in Thoreau’s Journal:

The tapping of the wood pecker-rat-tat-tat-knocking at the door of some sluggish grub to tell him that the spring has arrived-& his fate. 

This is one of the season sounds––calling the roll of birds & insects––the reveillee––

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Might not my Journal be called “Field Notes.”

in Thoreau’s Journal:

No wonder we feel the spring influences. There is a motion in the very ground under our feet. Each rill is peopled with new life rushing up it.

If a man does not revive with nature in the spring, how shall he revive when a white-collared priest prays for him?

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Early willows in their silvery state.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

This afternoon the woods & walls and the whole face of the country wears once more a wintry aspect—though there is more moisture in the snow—and the trunks of the trees are whitened now on a more southerly or SE side––

in Thoreau’s Journal:

No mortal is alert enough to be present at the first dawn of the spring, but he will presently discover some evidence that vegetation had awaked some days at least before.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

 P. M. —To Conantum.

A thick mist, spiriting away the snow. Very bad walking. This fog is one of the first decidedly spring signs also the withered grass bedewed by it and wetting my feet. A still, foggy, and rather warm day.

I heard this morning, also, quite a steady warbling from tree sparrows on the dripping bushes, and that peculiar drawling note of a hen, who has this peevish way of expressing her content at the sight of bare ground and mild weather. The crowing of cocks and the cawing of crows tell the same story. The ice is soggy and dangerous to be walked on.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Pleasant morning, unexpectedly. Hear on the alders by the river the lill lill lill lill of the first F. hyemalis, mingled with song sparrows and tree sparrows. The sound of Barrett’s saw mill in the still morning comes over the water very loud. I hear that peculiar, interesting loud hollow tapping of a woodpecker from over the water.

I am sorry to think that you do not get a man’s most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.

J. Farmer tells me his dog started up a lark last winter completely buried in the snow.

Painted my boat.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

It is the first and last snows—especially the last—which blind us most, when the sun is most powerful and our eyes are unused to them.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The song sparrow and blackbird heard to-day. The snow going off. The ice in the pond one foot thick.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

All these birds do their warbling especially in the still, sunny hour after sunrise, as rivers twinkle at their sources. Now is the time to be abroad and hear them, as you detect the slightest ripple in smooth water. As with tinkling sounds the sources of streams burst their icy fetters, so the rills of music begin to flow and swell the general quire of spring. Memorable is the warm light of the spring sun on russet fields in the morning.

A new feature is being added to the landscape—and that is expanses of & reaches of blue water.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I suspect that in speaking of the springing of plants in previous years I have been inclined to make them start too early generally.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

You incline to walk now along the south side of hills which will shelter you from the blustering northwest and north winds. The sidewalks are wet in the morning from the frost coming out.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

To us snow and cold seem a mere delaying of the spring. How far we are from understanding the value of these things in the economy of Nature.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

It is remarkable how true each flower is to its season.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The river is frozen more solidly than during the past winter, and for the first time for a year I could cross it in most places. 

I did not once cross it the past winter, though by choosing a safe place I might have done so without doubt once or twice. But I have had no river walks before.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I  must not forget the lichen-painted boles of the beeches….

The habit of looking at things microscopically, as the lichens on the trees and rocks, really prevents my seeing aught else in a walk.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I go along below the north end of the Cliffs. The rocks in the usual place are buttressed with icy columns, for water in almost imperceptible quantity is trickling down the rocks. It is interesting to see how the dry black or ash-colored umbilicaria, which get a little moisture when the snow melts and trickles down along a seam or shallow channel of the rock, become relaxed and turn olive-green and enjoy their spring, while a few inches on each side of this gutter or depression in the face of the rock they are dry and crisp as ever. Perhaps the greater part of this puny rill is drunk up by the herbage on its brink.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

What produces the peculiar softness of the air yesterday & today—as if it were the air of the south suddenly pillowed amid our wintry hills— We have suddenly a different sky—a different atmosphere.

It is as if the subtlest possible soft vapour were diffused through the atmosphere. Warm Air has come to us from the S. But charged with moisture—which will yet distill in rain or congeal into snow & hail—