Nature Archives - Page 3 of 16

Path of the Puma

the Remarkable Resilience of the Mountain Lion

by Jim Williams

Written by a wildlife biologist, about conservation work on mountain lions, or pumas. There’s a few chapters about the author’s background, his early work tracking and collaring the big cats in the Rocky Mountains, and his efforts to manage friction between mountain lions and ranchers, as well as make science-based regulations for hunting. There’s a lot about the corridors that wildlife needs for migration and dispersal, and about the many species that cougars interact with or influence- whether by preying on them, or feeding them with remains from their own meals. Of particular interest to me was reading about the mountain caribou, which used to have a population in parts of northern Montana and Idaho, but when global warming caused deer and elk herds to move further north, the mountain lions followed and this impacted the caribou. The second half of the book is mostly about conservation work in South America- especially in Patagonia, where pumas live in vast grasslands, on high arid slopes, and on beaches (eating penguins)! A lot in those chapters was new to me. I came away from this book with a new admiration for mountain lions. I hadn’t realized before what the author points out: they are the only big cat whose numbers have been increasing in recent years. He attributes this to their adaptability and their secrecy- they are very good at living in the shadows, close to humans yet unseen. What really makes this book stand out are the photographs- all in full color, most of them stunning. I thumbed through to look at all the photos before reading a single page, and again since finishing have gone back to look at many of them twice. They’re just that good.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5

311 pages, 2018

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Animals Nonfiction, Current Reads, Nature

Bevis

the Story of a Boy

by Richard Jeffries

Marvelous (but also disturbing) book from the 1800’s- others have described it as something like Tom Sawyer or Lord of the Flies and I heartily agree. It also reminded me a lot of Ernest Thompson Seton’s Two Little Savages. Bevis is the son of a landowner in rural England- and he pretty much runs around doing whatever he pleases. When the story opens, it drives straight into his efforts to build a raft out of odds and ends- I was baffled for a few pages wondering who this kid was, where he lived, what the heck he was doing, but then caught up in his unwavering intent to find items that would work to make what he wanted- because I’m a bit like that myself, when building something or other for the garden. After making the raft he goes on to rig a little (and very awkward it sounds) sailboat, he and his friend carve a boomerang, make a matchlock gun (!!), practice with bows and arrows, shoot targets with their various weapons, learn how to swim, roam around hunting rabbits and birds with their dog, stage a battle with a bunch of other boys- taking sides and planning strategies the whole nine yards, and so on and on and on.

The part I remember best is middle to the end, where Bevis and his friend Mark build a camp on an island in a lake near home, lie to their parents that they’re at someone else’s house for a visit, and live rough for a week or so. They fish, hunt small game, make pitiful attempts at cooking over a fire (with supplies filched from home like flour, potatoes, matches etc), construct a sundial, track animals pretending everything is exotic- the other kids trying to find their secret place are ‘savages’, the rabbits are ‘kangaroos’ the wood doves are ‘parrots’ you get the idea. They have to solve a little mystery of what is coming into their camp when they’re away stealing food, and another about what animal makes a wave just under the water’s surface (I thought it would be the otter but it was a type of diving bird). I was very sad when they shot the otter. It really is a story from a different time- the kids live in casual abundance- the pages are swarming with beautiful descriptions of nature, lush plant growth, myraid small wild things- which the boys delight in tracking, chasing and killing. They shoot birds for their feathers with no remorse, and are really proud of the otter skin. When they finally go home everyone praises their accomplishments and the father teaches them how to improve their shooting skills (this went on for way too many pages in my opinion). I was rather fascinated by the descriptions of sailing, though. Amazed at how ingenious the kids were at making things from observation and experiment alone. Appalled at how often they beat and kicked their dog to make it behave, and how they ignored the abject poverty the workmen’s children lived in, right alongside them on the farm but their suffering unseen.

It’s lively, full of adventure, boy’s squabbles and petty cruelties, and the richness of nature. I found it a compelling read, even though some things bothered me.

Some quotes I marked- the boys’ explanation of hindsight: “That’s just the thing”, said Bevis. “You sail forty thousand miles to find a thing, and when you get there you can see you left it at home.”

