Nature Watch
Gerry Rising: Natural history books make great summer reading
There are many excellent new natural history books I recommend for summer reading.
Tony Ingraham’s “A Walk through Watkins Glen: Water’s Sculpture in Stone” (Stone Owl Gorge) is a collection of photographs together with commentary by a man who knows the Glen very well, having hired and trained seasonal guides there for more than two decades.
The one thing I missed in this book is the episode that produced front-page headlines for Watkins Glen in the summer of 1933. A seven-point buck and an accompanying doe had leapt for a narrow ledge above a 180-foot drop. The doe fell to her death, but the buck remained stranded there. National attention was riveted on that animal: 350,000 visited the Glen in a period of 11 days. Food and water were lowered to the deer and a bridge was erected across the gorge to the ledge, but the frightened deer refused to use it. Suspense mounted until finally on the 12th day the buck found its own way down the cliff to safety.
Another of our parks is well illustrated by photographs in “Letchworth State Park” by Thomas Breslin and others (Arcadia). The photo captions capture the history of this region. Of most interest to me is the description of the Genesee Valley canal that was built through much of the gorge. In the late 1870s you could travel south from Mount Morris by canals and rivers to New Orleans and north and east to New York City.
Donald Kroodsma’s “Birdsong by the Seasons” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) with accompanying CDs is the book of the season. It serves any birder: expert of neophyte.
“Lake Champlain: An Illustrated History” (Adirondack Life) is a handsome collection of photographs and maps together with essays on the physical and social history and the present day conditions of this historic lake.
Timing is right for this coffee table book because this year celebrates the quadricentennial of Samuel de Champlain’s first visit in 1609. We know this lake for Ethan Allen’s Green Mountain Boys, for the history-changing battles of Valcour Island, Plattsburgh and Ticonderoga and for British General Burgoyne’s passage through it to his fateful confrontation at the battlegrounds around Saratoga. Here you find the details for those episodes and much more about the geology and natural history of this important lake.
“Adirondack Wildlife: A Field Guide” by James Ryan (New England) contains brief descriptions and comments on the behavior of the birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals and even invertebrates of northeastern New York. All but a few are found here as well, and even those formerly restricted to the Adirondacks, like fisher, otter and marten, are expanding their ranges beyond that limitation.
Mac Nelson of Fredonia State College has written a delightful book, “20 West” (SUNY) about his adventures along Route 20 from coast to coast.
This book carries special meaning to me. During World War II, on my way home on leave from the Navy, I found myself stranded in Cody, Wyo. I made my way to the edge of town to hitchhike east. What would be easier, I thought, for here is U. S. Route 20. I stood there for hours. Finally, a young woman in a Model T with a milk barrel in the back offered me a lift.
“Where are you going?” she asked. When I told her, she said that I had better return, stay with her family overnight and head for Route 30, the Lincoln Highway, because after the house to which she was delivering milk it was 86 miles to the next one. I was happy to follow her advice.
Other books also deserve attention: “Flights of Fancy: Birds in Myth, Legend and Superstition” by Peter Tate; “A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir” by Donald Worster (Oxford); and “Dark Banquet: Blood and the Curious Lives of Blood-feeding Creatures” by Bill Schutt. And finally, Kenneth Grahame’s “The Wind in the Willows” (Harvard), an annotated reissue of this story about the adventures of Rat, Mole and Toad.
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