Jan. 8., 1855. 7.30 A.M. To river.
Still warm and cloudy, but with a great crescent of clear sky increasing in the north by west. The streets are washed bare down to the ice. It is pleasant to see the sky reflected in the open river-reach, now perfectly smooth.
10 A.M. To Easterbrooks place via old mill site. It is now a clear warm and sunny day. The willow osiers by the Red Bridge decidedly are not bright now. There is a healthy earthy sound of cock-crowing. I hear a few chickadees near at hand, and hear and see jays further off, and, as yesterday, a crow sitting sentinel on an apple tree. Soon he gives the alarm, and several more take their places near him. Then off they flap with their caw of various hoarseness. I see various caterpillars and grubs on the snow and in one place a reddish ant about a third of an inch long walking off. In the swamps you see the mouths of squirrels’ holes in the snow, with dirt and leaves and perhaps pine scales about them. The fever-bush is betrayed by its little spherical buds.
-H.D.T.
Jan. 8, 2021. To Estabrook Woods via Hunt's Bridge over Concord River
On route to Estabrook Road, I visit the once-named Red (or Hunt’s) Bridge on Lowell Road over the Concord River. From the bridge, a smooth slow-flowing river below beautifully reflects the blue sky and river bank trees. On the corner of Liberty Street, I stop by a small apple orchard in a field lined by tall bare trees; with luck, the owner is at his mailbox and gives me permission (with a laugh) to “look for and photo any crows in his apple trees.” A chickadee is flitting about nearby, when I notice two red-tailed hawks swoop across the field and orchard, one bird landing to roost and hide in a nearby evergreen tree. After much gawking upward at the bird, partly hidden and with puffed up feathers to stay warm, I head to Estabrook Woods.
With the light of the day fading behind me, I follow the Esker Trail, eventually startling a white-tailed deer, which bolts off to my right. Veering to the east, I find Thoreau Pond and the site of the former mill for the Thoreau family pencil making company. Continuing north, past a serene, frozen Mink Pond, I find my way via West Hubbard Trail to Estabrook Place; the namesake for these beautiful and expansive woods sits now as no more than a old cellar hole at the intersection of two trails. My walk back in the near-dark along the Old Carlisle Road, later renamed Estabrook Road, is fast clipped. On my way out, a solitary light approaches and passes me, lighting the way for a mountain biker threading his way north through the trees.
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