Appalachian Spring
ISBN: 9780822971467
Platform/Publisher: Ebook Central / University of Pittsburgh Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Limited; Download: 7 Days at a Time
Subjects: Science: Biology/ Natural History; Science: General; Science;

This finely written journal details the natural history of the four months of ``a typical Appalachian mountain spring'' in the author's central Pennsylvania home. Naturalist Bonta ( Outbound Journeys in Pennsylvania ) combines scientific accuracy with a lyrical sense of wonder and excitement as she describes her daily explorations around her 500-acre hillside home. Exhorting those who would preserve nature to ``watch rather than manage the land,'' she observes and meticulously limns the mating rituals of all kinds of creatures, from earthworms to grouse; the activites of a myriad of birds, including American pipits and phoebes; and the blossoming of plants and shrubs such as trailing arbutus and Dane's rocket. We feel her awe when she comes upon 100 wood frogs crammed into a tiny pond: ``In the intense, prehistoric silence that settled over the pond, the first amphibian head appeared, its eyes just above water level and turned purposefully in my direction. I sat ramrod still as head after head emerged.'' This is a lively introduction to the pleasures and rituals of nature study. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Marcia Bonta is a freelance nature writer and the author of, in addition to her Appalachian seasons books, Outbound Journeys in Pennsylvania , More Outbound Journeys in Pennsylvania , Women in the Field , and Escape to the Mountain , and the editor of American Women Afield . She has written more than three hundred magazine articles for publications such as Birder's World , Bird Watcher's Digest , Living Bird , and Hawk Mountain News . Her work has appeared in several anthologies, and she is a popular lecturer on nature and nature writing.

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