Their surprise at seeing a yellowed fern leaf, where they were sure it was an animal in the grass: when intent on one subject the mind is ready to construe everything as relating to it, and disallows the plain evidence of the senses.

The father’s appraisal of how important it was for them to learn things by experience:

He considered it best that they should teach themselves, and find out little by little where they were wrong. Besides which he knew that the greatest pleasure is always obtained from inferior and incomplete instruments. Present a perfect yacht, a beautiful horse, a fine gun, or anything complete to a beginner, and the edge of his enjoyment is dulled with too speedy possession. The best way to learn to ride is on a rough pony, to sail in an open ill-built boat, because by encountering difficulties the learner comes to understand and appreciate the perfect instrument, and to wield it with fifty times more power than if he had been born to the purple.

I have a copy of this book on my e-reader (it was a pleasure!)

Rating: 3/5

465 pages, 1882

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Current Reads, General Fiction, Nature

A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings

A Year of Keeping Bees

by Helen Jukes

Lovely book that came into my hands at just the right moment- I could not put it down, the past few days. Thoughtful memoir by a novice beekeeper. After accompanying a friend on visits to tend hives he keeps around a city, the author decided she would like to keep one herself. Friends pitched in to buy her a colony as a surprise gift, and feeling uprepared she started reading up on the history of beekeeping. So the book is part memoir, part information about bees, honey production, and how knowledge of them was gained slowly over the past centuries. It’s all seamless woven together with musings on the nature of relationships, between friends, between humans and wild things (I thought of falconry), and touching a bit on the influences mankind is having on the Earth’s ecosystems. There’s also a love story in here- an unexpected one, that she wasn’t really looking for when asked to meet a friend of a friend she thought was a beekeeper (he wasn’t, but they found a connection). There’s visits to natural history museums, dinner parties with friends, quite moments sitting in the back garden watching the bees travel to and fro, wondering where they go. Hoping they’ll stay in her hive, find it a suitable home. The final harvest of golden honey and the friends she shares it with. This wasn’t a deep dive into all things beekeeping, it’s more a personal account of how the first year keeping bees touched this woman’s life. I liked the way she shared her thoughts, her words resonated with me and I want to turn back to them again.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 4/5

234 pages, 2018

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Bios / Memoirs, Current Reads, Nature

The Oldest Living Things in the World

by Rachel Sussman

The living things featured in this book stagger the mind. How ancient they are, yet still living and growing- albeit very slowly– the map lichen in Greenland only grows one centimeter each hundred years, for example. It’s 3,000 years old. That’s in the middle range, for what’s in these pages- ranging from the baobabs, welwitschia and brain corals that are 2,000 years old to a sea grass meadow in Spain that’s 100,000 years old and the Siberian actinobacteria colony which is estimated to be 400,000 – 600,000 years old! And here I thought the age of giant sequoias or olive trees was mind-boggling, but now I’m in awe of moss, creosote bushes, and a unassuming-looking box huckleberry that’s at least 8,000 years old (maybe up to 13,000 years). The bristlecone pines look suitably weathered, the huge banyan figs and Japanese cedar are impressive, but I was most wowed by the unexpected, plants I’d never heard of before that are so curious- such as Parinari capensis or the underground forest- a plant whose mass is mainly below the soil, with a small group of leaves poking above ground. And especially the Llareta in Chile- a plant of tiny leaves massed so tightly together it looks like weirdly rounded blobs- I’ve never seen anything like that. I’d sure like to go see it in person someday. That plus Pando, the quaking aspen grove in Utah (80,000 years old) and the Chestnut of a Thousand Horses in Sicily (3,000 years old).

