February 14

Still colder this morning, 7° at 8.30 am.

To Walden.

I walk in the bare maple swamps and detect the minute pensile nests of some vireo high over my head, in the fork of some unattainable twig, where I never suspected them in summer -- a little basket cradle that rocked so high in the wind. And where is that young family now, while their cradle is filled with ice?

I was struck today by the size and continuousness of the natural willow hedge on the east side of the railroad causeway, at the foot of the embankment, next to the fence. Some twelve years ago, when that causeway was built through the meadows, there were no willows there or near there, but now, just at the foot of the sand-bank, where it meets the meadow, and on the line of the fence, quite a dense willow hedge has planted itself .

I used to think that the seeds were brought with the sand from the Deep Cut in the woods, but there is no golden willow there; but now I think that the seeds have been blown hither from a distance, and lodged against the foot of the bank, just as the snow-drift accumulates there, for I see several ash trees among them, which have come from an ash ten rods east in the meadow, though none has sprung up elsewhere.

There are also a few alders, elms, birch, poplars, and some elder. For years a willow might not have been persuaded to take root in that meadow; but run a barrier like this through it, and in a few years it is lined with them. They plant themselves here solely, and not in the open meadow, as exclusively as along the shores of a river. The sand-bank is a shore to them, and the meadow a lake.

How impatient, how rampant, how precocious these osiers! They have hardly made two shoots from the sand in as many springs, when silvery catkins burst out along them, and anon golden blossoms and downy seeds, spreading their race with incredible rapidity. Thus they multiply and clan together. Thus they take advantage even of the railroad, which elsewhere disturbs and invades their domains.

May I ever be in as good spirits as a willow! How tenacious of life! How withy! How soon it gets over its hurts! They never despair. Is there no moisture longer in nature which they can transmute into sap? They are emblems of youth, joy, and everlasting life. Scarcely is their growth restrained by winter, but their silvery down peeps forth in the warmest days in January.

The very trees and shrubs and weeds, if we consider their origin, have drifted thus like snow against the fences and hillsides. Their growth is protected and favored there. Soon the alders will take their places with there. This hedge is, of course, as straight as the railroad or its bounding fence.

Over this crust, alder and birch and pine seeds, etc., which in summer would have soon found a resting place, are blown far and wide. (1856)

P.M. - Down railroad. A moist, thawing, cloudy afternoon, preparing to rain.

The telegraph resounds at every post. It is a harp with one string - the first strain from the American lyre.

In Stow's wood, by the Deep Cut, hear the gnah gnah of the white-breasted, black-capped nuthatch. I went up the bank and stood by the fence A little family of titmice gathered about me, searching for their food both on the ground and on the trees, with great industry and intentness, and now and then pursuing each other.

There were two nuthatches at least, talking to each other. One hung with his head down over a large pitch pine, pecking the bark for a long time - leaded blue above, with a black cap and white breast. It uttered almost constantly a faint but sharp quivet or creak, difficult to trace home, which appeared to be answered by a baser and louder gnah gnah from the other. A downy woodpecker also, with the red spot on his hind head and his cassock open behind, showing his white robe, kept up an incessant loud tapping on another pitch pine.

All at once an active little brown creeper makes its appearance, a small, rather slender bird, with a long tail and sparrow-colored back, and white beneath. It commences at the bottom of a tree and glides up very rapidly, then suddenly darts to the bottom of a new tree and repeats the same movement, not resting long in one place or on one tree.

These birds are all feeding and flitting along together, but the chickadees are the most numerous and the most confiding. I cannot but think that this sprightly association and readiness to burst into song has to do with the prospect of spring -- more light and warmth and thawing weather. (1854)

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