I’m delighted to now have three of Prof. Heinrich’s books and I will certainly continue to collect and absorb them.

Perhaps his best known book is  ‘A Year in the Maine Woods‘ and it was the first one I bought.  In it, Bernd Heinrich effectively took a full year to study the wildlife of the area in which he grew up, and the result is fascinating.

The Washington Post wrote of this book: “[It] is quirky, unassuming, humorous, enlightening, and just a little bizarre.  If you’re a stranger to Heinrich, it’s an ideal time to make his acquaintance.”

I also have what I think of as a ‘matching pair’ of Heinrich’s books, namely:

‘Summer World – a season of bounty‘, and ‘Winter World – the ingenuity of animal survival‘, the latter of which I just finished reading yesterday.

This is a duet to fascinate any naturalist and gives insights of the natural world that I, for one, had never even thought of before, let alone understood.

So what will be the next book in this series that I’ll get?  Hmmm, I’m not too sure just yet because there are several that I want.  High on the list are:

• The Trees in My Forest
• Life Everlasting: The Animal Way of Death
• In a Patch of Fireweed: A Biologist’s Life in the Field
• The Thermal Warriors: Strategies of Insect Survival
• The Homing Instinct: Meaning and Mystery in Animal Migration
• The Nesting Season: Cuckoos, Cuckolds, and the Invention of Monogamy

….and there are several more titles that I haven’t even listed.

Eddie Wren

 

[Bernd Heinrich, Ph.D, is a professor emeritus in the biology department at the University of Vermont and is the author of a number of books about nature writing, behavior, biology, ecology, and evolution.  Heinrich has made major contributions to the study of insect physiology and behavior, as well as bird behavior. In addition to other publications, Heinrich has written eighteen books, mostly related to his research examining the physiological and behavioral adaptations of other animals to their physical environments. However, he has also written books that include more of his personal reflections on nature.  Wikipedia]

_______________________________________________________________________

See also ‘The Forest Unseen’, by David George Haskell