Wake-Robin |
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Adirondac alight Audubon Baltimore oriole Bark-peeling beak beautiful beneath birch blue bluebird bobolink branch breast breeding bright brood Brook build bush cat-bird color crow distance eggs feet female finches flew fly-catcher forest grass gray grossbeak ground half hawk head hear heard hemlock hopping Kentucky warbler lake limb look male manner maple mate miles morning moss Mount Marcy mountain musical nearly nest never night observed ornithologists pair passed paused pewee plumage purple finch red-eyed vireo robin Rock Creek ruffed grouse scarlet tanager season seems seen side silent sing sitting soft song song-sparrow songsters sound sparrow species spring strain swallows tail THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH throat thrush tree trout usually uttering veery vireo voice walk warble warbler warbling vireo water-thrush wild wings wood-thrush woodpecker woods wren yellow yellow birch young
Popular passages
Page 23 - O Cuckoo ! shall I call thee Bird, Or but a wandering Voice ? While I am lying on the grass Thy twofold shout I hear, From hill to hill it seems to pass, At once far off, and near. Though babbling only to the Vale, Of sunshine and of flowers, Thou bringest unto me a tale Of visionary hours. Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring ! Even yet thou art to me No bird, but an invisible thing, A voice...
Page 94 - I find the great purple orchis in bloom, and where the foot of man or beast seems never to have trod, I linger long, contemplating the wonderful display of lichens and mosses that overrun both the smaller and the larger growths. Every bush and branch and sprig is dressed up in the most rich and fantastic of liveries; and, crowning all, the long bearded moss festoons the branches or sways gracefully from the limbs. Every twig looks a century old, though green leaves tip the end of it. A young yellow...
Page 74 - In this song you instantly detect his relationship to the water-wagtail, — erroneously called water-thrush, — whose song is likewise a sudden burst, full and ringing, and with a tone of youthful joyousness in it, as if the bird had just had some unexpected good fortune. For nearly two years this strain of the pretty walker was little more than a disembodied voice to me, and I was puzzled by it as Thoreau by his mysterious night-warbler, which, by the way, I suspect was no new bird at all, but...
Page 25 - The two white lateral quills in his tail, and his habit of running and skulking a few yards in advance of you as you walk through the fields, are sufficient to identify him. Not in meadows or orchards, but in high, breezy pasture-grounds, will you look for him.
Page 79 - ... sweet and very pleasing. The call of the robin is brought in at a certain point with marked effect, and, throughout, the variety is so great and the strain so rapid that the impression is as of two or three birds singing at the same time. He is not common here, and I only find him in these or similar woods. His color is peculiar, and looks as if it might have been imparted by dipping a brown bird in diluted pokeberry juice. Two or three more dippings would have made the purple complete.
Page 73 - He walks on the ground ahead of me with such an easy, gliding motion, and with such an unconscious, preoccupied air, jerking his head like a hen or a partridge, now hurrying, now slackening his pace, that I pause to observe him. If I sit down, lie pauses to observe me, and extends his pretty ramblings on all sides, apparently very much engrossed with his own affairs, but never losing sight of me.
Page 63 - Thrushes in size, being about that of the common Bluebird, and he may be distinguished from his relatives by the dimness of the spots upon his breast The Wood-Thrush has very clear, distinct oval spots on a white ground ; in the Hermit, the spots run more into lines, on a ground of a faint bluish-white ; in the Veery, the marks are almost obsolete, and a few rods off his breast presents only a dull yellowish appearance. To get a good view of him you have only to sit down in his haunts, as in such...
Page 9 - The dandelion tells me when to look for the swallow, the dogtooth violet when to expect the wood-thrush, and when I have found the wakerobin in bloom I know the season is fairly inaugurated. With me this flower is associated, not merely with the awakening of Robin, for he has been awake some weeks, but with the universal awakening and rehabilitation of nature.
Page 72 - I sit down, he pauses to observe me, and extends his pretty ramblings on all sides, apparently very much engrossed with his own affairs, but never losing sight of me. But few of the birds are walkers, most being hoppers, like the robin.