This book is the work of a professional photographer, who spent ten years travelling the world- she literally visited every continent- to view and capture images of the oldest things. Sadly two of them died by the time the book was published, succumbing to activities of humans- and others are threatened by encroaching development or climate change. Several of the species in this book are so rare the author was only allowed to view them from a distance, or to see propagated cuttings, not the original individual itself. When this was written she had a second book in mind, I hope to peruse it someday too. That all said, it felt a tad disappointing: I did wish for more actual information on the organisms in the book. The text is mostly just brief descriptions of the author’s travels and efforts to visit the sites of ancient living things, her emotions on finally seeing them, and a little bit of info gleaned from scientists she contacted or met with. Left me wanting to know much more.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 4/5

270 pages, 2014

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Art, Current Reads, Nature

I Walk with Lions

by Mervyn Cowie

Subtitled: The Story of Africa’s Great Animal Preserves, the ROYAL NATIONAL PARKS of KENYA, as Told by Their First Director. It’s pretty much what that says. The author grew up near Nairobi, when it was just the tiny beginning of a town. His father was a big-game hunter and Cowie learned the same skills, but as he got older he started to feel that killing wildlife for mere trophies or to get rid of threats to livestock was incredibly wasteful. He became imbued with a desire to protect wild lands that he saw being overrun by cattle, plowed for crops or razed to build houses. This book is about his life’s work to protect the animals, thwart poachers, influence public opinion and people in power in order to get land set aside for national parks. Then there was the effort to staff the parks, manage visitors, instill rules (early on it was common for people to approach lions and other wildlife far to casually on foot- for a better view or photographs). The author admits to his own errors early on- for example habituating a lion family so they could impress a dignitary by taking them to view the animals. End result was the lions became so used to humans they were finally deemed dangerous and had to be shot. There are many small stories about encounters with rhinos, hippos and buffalo, hyenas stealing things, the importance of vultures to the ecosystem and more. There’s also a lot about local politics, warfare that interrupted the work on establishing the park system (two world wars and a local rebellion), and the difficulties with managing everything that had to do with such an endeavor. Of course I found the parts about the animals more interesting, but the rest shows just how hard it is to change people’s minds, and what a significant difference this man’s work had.

Rating: 3/5

245 pages, 1961

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Animals Nonfiction, Current Reads, Nature

Golden Shadows, Flying Hooves

by George Schaller

A much better read than The Serengeti Lion, this book details what the field work was like on a personal level. Schaller describes the difficulties he encountered, from getting vehicles stuck in ruts, to loosing track of animals (radio-tracking was in its infancy). One chapter is about how his family handled living in the bush and their various wild pets (at different times, a warthog, mongoose and lion cub). There’s a chapter about dealing with poachers and examining the significance of that problem, listing man right up there alongside the prominent predators. I enjoyed greatly the chapters on wild hunting dogs, cheetah and leopards, but of course it is mostly about lion prides. It has all the same information as The Serengeti Lion (some of the sentences repeated word-for-word) but with far fewer statistics and more inclusion of personal descriptions and interesting incidents. Especially Schaller’s own feelings and perceptions about the work, the animals’ individualities, and the landscape around him. It’s very palpable through his words how much the author loved the land and admired the animals he studied. Very interesting is a final chapter where he and a companion roamed the landscape to see how many opportunities they would have of scavenging food or finding weak prey they could easily tackle- once he laid hands on a sick zebra foal, another on a blind giraffe calf- in order to estimate how well primitive hominids could have lived in the area. I don’t know how well his assumptions stand up to modern anthropology, though. These words very nicely state his feelings about it all:

Many people seem content with the anonymity of modern life, subverting themselves by restlessly searching for ever more powerful stimuli- louder noises, faster cars- until their inner selves shrivel, their existence looses awareness, while their bodies race on. Others abhor life in the city. They strive to return to the elemental complexity of the wilderness; they seek the touch of earth and wind and rock. I am of the latter type, and throughout my life I have tried to heed the ancient call that demands contact with nature, foregoing security for pleasure. I prefer a life of quiet, of consciousness with beauty around me, a life where my scientific endeavors are enriched by a sense of unity with the animals I study.

Also this sentence near the end really struck me. I think it applies to many things, not just the persecution of hyenas and wild dogs: Man is always quick to condemn, but slow to gather facts, and, if some are available, even slower to accept them.

I highly recommend this book over the prior one. It’s just the kind of work a casual reader like myself can appreciate, enjoy and learn from.

