Bookshelf: Noteworthy Books About Nature in 2009

Whether you're looking for a holiday present, or just looking for a good book to read, here are some books on nature and the environment that caught our attention in 2009.

What's the best nature-oriented book you read this year? Leave us a comment!

Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators
by William Stolzenburg (paperback, 304 pages)

Stolzenburg examines the critical role of predators in this highly-praised book. Predators are "keystone species" essential to biodiversity, and disasters can happen when they are removed from an ecosystem. Included among the examples in this book are the prolific white-tailed deer of Eastern forests, who are stripping undergrowth and destroying flora in our area because there are no longer wolves and cougars to keep them in check.

The Animal Dialogues: Uncommon Encounters in the Wild
by Craig Childs (paperback, 352 pages)

In this book of first-person essays, Childs tells of his many encounters with animals, from mountain lions and grizzly bears to hummingbirds and red-spotted toads. Publisher's Weekly calls the essays "hauntingly beautiful": "Seeking entrée into animal societies, he interprets messages left in marks on the ground and in scents on leaves and trees, and communicates with animals directly using their own language of stares, gestures, postures, sounds, scents and gaits."

Built by Animals: The Natural History of Animal Architecture
by Mike Hansell (paperback, 280 pages)

This book explores the complex structures that animals build, including bird nests, butterfly pupae, caddis larvae traps, beaver dams, and more.  Hansell asks, how do creatures with such small brains achieve these impressive feats of engineering? The answers are explored through the results of scientific investigations on social structures, the biochemistry and mechanics of materials, and the impact of these structures on the larger ecosystem.

One Square Inch of Silence: One Man's Search for Natural Silence in a Noisy World
by Gordon Hempton and John Grossman (hardcover, 368 pages)

This book chronicles Hempton's travels from Seattle to Washington, D.C., in an attempt to find natural silence: a spot with "no audible human noise intrusions of any kind for a minimum of 15 minutes." Along the way, he discusses topics such as the decline in songbird populations, the effects of noise stress on both animals and humans, and the basics of audio science. He argues: "If a loud noise... can affect many square miles, then a natural place, if maintained in a 100 percent noise-free condition, will likewise affect many square miles around it.".

American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau
Ed. by Bill McKibben (hardcover, 900 pages)

In his introduction to this anthology, McKibben argues that "environmental writing is America's most distinctive contribution to the world's literature." He goes on to present the work of 101 American writers chronologically, from Henry David Thoreau and John Muir to contemporary writers including Terry Tempest Williams, Barbara Kingsolver, Michael Pollan, and Paul Hawken. At 900 pages, there's a lot to chew on here.

Dawn Light: Dancing with Cranes and Other Ways to Start the Day
by Diane Ackerman (hardcover, 256 pages)

Ackerman launches each essay in this collection with the fresh start of a sunrise and launches into explorations of nature, mythology, and life -- especially life, and the need to live in the moment. A review in the Washington Post called it "glorious prose, studded with arresting phrases and breathtakingly beautiful images," with "sections that employ the precision of a naturalist and scientist to convey the wonder of a poet."


Paradise Found: Nature in America at the Time of Discovery
by Steve Nicholls (hardcover, 536 pages)

"We have diminished nature far more than most people know." writes Nicholls. In a book he refers to as a "time machine," he sets out to describe just how abundant the natural world was in America before European settlement. From vast herds of buffalo, to flocks of carrier pigeons that blackened the sky, to fish so thick in the water that observers said they could have crossed a river without touching bottom, Nicholls draws on the accounts of explorers and settlers to document all that has been lost since those early Europeans first arrived.

If you're looking to read these books yourself, consider conserving resources by checking your local library for a copy. If you're gift shopping, we'll get a small percentage of the purchase price if you purchase from Amazon through one of the links in this post.

Is The Giving Tree an Environmentalist Book?

I loved Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree as a kid. I loved reading it to my little brother when I was in middle school. I took it with me to college. And it has survived every weeding-out of my bookshelf ever since. It's been sitting on my shelf, mostly untouched, for years. But I've found myself reading it to toddlers several times in the last few months. And it has me deeply conflicted.

