March 26, 1853. P. M. Up Assabet to stone-heaps, in boat.
A warm, moist, April-like afternoon, with wet-looking sky, and misty. For the first time I take off my coat. Everywhere are hovering over the river and floating, wrecked and struggling, on its surface, a miller-like insect, without mealy wings, very long and narrow, six-legged with two long feelers and, I believe, two long slender grayish wings, from my harbor to the heaps, or a couple of miles at least, food for fishes. This was the degree and kind of warmth to bring them forth. The tortoises, undoubtedly painted, drop now in several instances from the limbs and floating rails on which they had come out to sun. I notice by the Island a yellow scum on the water close to the shore, which must be the pollen of the alders just above. This, too, is perhaps food for fishes.
Up the Assabet, scared from his perch a stout hawk, the red-tailed undoubtedly, for I saw very plainly the cow-red when he spread his wings from off his tail (and rump?). .... This is the henhawk of the farmer - the same probably which I have scared off the Cliff. so often - It was an interesting eagle-like object, as he sat upright on his perch with his back to us, now and then looking over his shoulder, the broad-backed, flat-headed, curve-beaked bird.
Heard a pewee [eastern phoebe]. This, it seems to me, is the first true pewee day, though they have been here some time.
-H.D.T.
March 26, 2021. 62 degrees.
It’s overcast and gray and the slight wind creates a choppy surface on the brown waters of the Concord River. From the Lowell Road boat launch, I paddle past Egg Rock and into the smoother water of the narrower Assabet River, which lies more sheltered from the wind by trees along its steep western banks. I see the fluttering, drifting stoneflies in the air and on the water as I paddle upstream. Their long, slender bodies, six legs, antennae, and double sets of wings perfectly match the flies Thoreau saw on this calendar day. Amazing. Seeking a photo, I chase them on the water including one to a riverbank, only to later have many land directly on my boat and hands as if equally curious about me, and to pose for the camera.
At Pinxter Swamp I closely pass a brown muscovy duck and pair of mallards; while the mallards flutter away as I glide silently pass, the muscovy sits calmly without concern on its perch, distinct with its red, bulbous face and beak. I suspect it must be the same domestic escapee that I have seen along these waters before. so often - (e.g. see May 9) I think Riverfront Farm further upriver has domestic ducks, including a white pekin mallard. As I approach Dove Rock, I see a large bird take off from the eastern shore at the bend in the river. A hawk, like Thoreau saw this day? Two Canada geese float and bob for food just upstream of Willow Island, where I turn around.
On my return, I glide and drift easily with the current under boughs of flowering red maples listening contentedly to and recording the chorus of birds, with particular attention to any possible phoebe calls. “No texting while driving!” a dog walker on the path yells out to me, both of us laughing as I look up from my phone. “I couldn’t help it,” he quips, "Enjoy your day, man." More laughter.
I search the riverbank along the now straight/slightly leaning hemlock stand for what could be the location of the Transcendentalists' once-existing Leaning Hemlocks, trying to match my memory of Herbert Gleason’s historic photos with a bend in the river.
Further downstream, the humped curve of land with Egg Rock looks as if an island, which rises up from the river on the west and lowlands of the east. It’s no wonder Thoreau uses "Island” interchangeably with “Egg Rock” in reference to this spot. Around the bend of Egg Rock on Thoreau's "Island," I find the collected orange-brown flotsam scum of red maple pollen and other debris collected against a branch within the River. I've never been so excited about river scum!
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