Of all the popular photographic subjects in nature, few can rival butterflies in terms of color, variety, and charisma; however few subjects also present the photographer with more technical challenges. From their spectacularly colorful wings that can be maddeningly difficult to get into proper focus to their flighty feeding habits that cause them to move to another flower a split second before the shutter release button is depressed, butterfly photography can test photographic skills in ways few other nature subjects can. Therefore if one is to embark upon any serious attempt, be it amateur or professional, artistic or scientific, at digitally recording images of butterflies, the availability of a wise and experienced teacher who has mastered the techniques needed to do sosuccessfully is invaluable. William B. Folsom is such a teacher and his Butterfly Photographer’s Handbook: A Comprehensive Reference for Nature Photographers is just such a collection of wisdom and experience. Read the rest of this entry »

When it comes to the stuff of which nightmares are commonly made, it’s difficult to find a more commonly employed foundation material than the creatures contained in the Phylum Arthropoda, particularly those included in the Classes Insecta and Arachnida; in common parlance – insects and spiders. Different from us in so many ways – number of appendages and location of the skeleton respective to the vital organs being only two of the most obvious – arthropods present the average person with a near-perfect conundrum: living, autonomously mobile creatures whose perceptions, habits, and motivations are all but a complete mystery. From this lack of understanding has sprung fear and a willingness to accept even outlandish explanations to fill the void. For this reason, the popular understanding of the natural histories of those species living in closest proximity to us has long been heavily burdened by incorrect information. Fortunately, May R. Berenbaum’s The Earwig’s Tail: A Modern Bestiary of Multi-Legged Legends greatly lightens the load of entomological ignorance under which so many of us unknowingly labor. Read the rest of this entry »

To borrow a well-used old phrase and write that Edward O. Wilson, Pellegrino University Research Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, “wrote the book” on ants is neither to exaggerate nor employ a metaphor; it was written in scholastic partnership with his long-time scientific collaborator Bert Hölldobler, titled The Ants, and published in 1990. In 1991 it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize (the second so awarded to a work written by Dr. Wilson). Three more of the dozen additional books he would write in the twenty years that followed also featured ants as their subject. Therefore it likely came as a surprise to no one familiar with either Dr. Wilson or his scientific accomplishments that his first novel, published in his eightieth year, would be titled Anthill and feature elements from the natural history of these remarkable creatures in its plotline. However rather than the wooden, fact-laden prose that might be commonly expected from a world-renowned scientist turning a late-in-life hand toward fiction, Anthill is an entertaining as well as compelling story told in an intelligent yet unaffected style that lovers of fiction and natural history enthusiasts alike will find appealing. Read the rest of this entry »

How does one go about writing an encyclopedia of insects? In terms of species, the sheer numbers of those thus far described by entomologists alone would fill several volumes if nothing more than their names were recorded. Then there is the question of for whom it should be written. For entomologists – most of whom specialize and thus any one of which might only be expected to read a small portion of it; or for the interested amateur, who despite even a profound enthusiasm, may quickly tire or become bewildered amid explanations of each taxonomic Order and Family? For Hugh Raffles, author of the recently published Insectopedia, the answer was to approach the problem from a dramatically unconventional perspective – establish its central theme as being the many times and places, historic as well as contemporary, commonly as well as little known, in which the lives of humans and insects intersect. Read the rest of this entry »

In addition to true love’s kiss, praise of one’s native land, and longing for one’s absent beloved, birds have long been the one of the most popular subjects for poetry. From Catullus’ sparrow through Poe’s raven, birds have been admired, envied, questioned, debated, tasked, consulted, and meditated upon in verse for centuries. The reasons for this are not hard to comprehend – most birds can do the one thing humans cannot but dearly wish they could: fly. From this mankind has traditionally inferred them to possess absolute freedom and endowed them with all the powers such a miraculous state of being is assumed to bestow. However in the modern world, just as the style of verse has changed dramatically, so have the uses of its traditional metaphors and imagery. Romanticism has been replaced by an unvarnished realism. In Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems about Birds, verse reflecting both the old and the new poetic understanding and inclusion of birds has been collected and is presented in conjunction with contemporary illustrations of the avian world to both entertain as well as inspire the reader to deeper consideration of just what role these marvelous creatures now play in our collective literary imagination. Read the rest of this entry »

In light of the recent surge of interest in the writings of American naturalists brought about by the premiere of Ken Burns’ and Dayton Duncan’s latest documentary The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, the Library of America is offering the Treasury of American Nature Writing,  a set featuring six of their superbly printed and expertly bound nature-oriented volumes for a special price of $50.00 off the ordinary combined total price of the works purchased separately. Included in the set are:

• American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau
• John James Audubon: Writings and Drawings
• William Bartram: Travels and Other Writings
• John Muir: Nature Writings
• Henry David Thoreau: A Week, Walden, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod
• Henry David Thoreau: Collected Essays and Poems

Were it not for the fact that I already own each and every one of the volumes offered in this set I would leap at this opportunity to acquire all of them at once. To those find their bookshelves still devoid of these volumes, or who have a special person on their holiday gift list who would appreciate such a generous gift, I highly recommend taking advantage of this offer at the earliest opportunity.

Of all the different styles of modern photography, the one that seems to elicit the most reticence from both amateurs and professionals alike is that of macro photography. This is indeed quite unfortunate, for it is through the practice of macro photography that so much of the ordinarily unseen details in our world become discoverable. Add to this the increasingly common availability to the average amateur photographer of at least “close-up” if not actually true macro photographic capability in even the most affordable of digital cameras and there is no reason whatsoever that everyone, particularly naturalists, possessing a recent model digital camera, a healthy sense of curiosity, and a copy of Alan L. Detrick’s Macro Photography for Gardeners and Nature Lovers should not feel themselves entirely capable of exploring the minute yet endlessly fascinating corners of the natural world. Read the rest of this entry »