A Sand County Almanac: Part I: April Summary & Analysis

In April, Leopold meditates on the spring floods that sometimes trap him and his family on their farm. He observes that, as soon as floodwaters rise, the geese arrive searching for food and exploring their “expanding universe.” Meanwhile, terrestrial animals are indifferent to the changes in the land, moving only when they must to stay dry.

The floods bring miscellaneous objects and scraps of wood to Leopold’s yard. In the wood especially, Leopold finds “an anthology of human strivings in upriver farms and forests.” He notes that “the autobiography of an old board is a kind of literature not yet taught on campuses,” but nevertheless finds importance in closely observing the histories of the wooden scraps.

Sitting by the banks of the flooded river, Leopold believes that the solitude created by a spring flood is the most intense kind of aloneness there is. This fills him with glee.

Leopold considers the draba flower. It is so small that those who are not looking for it can easily overlook it, and even in botany books its entry is rarely accompanied by an illustration. It can grow where the soil is bad and the sun is weak. Leopold describes it as a flower “of no importance—just a small creature that does a small job quickly and well.”

Leopold catalogues the bur oak, a tree notable for being able to withstand a prairie fire. They have thick, cork-like bark that functions as armor. Leopold imagines the prairie and the forest engaging in a twenty-thousand-year war for territory, in which rabbits ate the prairie, clearing space for trees, and then winter frost killed oak seedlings, and so on. The human settler eventually ended up in the middle of the war. Fires had helped control the growth of forests, but when farmers came along they mowed the prairie, which reduced the fires and allowed the trees to grow unchecked. 

Leopold concludes by reminding the reader that to own “a veteran bur oak” is to own “a historical library”—to have “a reserved seat in the theatre of evolution” which is only visible “to the discerning eye.” 

Leopold enjoys a performance that he calls the “sky dance.” The sky dance is a nightly dance by a male woodcock, who performs in the spring as the suns sets and early in the morning as the sun rises. Leopold finds the sky dance mysterious, but enjoys the mystery, wondering how the female woodcock is incorporated, and whether the ritual is a mating ritual.

Leopold observes that the sky dance occurs on hundreds of farms, but is ignored by farmers who “harbor the illusion that [entertainment] is to be sought in theatres.” These men and women “live on the land, but not by the land.”

Leopold sees the woodcock as a symbol of the grand utility of birds beyond their use as hunting targets. He still enjoys hunting them, but finds that because he so enjoys their dance in the springtime that he is more moderate in his killing.