For those of you who need a refresher, the basic premise of the story is this: a tree and a little boy are best friends. As the boy grows up, he's no longer interested in playing with the tree. Trying to make the boy happy, the tree gives more and more of herself (her branches to build a house, her trunk to build a boat), until the boy (now a man) has chopped her down to a stump. In the end, the boy comes back as an old man, needing a place to sit and rest -- and then, finally, both he and the tree are really happy again.

Reading this book as an adult, it's clear to me that Silverstein is trying to convey the sense that material things don't make you happy. Seeking wealth and belongings just keeps the boy coming back for more. The only times he is really satisfied are when he's playing or sitting with the tree, enjoying their friendship. That is a good environmental message: more relationships, less stuff.

I do think that message may get through to kids a little. At least on a more simplistic level, one four year old remembered it to me as "the book about the boy and the tree that are best friends." That was probably my first take-away message as well: you can befriend the natural world. Another good message for kids.

And yet, I can't get over this: the boy cuts down an entire tree. And the tree asks him to do it, thinking she'll make him happy. I can't help worrying that this plants somewhere in kids' minds the idea that it might be ok to cut down trees. Not good. (Feminists also note stereotypical gender roles: the tree is female, reinforcing the idea that women give everything and men just take. Also bad.)

My solution? At least at the toddler level, I've been keeping a running commentary. "Oh, how sad! The tree doesn't have any branches anymore!" "It seems like that didn't really make the boy happy, did it?" That kind of thing. Maybe that will let me keep reading one of my favorite books from childhood.

Bookshelf: Wildflower ID

If there's one book we take on walks with us more often than any other, it's a wildflower ID book. After 9 years or so of doing this, the woods are no longer just a big mass of green -- each plant is like an old friend that we're checking in with. When we see something unusual, it jumps out at us. And out comes the ID book.

There are three popular books that cover the flowers of this region well: Newcomb's, Peterson's, and Audubon. Your preference will likely depend on which one you start using first. After learning the Newcomb's system, for example, we find it tedious to ID plants in Peterson's. But we've heard the opposite from folks who started out with Peterson's. And when we recently tested all three books with a couple of Natural Capital readers who happened to be hanging out on our porch, Audubon was a clear favorite. Here's a description of the three books and how they work.

Newcomb's Wildflower Guide (1375 species, 490 pages, some color and some black and white illustrations). The key to Newcomb's ID system is a key: a method of identifying certain characteristics about a plant to help you find it quickly in the book. This requires you to look closely at your plant. First, three questions: 1) the type and number of petals, 2) the position of the leaves, and 3) the basic leaf shape. You're then referred to a page with additional questions specific to the set of plants that you could be looking at. As people who really wanted to learn a lot of plants, we found that the investment in learning this ID system was worth it -- we can find most plants much more quickly with the key than by flipping through other guides, and the hands-on attention required to use the ID helps us get to know the plant. To our porch-based test group, however, the key was completely baffling.

Peterson: A Field Guide to Wildflowers (1293 species, 420 pages, color and black and white illustrations). In the introduction to this field guide, Roger Tory Peterson writes, "if one can master them, keys are the proper formal approach to flower identification. But, I am afraid, most of us belong to the picture-matching school, and it is for this audience our Field Guide has been planned." The flowers are organized first by color. At the beginning of each color section, there are some pages with representative types of flowers, to help you narrow your search. The rest of each section includes black-and-white drawings of many more species, organized by flower shape. As with Newcomb's, descriptions of the species pictured are on each facing page. Our testers' main complaint was that the black-and-white drawings made it more difficult to envision whether the drawing was a good match for the plant they were trying to identify.

