June 2, 1860. 8 P.M. Up Assabet.
The river is four inches above summer level. A cool evening. A cold, white twilight sky after the air has been cleared by rain, and now the trees are seen very distinctly against it, not yet heavy masses of verdure, but a light openwork, the leaves being few and small yet, as regularly open as a sieve.
Cool as it is, the air is full of the ringing of toads, peeping of hylodes [spring peepers], and purring of (probably) Rana palustris. The last is especially like the snoring of the river. In the morning, when the light is similar, you will not hear a peeper, I think, and scarcely a toad. Bats go over, and a kingbird, very late. Mosquitoes are pretty common. Ever and anon we hear the stake-driver [American bittern] from a distance. There is more distinct sound from animals than by day, and an occasional bullfrog's trump is heard. Turning the island [Egg Rock], I hear a very faint and slight screwing or working sound once, and suspect a screech owl, which I after see on an oak. I soon hear its mournful scream, probably to its mate, not loud now, but, though within twenty or thirty rods, sounding a mile off. I hear it louder from my bed in the night.
Water-bugs dimple the surface now quite across the river, in the moonlight, for it is a full moon. The evergreens are very dark and heavy.
-H.D.T.
June 2, 2021. 9 p.m.
It’s a fair, cool night at 70 degrees with a light gray cloud-covered sky. I leave for a walk at 9 p.m., first for practicality sake after others in my family are winding down for sleep, but also to be outside at the same hour, adjusted for daylight savings time, as Thoreau journeyed by boat tonight.
My exploration is by foot, past Wood Street, Brooks-Hudson Meadow, and French’s Meadow to Egg Rock. Along the way, I stop and listen to the gray tree frogs calling, accompanied by crickets in the fields. The twinkling lights of fireflies dance about. The frogs’ chorus is very loud at the intersection of Nashawtuc and Musketaquid Roads, coming in from both sides of the road from the meadows along the river.
The woods under the canopy behind Egg Rock are very dark and quiet. As I exit out of the trees at Egg Rock, I am happy to see the dim twilight and reflections on the river. I sit and soon lay back on the large rock close to the swollen river. Only occasional cars pass on Lowell Road bridge, each emitting a clee-klunk into the quiet as tires roll over it. The chorus of tree frogs is less strong here, but the most prominent sound - coming in from across the Assabet from Sherwood Red Maple Swamp, and from across the Sudbury from the Old Calf Pasture. The sound of the night includes the ringing burrrrrr of the American toad, softer and intermittent, the chirping of the crickets, the distant murmur of the train, and the knoll of the bell at First Parish downtown.
As I lay back noting a light movement of waves on the otherwise still water - and the look of the leaves against the canvas of the sky, I hear a loud splash on the water, very close, sending me bolt upright! With my flashlight, I see it. A beaver swimming very close followed by another slap of its tail on the water. I fumble with my phone to record a video, with more water slaps from the beaver and its now visible mate. How magical! (I later read that beavers are primarily nocturnal, eating and building by night).
As I walk home, by the base of Nashawtuc Hill at the Shaw Land, another magical moment - a slim red fox, just a shadow at first, and then moving into full view. After pausing upon noticing me, it decides to keep moving toward me and across the base of the hill on the path. Where number of fireflies swirl about in the dark over the long grass, the fox disappears into the dim.
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