April 30

Thu Apr 30, 4:30 PM. 60s. pond ruffled, partly cloudy, steady wind from the south. Beech tree has popped a lot of leaves, they seem to emerge in 3s, a bit fuzzy, a gorgeous shade of, hmm, what is that color? Brownish red? Maple and hickory have little leaves too. And all around me, densely under the beech but everywhere, a sugar maple forest, mostly 3 to 6 inches high, reveals itself. Wow. Left alone this would soon be a dense stand of maples. How long do trees take to grow? Right next to the beech trunk are two maples about 4 feet high. No baby beeches that I can see. The wisteria begins its summer with a quick, 2 inch growth topped by still tightly clustered leaves. My herbs, or forbs (new word!) have grown a bit, I'm pretty sure 3x3 is golden alexander. Yes, there's my note from last year, found out in the field: "Zizia aurea. tiny yellow flowers in flat-topped cluster, leaves are divided w/ varying #s of toothed lobes. Parsley or carrot family." It's the varying lobes that gives it away. It's hard to practice looking straight ahead, using peripheral vision, because the black flies immediately appear in my face. If I look down either they leave or I don't see them, I'm not sure which. They don't really bite, they like to float around and then buzz in and bounce off, and then somehow they always bite but you only notice it the next day. If one does land and you reach up to touch it most of the time you find it rolled under your fingertip, instead of flying off like a mosquito. A tick appears on my hand. The red-wings, grackles etc are quiet at the moment. I've seen them either wrestling or mating in the last few days, I suppose they're working out their territories now. Quite the community. A duck flies in, making a high sound, I catch it in the binoculars and see a line of white on its brown wings, but when it lands I cant make out much detail. Then I notice a mallard standing on a tussock of grass: bright orange feet! Who knew?