_April 6_.--Palpable spring indeed, or the indications of it. I am
sitting in bright sunshine, at the edge of the creek, the surface just
rippled by the wind. All is solitude, morning freshness, negligence.
For companions my two kingfishers sailing, winding, darting, dipping,
sometimes capriciously separate, then flying together. I hear their
guttural twittering again and again; for awhile nothing but that
peculiar sound. As noon approaches other birds warm up. The reedy notes
of the robin, and a musical passage of two parts, one a clear delicious
gurgle, with several other birds I cannot place. To which is join'd,
(yes, I just hear it,) one low purr at intervals from some impatient
hylas at the pond-edge. The sibilant murmur of a pretty stiff breeze
now and then through the trees. Then a poor little dead leaf, long
frost-bound, whirls from somewhere up aloft in one wild escaped
freedom-spree in space and sunlight, and then dashes down to the waters,
which hold it closely and soon drown it out of sight. The bushes and
trees are yet bare, but the beeches have their wrinkled yellow leaves of
last season's foliage largely left, frequent cedars and pines yet green,
and the grass not without proofs of coming fullness. And over all a
wonderfully fine dome of clear blue, the play of light coming and going,
and great fleeces of white clouds swimming so silently.