Wood Lit - Winter 2004
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Connecticut Wildlife: Biodiversity, Natural History and Conservation
Did you know that the eastern cottontail was introduced from the southern U.S. and may be displacing our native New England cottontail? Or that eastern newts can use Earth’s magnetic field and polarized light to orient themselves in the landscape? In Connecticut Wildlife, Geoffrey Hammerson has not only written species accounts filled with such interesting information but also provides an overview of ecological relationships in this gem of a reference book. He describes the book as “a progress report on ecosystems and organisms about which we know little and will not be the same tomorrow as they are today.”
The book first gives the reader an introduction to the landscape, including geology and geography, as well as human impact on it. A short chapter on seasonal changes and climate is followed by chapters on each of the state’s major ecosystems and their habitats: coastal waters and wetlands, streams and associated wetlands, lakes and ponds, inland wetlands, and uplands.
The next 14 chapters examine each major life form, from algae, fungi, and lichens to mammals. Noted examples of Connecticut plants and animals found in each group are described. He discusses introduced and invasive species and how they currently affect biodiversity, as well as reproduction, survival strategies in winter, food and feeding, and, very importantly, current status and conservation.
The author, a research zoologist and professor of ecology and natural history, has clearly spent much time outdoors observing Connecticut’s wildlife. He often reports on where and when he has seen various species of flora and fauna. Many naturalists like to keep track of wildflower blooming times, bird migration dates, and when frogs are vocalizing – the science of phenology. A great resource, as many readers know, is Virginia Barlow’s “A Look at the Season’s Main Events” in Northern Woodlands. Geoffrey Hammerson devotes a full 30 pages to “A Naturalist’s Calendar,” which he compiled from more than 20 years of observation to make a year’s worth of nature’s timings and occurrences. He also includes very useful and well-researched tables and figures, such as “The Reproduction Calendar For Amphibians of Connecticut” and “Connecticut Butterfly Status, Ecology and Life History,” which tells when they are flying, what the larvae eat, and how they spend the winter.
This book is valuable for students, educators, and conservationists. It is practical not only for those of us in southern New England but for our northern neighbors as well, since there is so much overlap in plant and animal ranges. It should be on every naturalist’s shelf.
Jim Sirch
© 2004 by the author; this article may not be copied or reproduced without the author's consent.
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Foraging New England
A late summer day in New England brings the opportunity to relax and have fun poking through the woods or along a quiet dirt road looking for things to eat. Just the experience itself demands that you take your time and pay attention, lest you miss a small patch of chanterelles, some raspberries the birds couldn’t get to, or a perfect blob of red spruce gum to chew on while you wander along. And if you really pay attention (and have a little luck, too), you could come across the forager’s reward: a particularly tasty and uncommon item you’ve been seeking for a long time.
One of the difficulties faced by new foragers (besides timing, poor eyesight, birds, slugs, and cutthroat competition from other human foragers) is finding good field guides for edibles that focus on a particular region. Foraging New England, by Tom Seymour, seems to have solved the problem. With just a few exceptions, like the chanterelle, the book covers just about every type of wild edible found in New England, so you can bring it with you on your foraging forays as your only field guide, and then, if need be, crosscheck your bounty against other guides when you get home.
Seymour has divided the world of New England wild edibles up by the places you’ll find them: fertile streamsides, waste places, and disturbed and cultivated ground. Other chapters cover wild edibles found in many different places, such as medicinal plants, mushrooms, trees, and edible animals that would not be considered game. The result is a book that is uncommonly easy to use compared to many of the guides out there, which either require more botanical knowledge than many of us have or include too many items that aren’t found here.
Each of the 72 wild edibles in the book has at least one color plate to check your specimen against along with several detailed paragraphs of information written in a style that’s rare and elusive in guidebook: it’s fun to read. Seymour’s love for hunting wild edibles shows through in the description he has provided for each of his quarries. Even if you’ve never eaten anything that you didn’t have to unwrap, you’ll find the introduction provides all the information you will need to get started stalking wild edibles safely and successfully. And Seymour’s enthusiasm will make your mouth water with the possibilities.
Foraging New England covers some of my favorite wild edibles, including lamb’s quarters, a weed I gleefully cultivate in my garden since it has some of the best greens that ever touched a taste bud, and chicken of the woods, a mushroom that is indescribably delicious sliced, sautéed in butter, and scrambled with eggs. It covers others that I did not know were edible, most notably quickweed or galinsoga, the bane of my gardening existence. Just knowing it is edible takes a huge weight off – it now has a legitimate place in my garden. By the way, if you’d like some of it, you’re welcome to visit and pick as much as you like; in fact, take all of it. I know it will be back!
Carl Demrow
© 2004 by the author; this article may not be copied or reproduced without the author's consent.
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The Trout Pool Paradox: The American Lives of Three Rivers
This is a wonderful book about three rivers (the Shepaug, the Housatonic, and the Naugatuck), their valleys, and their people. Like a braided stream that occasionally divides into several interlacing channels, the 26 brief chapters tell the story of rivers and valleys in the context of Colonial and geologic history, ecology, economics, and politics. The rivers are located in Connecticut, but readers from all over the Northeast will find this a fascinating and relevant story and enjoy discovering the similarities and differences between their rivers and valleys and those in the book.
The first chapter is entitled, “The Trout Pool Paradox,” and it talks of tributary streams with pools where “wild creatures of astonishing beauty swim free in the limpid currents.” The paradox is that these places are ideal for “solitary contemplation, for romantic love, for a sense of reconnection with lost wildness,” but these pools “nurtured the most noisome and alienating developments of the American industrial revolution” with grist mills, sawmills, and other factories tapping the energy of running water. Although they may seem wild and serene, these places have been heavily influenced by human history.
I found myself reminded of historian William Cronon’s Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England, and the author admits to being “influenced enormously” by his writings. Humankind’s place in nature is an underlying theme of the book, but unlike Cronon’s academic and factual style, this book is far more familiar and engaging. Lifelike dialogue imaginatively shows people’s love of rivers and their valleys. I felt I was there at the informal lunch gathering of entomologists discussing stream insects, or with the Saturday morning group of volunteers eating donuts before cleaning up a stretch of river. Black’s descriptions put me in the living room of the octogenarian who transplanted insect life into a stream to revive the trout fishery and made clear the boater’s protest of policy on natural river flows. The author tells the stories of rivers and their valleys in vivid, recognizable ways, knitting episodes of dialogue, historical anecdotes, scientific facts, economic impacts, and political intrigue into an easily read and enjoyable story.
Black has worked on this book like an investigative reporter, talking to historians, ecologists, geologists, activists, managers, volunteers, and others, weaving elements of past and present into a compelling tale of a portion of the Northeast defined by watershed boundaries. In the end, the facts, anecdotes, dialogue, and cleverly designed digressions come together to leave the reader with a unique understanding of the complex interplay between people and their landscape.
My one criticism is the title itself. This fine book is about far more than trout or their pools, and sadly many may overlook it, mistakenly concluding it is just another book for anglers or trout devotees. Readers from throughout the Northeast and beyond will enjoy this story, which will make them think about the rivers and watersheds that define their own surroundings.
David Kittredge
© 2004 by the author; this article may not be copied or reproduced without the author's consent.
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