sort of screech, somewhat like a hawk, under the Cliff, and soon some pigeons flew out of a pine near me. The black and white creepers running over the trunks or main limbs of red maples and uttering their fainter oven-bird-like notes. The principal singer on this walk, both in wood and field away from town, is the field sparrow. I hear the sweet warble of a tree sparrow in the yard. Cultivated cherry is beginning to leaf. The balm-of- Gilead catkins are well loosened and about three inches long, but I have seen only fertile ones. Say male the 25th, 26th, or 27th.

A second cold but fair day. Good fires are required to-day and yesterday. P. M. — Sail to Ball’s Hill. The chimney swallow, with the white-bellied and barn swallows, over the river. The red maples, now in bloom, are quite handsome at a distance over the flooded meadow beyond Peter’s. The abundant whole- some gray of the trunks and stems beneath surmounted by the red or scarlet crescents. Are not they sheldrakes which I see at a distance on an islet in the meadow ? The wind is strong from the northwest. Landed at Ball’s Hill to look for birds under the . shelter of the hill in the sun. There were a great many myrtle-birds there, — they have been quite common for a week, —also yellow redpolls, and some song sparrows, tree sparrows, field sparrows, and one F’. hy- emalis. In a cold and windy day like this you can find more birds than in a serene one, because they are collected under the wooded hillsides in the sun. The myrtle-birds flitted before us in great numbers, yet quite tame, uttering commonly only a chzp, but some- times a short trill or che che, che che, che che. Do I hear the tudl-lull in the afternoon? It is a bird of many colors, — slate, yellow, black, and white, — singularly spotted. Those little gnats of the 21st are still in the air in the sun under this hill, but elsewhere the cold strong wind has either drowned them or chilled them to death. I saw where they had taken refuge in a boat and covered its bottom with large black patches. I noticed on the 26th (and also to-day) that since — this last rise of the river, which reached its height the 23d, a great deal of the young flag, already six inches to a foot long, though I have hardly observed it growing yet, has washed up all along the shore, and as to-day I find a piece of flag-root with it gnawed by a musk- rat, I think that they have been feeding very exten- sively on the white and tender part of the young blades. They, and not ducks, for it is about the bridges also as much as anywhere. I think that they desert the clams now for this vegetable food. In one place a dead muskrat scents the shore, probably another of those drowned out in the winter. Saw the little heaps of dirt where worms had come out by river.

This morning it snows, but the ground is not yet whitened. This will probably take the cold out of the air. Many chip-birds are feeding in the yard, and one bay-wing. ‘The latter incessantly scratches like a hen, all the while looking about for foes. The bay on its wings is not obvious except when it opens them. The white circle about the eye is visible afar. Now it makes a business of pluming itself, doubling prettily upon itself, now touching the root of its tail, now thrust- ing its head under its wing, now between its wing and back above, and now between its legs and its belly; and now it drops flat on its breast and belly and spreads and shakes its wings, now stands up and repeatedly shakes its wings. It is either cleaning itself of dirt acquired in scratching and feeding, — for its feet are black with mud, — or it is oiling its feathers thus. It is rather better concealed by its color than the chip- bird with its chestnut crown and light breast. The chip-bird scratches but slightly and rarely; it finds what it wants on the surface, keeps its head down more steadily, not looking about. I see the bay-wing eat some worms. For two or three days the Salix alba, with its catkins (not yet open) and its young leaves, or bracts (?), has made quite a show, before any other free, — a pyra- mid of tender yellowish green in the russet landscape. The water now rapidly going down on the meadows, a bright-green grass is springing up. P. M. — By boat to Lupine Hill. It did not whiten the ground. Raw, overcast, and threatening rain. A few of the cones within reach on F. Monroe’s larches shed pollen; say, then, yesterday. The crimson female flowers are now handsome but small. That lake grass — or perhaps I should call it purple grass — is now apparently in perfection on the water. Long and slender blades (about an eighth of an inch wide and six to twelve inches long, the part exposed) lie close side by side straight and parallel on the sur- face, with a dimple at the point where they emerge. Some are a very rich purple, with apparently a bloom, and very suggestive of placidity. It is a true bloom, at any rate, —the first blush of the spring caught on these little standards elevated to the light. By the water they are left perfectly smooth and flat and straight, as well as parallel, and thus, by their mass, make the greater impression on the eye. It has a strong marshy, somewhat fishy, almost seaweed-like scent when plucked. ~ Seen through a glass the surface is finely grooved. The scrolls of the interrupted fern are already four or five inches high. I see a woodchuck on the side of Lupine Hill, eight or ten rods off. He runs to within three feet of his hole; then stops, with his head up. His whole body makes an angle of forty-five degrees as I look sideways at it. I see his shining black eyes and black snout and his little erect ears. He is of a light brown forward at this distance (hoary above, yellowish or sorrel beneath), gradually darkening backward to the end of the tail, which is dark-brown. The general aspect is grizzly, the ends of most of the hairs being white. The yellowish brown, or rather sorrel, of his throat and breast very like the sand of his burrow, over which it is slanted. No glaring distinctions to catch the eye and betray him. As I advance, he crawls a foot nearer his hole, as if to make sure his retreat while he satisfies his curi- osity. Tired of holding up his head, he lowers it at last, yet waits my further advance. The snout of the little sternotherus is the most like a little black stick seen above the water of any of the smaller tortoises. I was almost perfectly deceived by it close at hand; but 1t moved. Choke-cherry begins to leaf. Dandelions out yes- terday, at least. Some young alders begin to leaf. Viola ovata will open to-morrow. Mountain-ash began to leaf, say yesterday. Makes a show with leaves alone before any tree. Paddling slowly along, I see five or six snipes within four or five rods, feeding on the meadow just laid bare, or in the shallow and grassy water. This dark, damp, cold day they do not mind me. View them with my glass. How the ends of their wings curve upward! ~Uys They do not thrust their bills clear down com- ° monly, but wade and nibble at something amid the grass, apparently on the surface of the water. Some- times it seems to be the grass itself, sometimes on the surface of the bare meadow. ‘They are not now thrust- ing their bills deep in the mud. They have dark-ash or slate-colored breasts. At length they take a little alarm and rise with a sort of rippling whistle or peep, a little like a robin’s peep, but faint and soft, and then alight within a dozen rods. I hear often at night a very different harsh squeak from them, and another squeak much like the nighthawk’s, and also the boom- ing.