7 May 1855 – 13 May 1855

5 a. mM. — To Island. Finger-cold and windy. The sweet-flags showed themselves about in the pads. Hear Maryland yellow- throat. Many grackles still in flocks singing on trees, male and female, the latter a very dark or black ash, but with silvery eye. I suspect the red-wings are building. Large white maples began to leaf yesterday at least, generally; one now shows considerably across the river. The aspen is earlier. Viburnum dentatum yesterday leafed. Bass to-morrow (some shoots shel- tered now). A crow’s nest near the top of a pitch pine about twenty feet high, just completed, betrayed by the birds’ cawing and alarm.’ As on the 5th, one came and sat on a bare oak within forty feet, cawed, reconnoitred; and then both flew off to a distance, while I discovered and climbed to the nest within a dozen rods. One comes near to spy you first. It was about sixteen inches over, of the pitch pine dead twigs laid across the forks, and white oak leaves and bark fibres laid copi- ously on them; the cavity deep, and more than half covered and concealed with a roof of leaves; a long, sloping approach or declivity left on one side the nest. Red currant out. P. M. — To Lee’s Cliff via Hubbard’s Bath. Viola cucullata apparently a day or two. A lady- bug and humblebee, the last probably some time. A lily wholly above water, and yellow, in Skull-Cap Meadow, ready to open.” See Rana fontinalis. Climbed to two crows’ nests, — or maybe one of them a squirrel’s,—in Hubbard’s Grove. Do they not sometimes use a squirrel’s nest for a foundation ? A ruby-crested wren is apparently attracted and eyes me. It is wrenching and fatiguing, as well as dirty, work to climb a tall pine with nothing, or maybe only dead twigs and stubs, to hold by. You must proceed with great deliberation and see well where you put your hands and your feet. Saw probably a female Falco fuscus sail swift and low close by me and alight on a rail fence. It was a rich, very dark, perhaps red- dish slate brown. I saw some white under the head; no white on rump. Wings thickly barred with dark be- neath. It then flew and alighted on a maple. Did not fly so irregularly as the last one I called by this name. The early willow on the left beyond the bridge has begun to leaf, but by no means yet the one on the right. Scared up two gray squirrels in the Holden wood, which ran glibly up the tallest trees on the opposite side to me, and leaped across from the extremity of the branches to the next trees, and so on very fast ahead of me. Remembering — aye, aching with — my experience in climbing trees this afternoon and morning, I could not but admire their exploits. To see them travelling with so much swiftness and ease that road over which I climbed a few feet with such painful exertion! A partridge flew up from within three or four feet of me with a loud whir, and betrayed one cream-colored egg in a little hollow amid the leaves. Hear the tweezer- bird. It looks like a bluish slate above, with a green- ish(?)-yellow back and bright orange-yellow throat and breast, forked tail, two white bars on wings, whit- ish vent. Another, probably female, paler bluish, with fainter yellow and a conspicuous black crescent on breast. This is undoubtedly the parti-colored warbler, 7. €. Brewer’s blue yellow-back (Sylvia Americana of Latham and Audubon, pusilla of Wilson). Vide June 18th, 1854 and May 9th, 1853. I believe the yellow- rumped warbler has a note somewhat like the tweezer’s. Climbed a hemlock to a very large and complete, probably gray squirrel’s, nest, eighteen inches [in] di- ameter, — a foundation of twigs, on which a body of leaves and some bark fibres, lined with the last, and the whole covered with many fresh green hemlock twigs one foot or more long with the leaves on, — which had been gnawed off, — and many strewed the ground beneath, having fallen off. Entrance one side. A short distance beyond this and the hawk’s-nest pine, I observed a middling-sized red oak standing a little aslant on the side-hill over the swamp, with a pretty large hole in one side about fifteen feet from the ground, where apparently a limb on which a felled tree lodged had been cut some years before and so broke out a cavity. I thought that such a hole was too good a one not to be improved by some inhabitant of the wood. Perhaps the gray squirrels I had just seen had their nest there. Or was not the entrance big enough to admit a screech owl? So I thought I would tap on it and put my ear to the trunk and see if I could hear anything stirring within it, but I heard nothing. Then T concluded to look into it. So I shinned up, and when I reached up one hand to the hole to pull myself up by it, the thought passed through my mind perhaps something may take hold my fingers, but nothing did. The first limb was nearly