Summary

Part I begins with Dillard thinking about starlings as she wanders along the banks of Tinker Creek. Starlings were introduced into the North America frivolously by a man who simply liked the bird. Because they travel in such large flocks with definitive roosts they can be quite destructive. The town of Radford, Virginia devised expensive elaborate plans to rid the town of the birds, but it failed and the birds continued thriving. One evening Dillard watches the starlings leave their roost and can’t help but find them beautiful despite their destruction. At night she hunkers down in her house and reads voraciously—about nature, about God, about science and Eskimos.

In Part II of this chapter, Dillard notes it has snowed, and takes a long afternoon walk wandering along the snowy banks of Tinker Creek. Despite the emptying of the land that is...