National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers (658 species, 888 pages, color photographs). Audubon covers half as many species as the other two books, in twice as many pages. With large photographs, only 2 to 3 flowers fit on a page. The species descriptions are also longer; they are in a separate section of the book, which requires some flipping back and forth. Like Peterson's guide, Audubon organizes flowers first by color, then by flower type. The color photographs were a big hit with our testers. And Matt identified a few plants via photographs in here that had been eluding him in the Newcomb's key. As with the bird books we reviewed, however, using photographs can have drawbacks. When a photo is good, you know immediately that you've found the right plant (or a close relative). But for some plants, the photos are limited by focusing only on the flowers; there may be clues in the foliage that are not well illustrated.

The bottom line: The Audubon book seems to be the most appealing to beginners. The photos are nice enough that you may find yourself just browsing through the book, which is a great way to prime yourself to recognize things in the field. But if you want more depth, you may find a book like Newcomb's might also be rewarding, with its much larger coverage of species.

If you want to buy: We got the wildflower books we didn't own from the library to evaluate them, and encourage you to do the same. But if you're ready to buy one, consider supporting The Natural Capital by going through the links in this post -- or use this little store we set up to mirror our own bookshelf of nature books. We'll get a tiny cut off anything you buy there. We also thought it would be a help to Natural Capital readers to set up that virtual bookshelf just so folks could see which books we've found useful. Of course, you're free to buy any of them wherever you like!

Bookshelf: Bringing Nature Home

Food writer Michael Pollan has gotten a lot of mileage out of his three-sentence manifesto: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." If Doug Tallamy had a similar manifesto, it might be this: "Plant native plants. As many as you can. Especially trees."

"As far as wildlife is concerned," Tallamy writes in Bringing Nature Home, "we have shrunk the United States to 1/20 its original size." Worse, the five percent that's left is divided into tiny islands of habitat. Because species loss is typically proportionate to habitat loss, he argues, "When extinction adjusts the number of species to the land area that remains...we will have lost 95% of the species that greeted the Pilgrims." In fact, bird populations have already fallen by 50% since 1966.

In the face of this massive habitat loss, the land preserved as parks is just a drop in the bucket. If we really want to preserve wildlife, we must provide food and shelter in our backyards (and in the shared green spaces of our apartment buildings). And it turns out that what you plant for food really matters.

Plant native plants. Plants have numerous chemical defenses against being eaten. And, over tens of thousands of years, specific insects have evolved the ability to overcome the defenses of specific plants. In fact, 90% of insect herbivores are specialists, relying on just one or a few plants. If you bring in a plant that hasn't grown in this area for tens of thousands of years, chances are, nothing will be able to eat it. This doesn't just matter for the insects, but also for the birds and other critters that rely on insects as their main source of food.

As many as you can. The more diverse and numerous the native plant population, the more numerous and diverse the insect population. And the more numerous and diverse the insect population, the more predators they will attract. That means birds -- and also ladybugs and other predatory insects. In contrast, with less diversity, there may not be a year-round source of food for these animals. And a less-diverse area has less ability to adjust if something goes wrong with a particular plant in a particular year.

Especially trees. Tallamy and his research assistant compiled data on which tree genera support the most wildlife (using butterflies and moths as a proxy). The top five: oak (517 species of butterflies and moths), willow (456 species), cherry and plum (448 species), birch (413 species), and poplar and cottonwood (368 species). But while a single tree can be a tremendous resource for wildlife, it's important to also plant shrubs and perrenials; they'll create even more diversity.

Will my neighbors hate me? No. Native gardens can be just as formal as gardens full of non-native plants. And they'll love the birds and butterflies that you attract to your garden.

Do I have to get rid of my non-native plants? Well, you can start by just adding natives to your existing garden. But consider that your non-native plants may cause habitat loss even in protected areas when they spread their seed by wind or by birds. Our local parks are full of English ivy, Japanese honeysuckle, Japanese barberry, privet, and other non-native plants commonly planted in yards. They are smothering out the natives that wildlife need to survive. (Check here for a list of some of the most problematic invasives in our area.)