Rating: 4/5

287 pages, 1973

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Animals Nonfiction, Current Reads, Nature

A Hunter’s Heart

Honest Essays on Blood Sport

by David Petersen

The viewpoints of hunters. From collected essays, and a few book excerpts. They’re really varied. Most of them write about hunting deer or elk, sometimes pronghorn antelope. A few also include fishing and there’s discussions on hunting bears near the end of the book, also whales or seals in the north. Many different opinions and methods, from those who seek trophies and bragging rights, to people solely interested in getting meat to feed their families. The majority are very reasonable-sounding men who value feeling a connection to nature and the land, who recognize that all life depends on other life, and consider that taking one deer for a year’s supply of meat is less harmful to the environement and allows the animal a better life, than buying hamburger meat in the store from a cow that got fat in a feedlot. It almost persuades me to wish I had learned to stalk deer in the woods alongside my father, surely the skill and keen observation and patience needed is challenge enough. Some of the writings featured here are brisk and argumentative, some lean heavily on the side of proving things and get a bit technical or opinionated, many are just describing what a particular hunt was actually like. There’s even a few descriptions of things like men taking shots at grouse that feed on roadsides, taking fish from spawning streams by hand, shooting pen-raised birds released from towers, or quietly and unobtrusively poaching deer. Questionable perhaps, but here clearly pictured with only light criticism. Not all the writer’s voices resonated with me- some I found awkward or dull, but most gave me new things to think about, new ways to look at this topic. It’s getting shelved in my library right alongside Heart and Blood: Living with Deer in America– as they seem to compliment each other.

Note on the publication date: it’s when the author compiled the works. Actual publication dates of the individual essays range from 1984 to 1996.

Rating: 4/5

332 pages, 1996

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Animals Nonfiction, Current Reads, Nature, Short Stories

Rough Beauty

Forty Seasons of Mountain Living

by Karen Auvinen

I’m disappointed to say this book didn’t really get a hold on me in any way. It reminds me of The Salt Path in that a terrible disaster strikes the author near the beginning, leaving her with almost nothing. It reminds me of Fox and I because it’s about a woman who felt she didn’t fit in, who needed to find her own way and much preferred living alone, in wild spaces. But sadly I didn’t get much sense of those spaces, or of her wildlife observations, even though she mentions taking copious notes of them, she never really shares them in detail. The book is more about her difficult childhood, uneven friendships with people in town, a man she briefly dates after being single for over a decade, amazingly delicious food she cooks, her writing, the many ways that snow falls and cold closes in, sputtering attempts at a garden in the brief season (too much shade and wild animals eating things), admiration of hummingbirds, and struggles to deal with her elderly mother’s failing health (which brings up close contact with her estranged siblings). In the few final pages she describes a disastrous mudslide and flood that buried much of her town and finally meeting a man who loved her completely and made her feel safe. She tends to her beloved dog through his final days, and then moves on to live elsewhere. It’s a book about someone’s life, and very much about the dog her close companion- though I admit the cover beguiled me, thinking there’d be a fox. Well there is– in the epilogue. A lovely fox that visits the cabin regularly for a while, and is featured on a handful of pages. I do really like that the cover image, and some watercolor paintings inside the book (reproduced in black and white) were created by the new man in her life. They’re of the actual place where she lived. I’m sorry this book didn’t resonate with me- it’s very nicely written, and is many things, none are quite what I expected though. Could just be wrong place, wrong time for this reader.

Rating: 3/5

302 pages, 2018

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Bios / Memoirs, Current Reads, Nature

The Way Home

Tales from a life without technology

by Mark Boyle

Near the end of this book, the author says “I decided that instead of spending my life making a living, I wanted to make living my life.” He left the city and job behind, built a cabin on a piece of land and committed himself to living without a phone, electricity, plumbing, etc. Doing all his work with hand tools. Living off the land, engaging in a bartering and gift economy with neighbors (though most of them had the usual conveniences). He deeply felt that this would make his life more purposeful, even though without internet or cell phone he soon lost contact with myriad people, remaining close only to those that lived nearby or stayed in touch via paper mail. I have to say I know what he means, feeling like doing things with your own hands and simple tools is more meaningful. I prefer an hour weeding in the garden or trimming shrubs to typing on a keyboard myself. I don’t know if I could go so far as to do without electricity and heating, though. It’s hard to eschew all the easy things most people take for granted, and live in a way that takes a different kind of work. Boyle doesn’t avoid admitting the difficulties, or things he has to do without. But he also waxes long on the rewards, which are of a different kind. Feeling tied into the seasons and close to the land. Paying more attention to the other living things around him- insects and plants. Learning skills that seem forgotten in this day and age.

