April 20

Posted by sydney on Apr 20th, 2009
  • 1793: April 20, 1793 – The Cuckoo is heard on Greatham common.
  • 1791: April 20, 1791 – Finished weeding, & dressing all the flower-borders.  Several nightingales between the village, & comb-wood pond.  Comb-wood coppice was cut last winter.
  • 1790: April 20, 1790 – Set the old Bantam speckled Hen with eleven eggs.  My cook-maid desired there might be an odd egg for good luck: … numero Deus impare gaudet.
  • 1789: April 20, 1789 – Apricots set very fast.  The willows in bloom are beautiful.  Men pole their hops: barley is sowing at the forest side.  Several swallows, h. martins, & bank-martins play over Oakhanger ponds.  The horses wade belly deep over those ponds, to crop the grass floating on the surface of the water.
  • 1786: April 20, 1786 – Slipped out & planted many doz. of good polyanths.  Young Geo: Tanner shot a water-ouzel, merula aquatica, near Ja: Knight’s ponds.  This is the first bird of the sort that was ever observed in this parish.  This bird, being only pinioned, was caught alive, & put into a cage, to which it soon became reconciled; & is fed with woodlice, & small snails.  W: ouzels are very common in the mountainous parts of the N. of England, & in N. Wales.  They haunt rocky streams, & water-falls; & tho’ not web-footed often dive into currents in pursuit of insects.
  • 1784: April 20, 1784 – No garden-crops sowed yet with me; the ground is too wet.  Artichokes seem to be almost killed.
  • 1783: April 20, 1783 – Some whistling plovers in the meadows towards the forest.
  • 1782: April 20, 1782 – On this day Admiral Barrington discovered s convoy newly from Brest.  His fleet took 12 or thirteen transports; a French man of war of 74 guns, called the Pagasus; & a 64 gun ship, named the Actionnaire, armee in flute.
  • 1778: April 20, 1778 – Sun, showers of hail & sleet.
  • 1777: April 20, 1777 – The house snail begins to appear: the naked black-snail comes forth much sooner.  Slugs, which are covered with slime, as whales are with blubber, are moving all the winter in mild weather.
  • 1774: April 20, 1774 – Turtle cooes.
  • 1773: April 20, 1773 – Regulus non cristatus medius sings: a pretty plaintive note: some call it a joyous note: it begins with an high note & runs down.  The titlark, a sweet songster, not only sings flying in its descent, & on trees; but also on the ground, as it walks about feeding in pastures.
  • 1772: April 20, 1772 – Thick ice.  No swallows appear.
  • 1771: April 20, 1771 – The dry weather has lasted five weeks this day.  Just rain enough to discolour the pavements.  Myriads of minute frogs, encouraged by those few drops of rain, migrate from the ponds & pools where they were hatched.  Hence it appears that severe frost doth not interrupt the hatching & growth of young frogs.

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