Definitely one for dyed-in-the-wool bird lovers.
A search for the answer to a seemingly trivial question—why do tree swallows line their nests with white feathers?—reveals much about the nesting behavior of these wild birds but even more about the lifestyle of a dedicated scientist.
Heinrich (Emeritus, Biology/Univ. of Vermont; The Naturalist's Notebook: Tracking Changes in the Natural World Around You, 2017, etc.), a prolific author and naturalist, is no casual observer of nature. Each spring from 2010 to 2018, the now-retired professor sat quietly for hours watching tree swallows, counting, measuring, recording, and conducting experiments. He focused on a single pair of tree swallows, first in Vermont and then from his cabin in Maine. Rising sometimes before dawn, he recorded to the minute the birds’ behaviors: “Finally, at 6:46 a.m., he landed on the box, peeked in, and flew back up to perch quietly on the locust tree until 7:12 a.m.” Heinrich kept precise tabs on when the migrating birds returned, mated, built a nest, and laid eggs as well as when the eggs hatched, how often the chicks were fed, and when they fledged. The affinity of tree swallows for white feathers puzzled him, and he conducted experiments with feathers of various sizes and colors, even with strips of toilet paper when no feathers were available. The answer to the white feather puzzle he offers here is appealing but one that he admits needs further testing. As he writes, “eight years observing ‘my’ swallows’ behaviors related to white feathers yielded both fascination and frustration.” The author provides more information about the nesting behavior of tree swallows than most general readers will want to know, but the picture that emerges of a naturalist at work is impressive. Illustrations include eight pages of his own black-and-white close-up photographs and a scattering of delightful drawings of trees, nests, birds, feathers, and eggs.
Definitely one for dyed-in-the-wool bird lovers.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-328-60441-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
Unsentimental nature writing that sheds as much light on humans as on eels.
An account of the mysterious life of eels that also serves as a meditation on consciousness, faith, time, light and darkness, and life and death.
In addition to an intriguing natural history, Swedish journalist Svensson includes a highly personal account of his relationship with his father. The author alternates eel-focused chapters with those about his father, a man obsessed with fishing for this elusive creature. “I can’t recall us ever talking about anything other than eels and how to best catch them, down there by the stream,” he writes. “I can’t remember us speaking at all….Because we were in…a place whose nature was best enjoyed in silence.” Throughout, Svensson, whose beat is not biology but art and culture, fills his account with people: Aristotle, who thought eels emerged live from mud, “like a slithering, enigmatic miracle”; Freud, who as a teenage biologist spent months in Trieste, Italy, peering through a microscope searching vainly for eel testes; Johannes Schmidt, who for two decades tracked thousands of eels, looking for their breeding grounds. After recounting the details of the eel life cycle, the author turns to the eel in literature—e.g., in the Bible, Rachel Carson’s Under the Sea Wind, and Günter Grass’ The Tin Drum—and history. He notes that the Puritans would likely not have survived without eels, and he explores Sweden’s “eel coast” (what it once was and how it has changed), how eel fishing became embroiled in the Northern Irish conflict, and the importance of eel fishing to the Basque separatist movement. The apparent return to life of a dead eel leads Svensson to a consideration of faith and the inherent message of miracles. He warns that if we are to save this fascinating creature from extinction, we must continue to study it. His book is a highly readable place to begin learning.
Unsentimental nature writing that sheds as much light on humans as on eels.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-296881-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
A magnificent account of a central reality of our times, incorporating deep scientific expertise, broad political and social knowledge, and ethical insight, and Idled with beautifully written biographical sketches of the men and women who created nuclear physics. Rhodes describes in detail the great scientific achievements that led up to the invention of the atomic bomb. Everything of importance is examined, from the discovery of the atomic nucleus and of nuclear fission to the emergence of quantum physics, the invention of the mass-spectroscope and of the cyclotron, the creation of such man-made elements as plutonium and tritium, and implementation of the nuclear chain reaction in uranium. Even more important, Rhodes shows how these achievements were thrust into the arms of the state, which culminated in the unfolding of the nuclear arms race. Often brilliantly, he records the rise of fascism and of anti-Semitism, and the intensification of nationalist ambitions. He traces the outbreak of WW II, which provoked a hysterical rivalry among nations to devise the bomb. This book contains a grim description of Japanese resistance, and of the horrible psychological numbing that caused an unparalleled tolerance for human suffering and destruction. Rhodes depicts the Faustian scale of the Manhattan Project. His account of the dropping of the bomb itself, and of the awful firebombing that prepared its way, is unforgettable. Although Rhodes' gallery of names and events is sometimes dizzying, his scientific discussions often daunting, he has written a book of great drama and sweep. A superb accomplishment.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1986
ISBN: 0684813785
Page Count: 932
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1986
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