A Nature Journal : A Naturalist's Year on Long Island [signed] [first edition]

The unique and brilliantly displayed book, a gift to be cherished by all lovers of nature, flows from the hand and heart of a great student and painter of nature."Walking in a grove of conifers during the winter, you may notice a few pine cone scales fluttering down. Look up, and you'll see several finchlike birds climbing among the cones like miniature parrots. These are red crossbills...."These words are from the first section - January - of A Nature Journal, whose text and accompanying 166 full-color illustrations take us month by month through a year in Long Island's woods, along its shores, and into its surrounding seas.No month is without its natural wonders. In February, "in places protected from the north winds, the first dandelions are in bloom.... About half an hour after sunset on a quiet night in March, the male woodcock begins his spectacular spring courtship flight.... Strutting like a tiny turkey cock, he utters an explosive, nasal, buzzy sound at intervals of several seconds."May, the month with "a smile on its face," is when the dogwood blooms, horseshoe crabs mate, and warblers pass to their northern breeding grounds.All of nature is here, the black skimmer and the bobwhite next to the jack-in-the-pulpit, the native red mulberry and the wild orchid; September's handsome orange, black, and white monarch butterflies next to beach plums, even snakes and mice.In the autumn, the last of the Norway maple leaves fall, and the Christmas fern takes on a bright and contrasting luster, while most of nature awaits the return of the sun, in a never-ending cycle of birth, flowering quietude, and rebirth.