opposite to the hole, and, resting on this, I looked in, and, to my great surprise, there squatted, filling the hole, which was about six inches deep and five to six wide, a salmon-brown bird not so big as a partridge, seemingly asleep within three inches of the top and close to my face. It was a minute or two before I made it out to be an owl. It was a salmon-brown or fawn (?) above, the feathers shafted with small blackish-brown somewhat hastate (?) marks, grayish toward the ends of the wings and tail, as far as I could see. A large white circular space about or behind eye, banded in rear by a pretty broad (one third of an inch) and quite conspicuous perpendic- ular dark-brown stripe. Egret, say one and a quarter inches long, sharp, triangular, reddish-brown without mainly. It lay crowded in that small space, with its tail somewhat bent up and one side of its head turned up with one egret, and its large dark eye open only by a long slit about a sixteenth of an inch wide; visible breathing. After a little while I put in one hand and stroked it repeatedly, whereupon it reclined its head a little lower and closed its eye entirely. Though curi- ous to know what was under it, I disturbed it no farther at that time. In the meanwhile, the crows were making a great cawing amid and over the pine-tops beyond the swamp, and at intervals I heard the scream of a hawk, prob- ably the surviving male hen-hawk, whom they were pestering (unless they had discovered the male screech owl), and a part of them came cawing about me. This was a very fit place for hawks and owls to dwell in, — the thick woods just over a white spruce swamp, in which the glaucous kalmia grows; the gray squirrels, partridges, hawks, and owls, all together. It was probably these screech owls which I heard in moonlight nights hereabouts last fall. Vide end of this day. Birch leafs to-day; probably some yesterday, with white maple. The Conantum thorn (cockspur?) leafs . with earliest. That little red-stemmed (?) moss has now yellow-green oval fruit hanging densely in the sod. Sweet-briar shoots two inches long; this one of the ear- lier roses to leaf. Put it with early rose. The Rubus triflorus up two inches or more. Put it next after raspberry for present. Polygonatum pubescens at Lee’s, in three or four days. Amelanchier Botryapium on rocks, partly open; will probably shed pollen to-morrow. The long, narrow unfolded flower-buds, rose-pink without, are very pretty with the dark-purplish leaves, — prettier than the open ones, — like little cigarettes, to compare fair with foul. The dark-purple fruit-like fascicles of the staminate flowers of the ash on the rocks are now very remarkable, about the size of pignuts, and looking somewhat like them against the sky on the perfectly bare tree, or like dry alder scales or cones; will shed pollen in a day or two. Oftener one pedicelled anther and stamen than two together in the very minute On calyx, —if it is one. Young bass from seed his an inch high, the two leaves remarkably cut. Returning by owl’s nest, about one hour before sunset, I climbed up and looked in again. The owl was gone, but there were four nearly round dirty brownish white’ eggs, quite warm, on nothing but the bits of rotten wood which made the bottom of the hole. The eggs were very nearly as large at one end as the other, slightly oblong, 13 inches by 12, as nearly as I could measure. Itook out one. It would probably have hatched within a week, the young being considerably feathered and the bill remarkably developed. Perhaps she heard me coming, and so left the nest. My bird corresponds in color, as far as I saw it, with Wilson’s Strix asio, but not his nevia, which Nuttall and others consider a young (?) bird, though the egg was not pure white. I do not remember that my bird was barred or mottled at all.' Nuttall says, Little Screech-Owl: Greenland to Florida; chiefly prey on mice; also small birds, beetles, crickets, etc.; nest in May and June, and lined with etc., etc., eggs four to six; several bluebirds, black- birds, and song sparrows in one. In cloudy weather come out earlier. Wilson’s thrush attacked one. Note in autumn, “hd, ho ho h6d hd hd ho, proceeding from high and clear to a low guttural shake or trill.” Was not that an owl’s feather which I found half a mile beyond, downy more than half, and with base and separate white points beyond a dark band at the end? Was not mine a bird of last year? But MacGilh- vray says of owls that the young differ very little from the old; “the older the individual becomes, the more simple is the colouring; the dark markings diminish and the same with Nuttall, except the great gray owl. [Screech owl’s eggs, when clean, are always white.] in extent, and the finer mottlings are gradually ob- literated.”” Rhus Tozicodendron under rocks leafs.

