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June 5. This evening the fragrance of wild phlox permeates the woods. It is a smell of sweet spice, like cinnamon. Yesterday I heard for the first time of artist and naturalist Andy Goldsworthy. Inspired by his work, I create a disc of etiolated willow leaves in the dark brown mud of the bicycle trail.
June 6. The trees are calling for rain, as a friend of mine once told me. A summer wind turns up the pale undersides of maple and oak leaves, shining in the heat. The wet meadow is dappled pink, white and yellow with Phlox, Anemone and Chelidonium (Celandine).
June 7. The rain has held off and now the wind has fallen. The air is pregnant with moisture and the trees are thick with life. The edge of the pond seethes with black toad tadpoles. A snapping turtle the size of my hand has come into the shallows, apparently to feed on them, and starts burying itself in the mud when I approach. I seize a stick and try to sweep it out of the water for a photograph, but only succeed in stirring up mud. The turtle vanishes in the clouded water. Bits of white fluff drift out of the black willows. A warbler with an ambiguous song moves invisibly through the top of a high willow. I've been pursuing this bird for weeks, but after several tantalizing glimpses I finally manage to hold it in the field of my binoculars long enough to see yellowish markings on the tail and sides. It is an immature American redstart. I'm used to seeing them here, but they have one of the most variable songs of warblers.
June 10. After two days of humid heat, an overnight rain has brought some relief, but mosquitoes have rarely been so numerous along the river. The tadpoles have begun to show their pale, dappled undersides. At 1600 the park still has many songsters: red-eyed vireo, black-and-white warbler, American redstart, American robin and house finch. A grackle rummages through undergrowth at the edge of the mowed grass. While most songbirds hop along the ground (for example robins and sparrows), the grackle walks bipedally like a human, placing one claw at a time before the other, its iridescent shoulders flashing, its head jerking to counterbalance its stride. This must be an adaptation for spending more time on the ground. It is also found in chickens and a few other birds that
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