Insects? Really? Throughout the book are some amazing pictures and stories about the insects you might find on native plants. Not just creepy-crawly things, but beautiful butterflies and moths. You can also read about crickets that use the parabolic dish of a leaf to make themselves louder; milkweed bugs that migrate north with the ripening of milkweed seeds; treehoppers that communicate with each other by vibrating twigs; aphids that give birth to live young without a male's involvement; and the origins of Spanish Fly. It's enough to make you want to get out there and take a look. But, first there has to be something to look at. So...plant those native plants. As many as you can. Especially trees.

Bookshelf: Bird ID

You would think not much could change in the world of identifying birds. The birds themselves don't change. But I still have my mother's copy of Peterson's Field Guide (2nd edition), complete with her parent's phone number on the inside front cover and notes from her college ornithology class in the margins. And I will tell you, we've come a long way from the days of those mostly black-and-white plates.

In this post, we'll review three current field guides to birds in our area. As a case study, we'll use a bird that was an occasional visitor to our condo's flower boxes in Dupont Circle: the house finch.

Peterson Field Guides: Birds of Eastern and Central North America (probably about 600 birds, 450 pages): This guide covers the birds you might expect to see in the US and Canada from the east coast all the way west to Texas and North Dakota. The shot to the right is from Matt's copy, which is a 4th edition; the 5th edition fixes one of our pet peeves about the book by adding small maps to each entry to show each bird's range. This makes it much easier to quickly exclude the birds whose range doesn't even come close to the DC area when trying to make an ID. The text is minimal, but provides basic descriptions of distinguishing visual characteristics, song, and habitat. The strength of Peterson's is that it typically shows at least 4 species on a single page; this allows for side-by-side comparison of similar species. In most cases the illustrations are clear. However, for several years, we had trouble applying the distinctions between the illustrations of the house finch (top right corner) and the purple finch (below it) to the birds we saw in front of us, and had an ongoing debate over which bird we were seeing.

The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America (650 birds, 432 pages): Sibley's covers about the same range as Peterson's, but makes several nice additions to the Peterson model. They still manage to fit about four birds to each two page spread, but by making the illustrations smaller, there is room for more information. Each description starts off with where you are likely to find each bird, which goes a long way toward settling our purple finch ("uncommon in woody and brushy areas") vs. house finch ("common and widespread in suburbs") dispute. The written descriptions of visual characteristics are associated with arrows to the relevant part of each illustration; this is much easier to follow than Peterson's method of stringing them together in a paragraph. Another nice bonus is a short section at the beginning of each group of birds (e.g. wading birds, raptors) with general information and comparing the genera or species within the group. Unfortunately, these sections don't really stand out as breaks; it's easy to skip over them as you're flipping through the guide.

Smithsonian Handbooks: Birds of the Mid-Atlantic (328 birds, 400 pages): This guide focuses on a smaller geographic range (VA/WV through NY/NJ), and thus has room for a full page per bird. The benefit of this approach is much richer information about each bird, including notes on behavior, breeding, nesting, flight patterns, and what they're attracted to in bird feeders. The downside is that you lose the ability to compare birds side-by-side: you have to turn a page between our purple finch and house finch (we pasted them together here). The book tries to make up for this by including a small inset on each page about similar birds, but it's not as easy to use. This guide uses photographs instead of illustrations, which is helpful in the case of our finches. If the pictures are accurate, it's clear we never saw a purple finch at our flower boxes. In general, the photos are a mixed bag: some more difficult-to-photograph birds are a little blurry or in odd poses. And the photo of the great egret, a pure white bird, looks largely grey from a shadow. Failing to at least Photoshop that shot seems like a major oversight. One other drawback in this guide is that unlike the other two books, there's no label like "hawks" or "ducks" in the upper corners of the pages to help you flip to the right general area as you narrow down your search for a bird.

Bottom line: I think it might be time for us to move beyond Peterson's. Sibley's gained another edge last week when it was the only book of these three that clearly identified a juvenile starling (which is grey, instead of black like the adults). It had a clear picture and also an apt description of it "waddling," which was a clincher for my confidence that I had made the right ID. But I keep going back to the Smithsonian book, as well, for the longer descriptions.

Do you have a favorite field guide? What do you like about it? Click below to leave a comment.