5 a. mM. — To Gilead.! Still finger-cold. Think I saw bank swallows.? At noon begins a cold, drizzling rain, which con- tinues at intervals through the next day. A cold May storm, wind easterly. Grackle here still. Cultivated cherry opened flower yesterday. The rock maples (such sized ‘as we generally have) come on faster and show more now than the red.

P. M.— To Annursnack. The black currant will not bloom for five or six days. A large red maple just begun to leaf — its keys an inch and a half long — by Assabet Bridge. Castilleja show red, — one, — but will not bloom under a week probably. ‘The same of erigeron. Cornus alternifolia and paniculata begin to leaf. Scared up three quails in the stubble in G. M. Barrett’s orchard. They go off partridge-like from within two rods, with a sharp, whistling whir. Heard, methinks, a white- throated sparrow (?) sing very much like the begin- ning of a catbird’s song. Could see no other bird. Thought it a catbird at first. See several of these spairows yet.

Canada plum opens petals to-day and leafs. Domestic plum only leafs. Summer yellowbird. P. M. — To Beeches. Young red maples are generally later to leaf than young sugar maples; hardly began before yesterday; and large white are not so forward as young sugar. Muhlenberg’s willow leafed four or five days. Young yellow birch leaf, say two days. In Callitriche Pool hear a bullfrog belch or dump. Is that a proserpinaca with finely divided leaves in this pool? Hear a tree- toad, — or, maybe, a woodpecker tapping. A juncus in Hubbard’s Close two feet high and big as a crow’s quill. Round-leafed cornel leaf to-morrow; also pig- nut leaf to-day in some places. The beech leaf-buds are more back[ward], apparently, than chestnut, but some leaves are expanding with the flower-buds, which are now opened so as to show the separate buds. Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum, early blueberry, in bloom; probably may shed pollen. A yellow redpoll still.

A. M. — To Island. Only the lower limbs of bass begin to leaf yet, — yesterday. A crow blackbird’s nest, about eight feet up a white maple over water, —a large, loose nest without, some eight inches high, between a small twig and main trunk, composed of coarse bark shreds and dried last year’s grass, without mud; within deep and size of robin’s nest; with four pale-green eggs, streaked and blotched with black and brown. Took one. Young bird not begun to form. Hear and see yellow-throat vireo. See oat-seed spawn — a mass as big as fist — on bottom; of brown jelly composed of smaller globules, each with a fish-like tadpole, color of a seed. P. M. — To Andromeda Poltfolia. Some young elms begin to leaf. Butternut leafs apparently to-morrow. Larger rock maples not yet begun to leaf, — later considerably than large white maples, and somewhat than large red. Apparently andromeda will not open before the 15th or 16th, and the buck-bean, now just budded above the water, not before the 20th. Juniperus repens will not open, ap- parently, before the 14th or 15th. Canoe birch just sheds pollen. Very handsome drooping golden cat- kins, sometimes two or three together, some five and a quarter inches long. The leaves of some young sprouts already three-quarters inch over, but of the trees not started. The second amelanchier just sheds pollen, in a swamp. I trod on a large black snake, which, as soon as I stepped again, went off swiftly down the hill toward the swamp, with head erect like a racer. Looking closely, I found another left behind, partly concealed by the dry leaves. They were lying amid the leaves in this open wood east of Beck Stow’s, amid the sweet- fern and huckleberry bushes. The remaining one ran out its tongue at me, and vibrated its tail swiftly, mak- ing quite a noise on the leaves; then darted forward, passed round an oak, and whipped itself straight down into a hole at its base one and a half inches over. After its head had entered, its tail was not long in following. You can hardly walk in a thick pine wood now, es- pecially a swamp, but presently you will have a crow or two over your head, either silently flitting over, to spy what you would be at and if its nest is in danger, or angrily cawing. It is most impressive when, looking for their nests, you first detect the presence of the bird by its shadow. Was not that a bay-wing which I heard sing, — ah, twar twe twar, twit twit twit twit, twe ? Viola pedata sheds pollen,’ — the first I have chanced to see. I hear some kind of owl partially hooting now at 4 p. M., I know not whether far off or near.

