Winter World...
bookshelf...
Winter World:
The Ingenuity of
Animal Survival
HarperCollins, 2003
Bernd Heinrich, a biology professor at the University of Vermont, is the sort of meticulous field biologist who takes apart birds’ nests to figure out how and why they’re made: Down (how much?) Twigs (how many?) Fur (inside or out?) Spider silk (gluing it together?) Are there seeds? Bugs? How may birds can fit inside? Why was the nest built where it was built? He treks out into the coldest of cold to figure out such frozen mysteries as what’s eating what, and how something as tiny and miraculous as a golden-crowned kinglet can make a go of it in weather so bitter, most birds head south and most people indoors.
From bears and bees, to chipmunks and caterpillars, Bernd uncovers an amazing variety of strategies for wintertime survival: Some species slow down metabolism to a state called torpor. Some sleep through the worst. Others (like me...) simply huddle and shiver. And more species that you might imagine simply mix up their own antifreeze and carry on. Although my Chicago closets are filled with polartec, thinsulate, gortex and goose down, I am not nearly as hardy as Heinrich, or any of the creatures he chronicles. But reading about his riveting discoveries, and pouring over at his delicate line drawings, from the coziness of a coffee-house with something hot and steamy to sip, now that’s a wintertime activity for me...
– j.a.g.
