April 20, 1854.
4 P.M. To Moore's Swamp.
Red maple in a warm place shows anthers, and will open tomorrow if pleasant; say 22d. In the ditch in the Brown meadow, several yellow lily buds pushed up four or five inches. But water plants on the whole not decidedly ahead of land or air plants. The pine warbler on the oaks, running about somewhat creeper-like and now and then uttering a loud ringing vetter vetter vetter vetter vetter vet faster and faster, with its bright-yellow throat and forked tail.
At starlight by riverside a few faint stertorous sounds from the awakening meadow, and one or two faint bull frogish notes, - er-er-er. The sound of the snipes, winnowing the evening air now at starlight, visible but for an instant high over the meadows, is heard far into the village, - hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo, rising higher and higher or dying away as they circle round, - a ghostly sound. Is that bittern-like squeak made by them? I do not mean the nighthawk-like squeak.
-H.D.T.
April 20, 20201.
Just before 6:30 p.m. it’s 64 degrees when I start out along the path next the the Knoll Section of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery to Moore’s Swamp. Various red maples, with different degrees and shading of redness, are well past flowering as Thoreau notices on his day, and fully gone to seed. I see no pond lilies within the smooth water of the pool just west of the cemetery, but find many skunk cabbages in the adjacent, damp soils. I spot a painted turtle, with yellow horizontal lines on its shell, which splashes into the water from the shore and swims away under the surface. A pileated woodpecker’s high-pitched call, kuk-keeek-keeek-keeek-kuk, precedes its appearance on a tall tree at the back of the pool. Like Thoreau, I see a warbler here today, albeit a different kind. It quickly flits in and among the branches by the pond, its clear bold patch of yellow on its side useful for tracking its jagged, evasive movement: a yellow-rumped warbler.
From a small rise at its edge, Moore’s Swamp, covered with waving cattails and sporadic dead trees against the setting sun to the west, looks dry, almost Savanah-like. But, I do find new green, rising cattail stalks and verify the water-logged nature of the swamp just off-trail. The faint dong, dong, dong ... of the First Parish church bell knolls seven times. Along the trail through the cattails, I find the greenish buds of a small pussy willow tree. Bumblebees occasionally buzzzzzz around me. The further west I walk into the swamp, the more the peeping chorus of the peepers escalates, coming from the north in the direction of the river; over and among this chorus is the konk-ka-reeee buzzing of the red-winged blackbirds.
The sky alone, with magnificent multi-colored clouds reminiscent of a Michelangelo painting, make this evening’s walk worth every step. A view of this sky would lift the spirit of even the most bedraggled, and certainly rejuvenates me from my long day, which included my second COVID inoculation. As I am leaving, I hear the Who cooks for you? Who cooks, for youuuu-all? call of a barred owl in the distance to the west; the nearby pileated woodpecker calls out from behind me as if in response.
***
At 8:45 p.m., I head out into the night, the sound of the peepers increasing by Wheeler’s Field (what our family calls, the "Triangle") at and at the base of Nashawtuc Hill. I walk down the soggy, mown grass path of the Brooks-Hudson Meadow by the Sudbury River. The meadow is remarkably dark, except for occasional headlights of cars driving across the bridge on Elm Street, and I need my phone’s flashlight to be able to see. I hear the scitter-scitter, scampering sounds of insects in the thicker grasses and underlying leaves outside the path - undoubtedly the many spiders I have seen hear before. Within the starry sky with a half moon above, the Big Dipper shines clearly. I occasionally hit cooler spots within the meadow as if the heat is not evenly dispersed.
The sounds and scene at the river are decidedly mellow. The cozy outlines of light from nearby houses add a charm and hint of happy happenings within. Among the peep-a-peep-a sleigh bell sound of the spring peeper chorus frogs filtering in, I hear the sweet and soft thrummm thrummm notes of someone practicing guitar, and the be-bop-ba-doo flow of jazz from across and downriver. The rinnggggggging calls of American toads occasionally chime in.
I am reminded of fishing for hornpout with my older cousin off a dock at night at a family camp when I was a boy. The folklore passed down from him was to fish using a frog as bait to catch the largest, monster of a fish. Despite our search, amid the -er-er-er calls of the frogs in the sultry summer night, we caught no frogs, settling instead on our stash of nightcrawlers for lures.
The night, where everything unseen and differently filtered, makes the world anew with a feeling of mystery and magic. A single light on Musketaquid Road stands as a beacon for my path homeward.
コメント