Cold enough for a fire this many a day. 6 a.m. — To Hill. I hear the myrtle-bird’s ? te-e-e, te-e-e, t t t, t t t, clear flute-like whistle, and see eight or ten crow blackbirds together. P. M. — To Lee’s Cliff. C. says he saw upland plover two or three nights ago. ‘The sweet-gale begins to leaf. I perceive the fragrance of the Salix alba, now in bloom, more than an eighth of a mile distant. They now adorn the cause- ways with their yellow blossoms and resound with the hum of bumblebees, etc., etc. I have found half a dozen robins’ nests with eggs already, -—one in an elm, two in a Salix alba, one in a Salix nigra, one in a pitch pine, etc., etc. I find the partridge-nest of the 7th partially covered with dry oak leaves, and two more eggs only, three in all, cold. Probably the bird is killed. As I approached the owl’s nest, I saw her run past the hole up into that part of the hollow above it, and probably she was there when I thought she had flown on the 7th. I looked in, and at first did not know what I saw. One of the three remaining eggs was hatched, and a little downy white young one, two or three times as long as an egg, lay helpless between the two remain- ing eggs. Also a dead white-bellied mouse (Mus leuco- pus) lay with them, its tail curled round one of the eggs. Wilson says of his red owl (Strix asio), — with which this apparently corresponds, and not with the mottled, though my egg is not “pure white,” — that “‘the young are at first covered with a whitish down.” Heard an oven-bird. Passing on into the Miles meadow, was struck by the interesting tender green of the just springing foliage of the aspens, apples, cherries (more reddish), ete. It is now especially interesting while you can see through it, and also the tender yellowish-green grass shooting up in the bare river meadows and prevailing over the dark and sere. Watched a black and white creeper from Bittern Cliff, a very neat and active bird, exploring the limbs on all sides and looking three or four ways almost at once for insects. Now and then it raises its head a little, opens its bill, and, without closing it, utters its faint seeser seeser seeser. From beyond the orchard saw a large bird far over the Cliff Hill, which, with my glass, I soon made out to be a fish hawk advancing. Even at that distance, half a mile off, I distinguished its gull-like body, — pirate-like fishing body fit to dive, — and that its wings did not curve upward at the ends like a hen-hawk’s (at least I could not see that they did), but rather hung down. It came on steadily, bent on fishing, with ‘ long and heavy undulating wings, with an easy, saun- tering flight, over the river to the pond, and hovered over Pleasant Meadow a long time, hovering from time to time in one spot, when more than a hundred feet high, then making a very short circle or two and hovering again, then sauntering off against the wood- side. At length he reappeared, passed downward over the shrub oak plain and alighted on an oak (of course now bare), standing this time apparently length- wise on the limb. Soon took to wing again and went to fishing down the stream a hundred feet high. When just below Bittern Cliff, I observed by its motions that it observed something. It made a broad circle of observation in its course, lowering itself somewhat; then, by one or two steep sidewise flights, it reached the water, and, as near as intervening trees would let me see, skimmed over it and endeavored to clutch its prey in passing. It failed the first time, but probably succeeded the second. Then it leisurely winged its way to a tall bare tree on the east end of the Cliffs, and there we left it apparently pluming itself. It had a very white belly, and indeed appeared all white be- neath its body. I saw broad black lines between the white crown and throat. The brown thrasher is a powerful singer; he is a quarter of a mile off across the river, when he sounded within fifteen rods. Hear the night-warbler. Slippery elm leaf more forward than the common; say yesterday; only young common yet. White ash begins to shed pollen at Lee’s; yesterday, or possibly day before, but no leaves on the same. Hear the first creak of a cricket beneath the rocks there, so serene and composing. Methinks it surpasses the song of all birds; sings from everlasting to everlasting. Apparently a thousand little slender catchflies shooting up on the top of the cliff. The red oak there leafed a day or two, or one day earlier than hickory, and the black near it not yet. Rhus radicans leafed there a day or two. See one white-throat sparrow still. The hearing of the cricket whets my eyes. I see one or two long lighter and smoother streaks across the rippled pond from west to east, which preserve their form remarkably, only are bent somewhat at last. The zephyr does not strike the surface from over the broad button-bush row till after a rod or so, leaving a perfectly smooth border, with a fine, irregular shaded edge where the rippling begins. I now begin to dis- tinguish where at a distance the Amelanchier Botrya- pium, with