[Journal entry for June 9, 2016] I was waiting for a phone call that I couldn’t take at my mother’s apartment in Emerson NJ, for the cell phone reception is poor there, and so took a walk in the nearby Closter Nature Center, where the signal strength is better. I parked at the lot off of Rickman Road, and first walked around the two ponds, Ruckman Pond and a smaller, unnamed one. Domestic geese and Canada Geese were hanging around its shores. A Green Heron was fishing from a log in the middle of the small pond, though how it could see a fish amid all the Duckweed was a mystery to me. The Green is one of the smaller herons, and though strikingly marked with a black head and back, a reddish throat and a brown belly, is not really green. I hurried back to my car for my 400 mm telephoto lens, which I had serendipitously left in the car the night before, hustled back to the pond and photographed the bird. I then took a long walk through the swampy forest on the far side of Ruckman Road. I first followed the White Trail, which follows Smith Brook. The water was flowing in the brook, though not especially vigorously, and the vegetation along its banks was lush and green. Damselflies darted about. I crossed Willow Brook and took the Blue Trail loop through more damp woods, which are mostly hardwood with a lush undergrowth of fern, skunk cabbage and grasses. I then connected with the Red Trail, which follows Willow Brook, and took it back to Ruckman Road. I spotted a White Tailed Deer and several Wild Turkey along the way. Honeysuckle was blooming along the road emitting a sweet odor. The geese were still about when I returned to the ponds but the heron had flown off. About ninety minutes.