The almanac uses observations written by naturalists, river lovers of all ages, and scientists to assemble a journal of the river's unique moments.

The almanac is printed by Purple Mountain Press, Ltd., (800-325-2665). It is available for $10, plus New York State sales tax, and $3.50 for shipping. E-mail address is: Purple@mail.catskill.net

Limited copies of The Hudson River Almanac: Volume II are also available at the same price. Volumes I and III are sold out.

These excerpts are taken, with permission from the publisher, from the Hudson River Almanac, Volume IV, 1997-98. Each month, we'll be adding another excerpt from the book that corresponds to the current month.

To contribute observations to the Hudson River Almanac, write to Tom Lake, 3 Steinhaus Lane, Wappinger Falls, NY 12590-3927, or fax: 297-8935 or e-mail to trlake@mailcity.com.

Those who wish to see more recent excerpts from the Hudson River Almanac may visit the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation's Web site at http://www.dec.state.ny.us/website/hudson/monthly.html

June 1998
A fair day makes it [the Hudson] more fair, and a wild and tempestuous day it makes it more wild and tempestuous. It takes on so quickly and completely the mood and temper of the sky above. The storm is mirrored in it, and the wind chafes it into foam.
John Burroughs, A River View

June 1 - Croton Bay - It used to be that a dozen mute swans on this reach of the river were a crowd. Day by day, the numbers grew, and now there were sixtyÑa generous sprinkling of white across the broad bay. For those who worry about alien species, I can report that just one mated pair had any success this year. Three cygnets trolled in line behind one swan, with the cob doing rear-guard duty. Christopher Letts

June 7 - Upper Nyack - On this Sunday morning, with a freshening northwest wind and the sound of church bells occasionally coming out of the Village of Nyack, a pair of yellow-crowned night herons and a cormorant perched in complete calm on a set of pilings. They looked like carvings on a totem pole. Daniel Wolff

Sleepy Hollow - Across 50' of beach, we counted over 80 dead white perch of al sizes (4 1/2 - 11 1/2"). We were in the middle of a fish kill that seemed to affect only a single species, white perch, but was occurring across at least a 74 mile reach of the estuary. For ten days we received almost daily reports of dead white perch that surpassed anything considered ordinary during their spawning season. Fisheries biologists felt something was amiss, but had no answers. As mysteriously as it began in the last week of May, by the second week of June it had ended. Tom Lake

June 10 - Croton Point - It was just a great day for a tour of Croton Point, and the van load of senior citizens seemed fully engaged as we talked about the history and prehistory of this peninsula. The van was literally parked atop an old shell mound at the tip of the point, when I began to talk about the Native American presence in the region. I bent to pick up an oyster shell, something I've done a thousand times, and the words should have been, "The last time a human hand touched this shell was 3,000 years ago." Instead my eye and hand were caught by a rock that didn't look like a rock, and I came up with a spear point. Worked from argillite, it was identified as a Poplar Island point, later Archaic period, perhaps 4,000 years old. I was flabbergasted; I'd waited all my life for such a find. The seniors? "Hah, you put it there!" Christopher Letts

Poplar Island is a Late Archaic (ca. 2,000 B.C.) form of projectile point named for a site in Pennsylvania where it was first described. NYS archaeologist Bob Funk found four Poplar Island points, also made of argillite, in the 1970s a half mile south across Croton bay near Crawbuckie. These points, used by Hudson Valley hunter and gatherer Indians, were fixed to a dart and thrown by an atlatl, a precursor to the bow.

Kitchawanc: The First Ones Here
The Kitchawanc Indians were the first ones here, To settle the land and hunt the deer.
No terrible crime, no fear for fate,
The corn must be harvested before it's too late.
The bitterness, the coldness from the winter winds, Were the only things to fear, except for one's sins.
James Ready, Hendrick Hudson High School, Montrose

June 14 - Croton Point - For several hours this morning an immature bald eagle chose one of the lifeguards chairs on the beach as its perch. Only 30 yards from the main parking lot, the bird seemed not to notice the traffic and people passing by. I watched it cruise the shallows, plunge, come up with a large eel, and begin feeding. That would be one slippery chair seat when the meal was completed. Christopher Letts

June 16 - Nyack - After ten days of rain, finally a break in the weather. At the mooring, on the starboard deck of my sailboat, propped between the gunnel and the spreader stay, there was a pale, blue-green egg a little bigger than a chicken's. A mallard's egg. In what rain-driven desperation did the hen decide to use my flat fiberglass deck as a nest? Daniel Wolff

June 19 - Bear Mountain State Park - It was a warm humid day along Queensboro Brook. I watched a painted turtle dig a nest, and, nearby, saw a five-lined skink and a black rat snake. Peter Warney.