Naturally Curious: A Photographic Field Guide and MonthbyMonth Journey Through the Fields, Woods, and Marshes of New England,Used

Part handy field guide, part natural history book, this bountiful reference satisfies curiosities about the flora and fauna of New England. Hundreds of spectacular photographs provide a close look at regional animal and plant life, from tracks, dens, and nests to hunting, breeding, and hibernating. Organized by month to display a variety of wildlife throughout the seasons, this unique nature guide is full of maps, statistics, and quick facts, and also includes indepth discussions of some of the most interesting nature events New England has to offer.Are you ready to explore a milkweed patch alongside a monarch butterfly? For a barred owls latewinter call to take on new meaning? For the life cycle of the eastern newt to suddenly seem complex, beautiful, and intricately bound to mysterious underwater landscapes and damp forest floors? Naturalist and environmental educator Mary Hollands visually astounding book, and winner of the 2011 National Outdoor Book Award for best nature guidebook, Naturally Curious promises a walk in the woods (or a field or wetland) will never be the same. With boundless enthusiasm and a lifetimesworth of natural history knowledge, Holland escorts you through the New England seasons, month by monthin sun, rain, and snow; along roadsides and riverbanks; above burrows and under treetop nesting sites. Beginning with March and its early stirrings of life awakening after a long cold winter, and ending in February as survival becomes the sole focus of all plants and creatures, great and small, Holland provides hundreds of fascinating Nature Notes. These bitesize nuggets of factbased information detail a species actions in a particular monthwhether courting, breeding, singing, burrowing, migrating, or caching food, for example. In addition, you'll find pertinent lists of the amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, insects and arachnids, and plants and fungi you might expect to see or hear from as the weeks go by. But thats not all: Each month culminates in specially chosen essays, where Holland gets upcloseand personal with New England plant and animal life and some of their more intriguing typicalities and peculiarities, illustrating their impact on the region and those who share it. Throughout, the many exciting and varied worlds of the Northeast explode upon the page in an unmatched visual display of fullcolor photographs. From the minutiae (the migration of the tiny snow flea on a warm winters day) to the massive (the wallowing practices of the bull moose in rut) this is the region and its inhabitants like you've never seen them before. By deftly melding the practical field guide we all need with the kind of book we all want to sit back and read, Holland does New Englandand those who live in it, visit it, and love itan immense service. Adults and children alike are sure to be fascinated by the natural world in this book, in their backyard, and even further afield. Naturally Curious is truly an into this world experience.