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Birds led Colin Rees — a former environmental advisor for the World Bank — to Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary. There he discovered a wider love, of the natural world, so strong it led to his latest book, Nature's Calendar: A Year in the Life of a Wildlife Sanctuary ... In Jug Bay, Rees documented an ecological year from a variety of viewpoints. His weekly visits to the park coincided with citizen science projects, sampling and surveys with volunteers or researchers. During active times in the sanctuary, he visited as often as three times a week to make his observations, which take the form of a diary of sorts, much in the style of Sand County Almanac.
Written in exquisite prose, Nature's Calendar: A Year in the Life of a Willife Sanctuary is a year-long ramble through southern Arundal County's Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary. Colin Rees entwines the delight of an explorer, the awareness of a lifelong naturalist, the scope of an historian, and the insight of a professional conservationist... Any nature enthusiast will appreciate the care and breadth of this book—its celebration of Jug Bay's exceptional wildlife, the esteem of its custodians and students, and an unflinching look at threats to its integrity, including climate change, invasive species, and human activity. Nature's Calendar will surprise, educate, and inspire. It's a book to be savored, studied and re-read.
Rees captures, in painterly prose, an entire year of nature in all of its changing beauty, fragility, brutality, and complexity... Filled as it is with a lifetime of knowledge and skilled observation, we can still hear in Rees's writing the infectious wonder of a young boy in Wales who fell in love with birds and went on to devote his life to the natural world. Readers should need no further convincing to go vicariously with him on this meditative yearlong excursion.
An extended look at the march of life across a year in the wetlands, enriched with intimate details of nature. Using the calendar and Rees's own observations during his actual visits gives the reader a true sense of what happens in the lives of the plants and animals that call Jug Bay home.
Colin Rees has taken on the mantle of Teale and Borland to tell Nature's story of the calendar year 2017 at Jug Bay, on the Patuxent River, in Maryland. The author has come to know a special corner of the earth. In elegant prose, he reveals the hidden lives of sparrows and ducks, of beeches and winterberries, of shrews and foxes.
If you love Jug Bay, or just about any natural area in the mid-Atlantic region, but find yourself housebound, you need do little more than leaf through the pages of this poetic book to transport yourself to the trails, woodlands, and wetlands of this gem of a natural area. Nature's Calendar is written with a poetry that evokes winter days searching for eagles and ducks, or spring mornings hearing the first enthusiastic songs of migratory warblers as they arrive in wood and glade. Enabling the reader to experience seasonal change through the lens of twigs and leaves, salamanders and otters, Colin Rees brings these sometimes ephemeral issues much closer to home and to tangibility. A delightful book.
Nature's Calendar reveals the intricate ecological connections and adaptations of the myriad organisms dwelling in a freshwater tidal wetland. The book is also filled with fascinating and diverse scientific discoveries that give a broad perspective on wetlands, ecology, and global environmental issues. Colin Rees has created a compelling story about one of Maryland's premier nature preserves.
Nature's Calendar provides a snapshot of a year in Jug Bay, a tidal freshwater wetland on the Patuxent River. Intensely researched, Rees's book weaves together historical notes, literary musings, and notable weather events to provide a fascinating look into a world most of us are not patient enough to observe.
About
Book Details
Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x 9
Pages
320
ISBN
9781421427430
Illustration Description
33 color illus., 37 b&w illus.
Table of Contents
Foreword, by Rick Anthony
Acknowledgments
Prologue
The Setting
The Seasons by Month
January: The Big Cold Moon
February: The Snow or Hunger Moon
March: The Wakening or Crow Moon
April: The Grass Moon
May
Foreword, by Rick Anthony
Acknowledgments
Prologue
The Setting
The Seasons by Month
January: The Big Cold Moon
February: The Snow or Hunger Moon
March: The Wakening or Crow Moon
April: The Grass Moon
May: The Planting Moon
June: The Rose Moon
July: The Thunder Moon
August: The Corn Moon
September: The Hunting Moon
October: The Leaf-Falling Moon
November: The Mad Moon
December: The Long Night's Moon
Epilogue
Appendix A. Animals Mentioned in the Text
Appendix B. Plants Mentioned in the Text
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Featured Contributor
Colin Rees
A former global biodiversity specialist with the World Bank and faculty member in the Zoology Department at the University of Maryland, lifelong birder and environmentalist Colin Rees is the steering committee chair of the Maryland Bird Conservation Partnership.Resources