His book doesn’t have a lot of day-to-day details (which I might have enjoyed) rather it’s a series of vignettes and noted thoughts on varied topics, as the mood took him to recount them. Sometimes he discusses how decisions were arrived at, where he came from, or how his thinking has shifted (he used to be vegan but now fishes and eats venison). Other parts of the book are little stories about things with his neighbors or specific pieces of the work he does around his land- planting trees, washing clothes by hand, cutting wood, building a hot tub (I wanted to see a picture of that!), foraging berries and greens, starting seeds, turning compost, making candles, etc. He also recounts a lot about visiting the Great Blasket Island, quoting from written works by the people who once lived there (in a very sustainable manner) and reflecting on why they eventually had to leave. I didn’t feel as immersed or connected to those parts of the book. Also some segments started to get repetitive near the end. He lives in Ireland, by the way. And now I’d like to read a previous book he wrote, The Moneyless Man.

I did notice, and appreciate, how old-fashioned this book itself feels as a physical object. It’s a clothbound hardback, without the slick plastic cover library books usually have. The paper is a nice muted off-white and has the texture of good recycled paper- or at least so I imagine. It felt like a book in hand I’d usually from a discard sale or found in a thrift shop, not a relatively new book produced just a few years ago! I’d like to think this was a conscious choice the author made in having his book printed- which seems very in harmony with his stated purpose and lifestyle.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 4/5

266 pages, 2019

More opinions:
Books Please
So Many Books
Pages of Julia

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Bios / Memoirs, Current Reads, Nature

The Wild Silence

by Raynor Winn

After their long hike on the South West Coast Path, the author and her husband finally settled. No longer homeless, but not completely at ease. First they lived in a small apartment behind a church, where Raynor did research into his illness and started writing, while her husband attended university, working towards a degree. He struggled constantly with worsening symptoms, while she had her own issues with anxiety at being around so many other people after their long walk mainly in solitude on the path. The success of her first book’s printing was encouraging and brought them some much-needed income, but it was also stressful for her to deal with the public events and travel for book signings. Well, then someone local who read their book offers them another place to stay- on a farm that had been run into the ground and neglected. They’re supposed to restore it, and do work hard at that. It’s just starting to show signs of recovery when they decide to go on another long walk with two friends- in the barren and difficult landscape of Iceland. I didn’t realize how many volcanoes Iceland has- or at least, in the area where they hiked. This part of the book was a lot more like the previous one- focused on the rigors of the hike, interactions with people on the trail- in this case much younger fellow hikers who seemed to scorn them for their age- and remarkably, another visible improvement in her husband’s condition. The scholarly lifestyle he lead at university apparently was bad for his health, whereas the intense physical exercise on the steep paths soon had him limber and full of energy again. Still no explanation. But convinced by the results, they return to the farm ready to dive into outdoor work again.

It does have a lot more than I’m letting on here- musings on assumptions of strangers, interesting little exchanges, signs of the wildlife on the farm returning, incredible almost surreal landscape in Iceland, where the world seems to be continually coming into being. Also many segments about pieces of their lives from the past, and a very touching, sometimes hard-to-read piece in the beginning on her mother’s death in a hospital where she had to make difficult decisions for her care (which made me think of this book a lot). Somehow it all didn’t feel as intense as The Salt Path, or I’ve just been too busy this past week and a bit distracted from reading. I liked it, I just didn’t feel quite as deeply moved.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5

278 pages, 2020

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Bios / Memoirs, Nature, Nonfiction (general)

Tag: Nature

the Remarkable Resilience of the Mountain Lion

the Story of a Boy

A Year of Keeping Bees

Honest Essays on Blood Sport

Forty Seasons of Mountain Living

Tales from a life without technology

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