New England Nature Watch: A Month-by-Month Guide to the Natural World Around Us - Hardcover

Long, Tom

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1889833592 ISBN 13: 9781889833590

Publisher: Commonwealth Editions, 2003

Synopsis

For families, for teachers and students, and for those who just love natural New England, a thoughtfully written book exploring the nature we see all around us in New England, in a beautifully illustrated, month-by-month format.

About this title

From the Author:

Author preface:

Thanks to twenty-four hour Internet access and nonstop cable television, we’ve become more familiar with the exotic side of nature than the everyday events outdoors. Kids are more knowledgeable about Indonesian Komodo dragons and Australian crocodiles than about the chipmunks that chatter behind the garage. Their parents know more about the beasts they might encounter on an African safari than they do about the critters that slither in local swamps.

Nature isn’t something you experience through a television; it’s right out there in your own backyard. Those of us who are lucky enough to live in New England have front-row seats to a full calendar of natural dramas that play themselves out every second of every day, whether on Cape Cod, where black-backed pilot whales beach themselves in solidarity with stranded mates; or in an abandoned pasture in Greenwich, Connecticut, where mouselike shrews form a conga line that resembles a snake and thus ward off predators; or under a median strip in Newport, Rhode Island, where an ant imprisons an aphid and "milks" it of honeydew to feed the ant colony nearby.

This book is a distillation of observations made over a lifetime of hiking and camping in New England—and just looking out the window of my home in New Hampshire. They’re observations any amateur might make with a good pair of binoculars and a shelf full of guide books. Many of the items first appeared in the "Nature Watch" column I’ve written for the Boston Globe for several years.

It’s not intended as a trail guide. It’s a book you might curl up with when nature beckons, but time does not permit a foray into the field. Or you might read it to the kids—or encourage them to read it for themselves—to give them a taste of the outdoors.

From the fragrant clam flats of Narragansett Bay to the wind-wracked summit of Mount Washington, the amazing variety of plants and animals that make New

England their home have lives every bit as fascinating as anything you’ll see on the Discovery Channel. We’re going to take a tour, day by day. We begin in the month of May, when our ancestors danced around maypoles in celebration of spring.

About the Author:

Tom Long is a staff writer for the Boston Globe, where he has contributed a "Nature Watch" column since 1992. He lives in Hudson, New Hampshire.

Jay J. Johnson is a wildlife artist whose work has been featured in U.S. Art, Wildlife Art, and American Artist. He lives in South Hamilton, Mass.

About this edition

• Publisher: Commonwealth Editions
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1889833592
• ISBN 13: 9781889833590
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192
• Illustrator: Johnson Jay J