its white against the russet, is waving in the wind. Under Lee’s Cliff, about one rod east of the ash, am surprised to find some pale-yellow columbines, — not a tinge of scarlet, — the leaves and stem also not purplish, but a yellowish and light green, with leaves differently shaped from the common, the parts, both flower and leaves, more slender, and the leaves not so flat, but inclining to fold. One flower of the Polygo- natum pubescens open there; probably may shed pollen to-morrow. Returning over Conantum, I directed my glass 1855} SOUNDS AT SUNDOWN 375 toward the dead tree on Cliffs, and was surprised to see the fish hawk still sitting there, about an hour after he first alighted; and now I found that he was eating a fish, which he had under his feet on the limb and ate as I have already described. At this distance his whole head looked white with his breast. Just before sundown, took our seats before the owl’s nest and sat perfectly still and awaited her appearance. We sat about half an hour, and it was surprising what various distinct sounds we heard there deep in the wood, as if the aisles of the wood were so many ear- trumpets, — the cawing of crows, the peeping of hylas in the swamp and perhaps the croaking of a tree-toad, the oven-bird, the yorrick of Wilson’s thrush, a distant stake-driver, the night-warbler and black and white creeper, the lowing of cows, the late supper horn, the voices of boys, the singing of girls, — not all together but separately, distinctly, and musically, from where the partridge and the red-tailed hawk and the screech owl sit on their nests.

P. M. — Down river and to Yellow Birch Swamp. Yesterday was the first warm day for a week or two, and to-day it is much warmer still and hazy — as much like summer as it can be without the trees being gen- erally leafed. I saw a Fringilla hyemalis this morning and heard the golden robin, now that the elms are beginning to leaf, also the myrtle-bird’s tealee. The earliest gooseberry in garden has opened. As we float down the river through the still and hazy air, enjoying the June-like warmth, see the first king- birds on the bare black willows with their broad white breasts and white-tipped tails; and the sound of the first bobolink was floated to us from over the meadows; now that the meadows are lit by the tender yellow green of the willows and the silvery-green fruit of the elms. I heard from a female red-wing that peculiar rich screw- ing warble — not o gurgle ee — made with r, not with J. The whole air too is filled with the ring of toads louder than heretofore. Some men are already fishing, indis- tinctly seen through the haze. Under the hop-horn- beam below the monument, observed a large pellet, apparently dropped by some bird of prey, consisting of mouse-hair, with an oat or two in it undigested, which probably the mouse had swallowed. This re- minded me that I had read this kind of birds digested the flesh of the animals they swallowed, but not the vegetable food in the stomachs of the latter. The air is filled with the song of birds, — warbling vireo, gold robin, yellowbirds, and occasionally the bobolink. The gold robin, just come, is heard in all parts of the village. I see both male and female. It is a remarkable difference between this day and yesterday, that yes- terday this and the bobolink were not heard and now the former, at least, is so musical and omnipresent. Even see boys a-bathing, though they must find it cold. I saw yesterday some of that common orange rust-like fungus already on a Potentilla simplex leaf. Hear the first catbird, more clear and tinkling than the thrasher. Left the boat below N. Barrett’s and walked inland. Saw several handsome red-winged grass- hoppers in different parts of our walk; but though we saw where they alighted, yet several times we could not find them in the grass for all that. The bayberry apparently will not open under a week. ‘There are now a great many Viola pedata. The brook in Yellow Birch Swamp is very handsome now — broad and full, with the light-green hellebore eighteen inches high and the small two-leaved Solomon’s-seal about it, in the open wood. Only a part of the yellow birches are leaf- ing, but not yet generally the large ones. I notice no catkins. One white birch sheds pollen. The white birches on the side of Ponkawtasset are beginning to show faint streaks of yellowish green here and there. A cooler and stronger wind from the east by mid- afternoon. The large bass trees now begin to leaf. Now, about two hours before sunset, the brown thrashers are particularly musical. One seems to be contending in song with another. The chewink’s strain sounds quite humble in comparison. At 9.30 p. m. I hear from our gate my night-warbler. Never heard it in the village before. I doubt if we shall at any season hear more birds singing than now.’ Saw an amelanchier with downy leaf (apparently oblongifolia) on the southeast edge of Yellow Birch Swamp, about eighteen feet high and five or six inches in diameter, —a clump of them about as big as an apple tree.