Nature Books

Since I haven't been out AT ALL for about the past two months, I've tried to make up for it by reading about being out in nature   Here are my thoughts on the books I've read (mostly collected from posts in my regular journal, which I do update slightly more than this one if you are interested, and there are occasional nature-y paragraphs there).

Suburban Safari: A Year On The Lawn by Hannah Holmes:  I really liked this book.  The author observed every detail of her backyard for a year, and researched every topic she could find.  She talks about the life of a bug and mating habits of squirrels and the chemical defenses of trees, among many other things.  It's really fascinating and I learned a lot.  Plus she is funny.  She writes about taming a chipmunk by feeding it sunflower seeds.  She got it tame enough that it would come into her house and crawl all over her when it wanted seeds.  I am tempted to try it (I've seen several chipmunks in our yard, not counting the one in the dryer) but I feel like chipmunks are out there to be chipmunks, not to be pets.  I might buy this book eventually.  It inspires me to explore the "wilderness" of my backyard!  (That is the same reason I like urbpan's journal so much, you should check him out.)  This book also mentions a book called North American Tree Squirrels, which I want to read now.

To See Every Bird on Earth, by Dan Koeppel.  Written by a son about his father who has a Life List over 7,000.  Interesting but more of a bio than a bird book, and I can never seem to get into bios.  Still, it's neat to hear about birding in crazy places I'll probably never go.  Also, it mentioned a birder (whose name I have forgotten) who was diagnosed with terminal cancer.  Instead of getting treatment she decided to see as many birds as she could in the few months she had left.  She ended up getting a Life List over 8,000 (if I remember correctly) before dying in a car crash 20 years later.  She wrote her own book that I'd really like to check out!

The Big Year:  I liked it, but Big Year-ers are insane.  Spending $12,000 a month to see 750 bird species in a year??  Crazy.  Or maybe I'm just jealous because my life list is only around 180 right now.  Boo hoo   Of course I haven't been birding at all lately, so what do I expect?

The Grail Bird: I liked it a lot, it was like a treasure hunt adventure.  Am I stupid for believing they really re-found the Ivory-billed Woodpeckers?  The book made me want to make a crappy monster movie about the Ivory Bills, too.  Seriously, it would be awesome.  Like they are mutatedly huge from logging chemicals dumped into the swamp and they are pissed about being almost extinct, and nice birders come along to try to find them and get TERRORIZED AND EATEN ALIVE BY WOODPECKERS!!!

Kingbird Highway was good, even though a good part of the book is a completely foreign concept to me.  Hitchhiking around America, alone, not getting killed?  Wandering around with no "traditional" future in life and not giving a damn about it?  WTF??  It's seriously stuff I can't even understand.  It's like some other world.  Also known as the 70s.  Thank goodness my mom can explain it to me   (And Ryan, I see what you meant about the writing.  But I think the story gets across - I loved the part about the Sky Larks!)

The Backyard Bird-Lover's Guide:  Attracting, Feeding, and Nesting:  I need to check this book out again now that I am in our house.  It has great tips on what kinds of birds eat what, what kinds of houses you need for what birds, and what kind of habitat and attractions (like water) you need to attract the birds.  There was a lot of usefull stuff, I can't wait to make my backyard a little birdy paradise.

So I have bluebird pictures from a little while back, and I should be able to do a nice report on my backyard so far...  I will try to hurry up and post this stuff!!

I hope everyone is having a lovely summer