“White Feathers: The Nesting Lives of Tree Sparrows” by Bernd Heinrich; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, 2020; 256 pages, hardcover, $27.

Bernd Heinrich’s new book, “White Feathers: The Nesting Lives of Tree Sparrows,” is another illuminating entry from one of Maine’s best-known and admired naturalists. Each chapter offers a meticulously detailed narrative of Heinrich’s observations of tree swallows nesting outside his home in Weld over eight years, and the first year in Vermont.

Heinrich gets interested in the swallows when he notices their preference for white feathers in their nest construction and wonders what that’s all about. With characteristic scientific care, he year in and year out watches the swallows return to the birdhousing he’s set up in the yard and monitors their mating activities. The swallows know him so well, they don’t mind him poking his finger in the nest to check on the eggs and chicks.

Each chapter is obviously assembled from careful note-taking which is then turned into a little scientific adventure story for each year. As always, what makes the story of each spring a story is Heinrich’s interest in the birds as sentient entities, how and why they decide to do what they do. Most admirable about Heinrich’s writing is that while he takes care to use precious few anthropomorphizing lines, he yet always suggests how the birds’ behavior suggests a recognizable emotional, inner life. One year, the last chick leaves the nest well after the rest of the family has moved on. But as Heinrich watches the parents day in and day out return to check on the struggling chick, who eventually dies of starvation, you get the feeling the birds are acting not on instinct, but out of some kind of avian moral responsibility and care.

Heinrich wisely does not impute such motives to the birds. But really, the shape and perceptivity of his narratives imply it. As always in Heinrich’s writings, fascination and facts play equal roles. Which, if you ask me, is as it should be in science as well as poetry. There’s a lot to be learned about tree swallows, and other people, in this book.

 

“Wild Critters of Maine: Everyday Encounters” by Tom Seymour; Just Write Books, Topsham, Maine, 2020; 180 pages, paperback, $24.95.

Naturalist Tom Seymour has been writing and teaching the facts and fascinations of flora and fauna in midcoast Maine for years, and his “Wild Critters of Maine: Everyday Encounters” is the newest event in that self-appointed project.

Like his earlier books, such as “Wild Plants of Maine” and “Hidden World Revealed,” “Wild Critters” provides a series of entertaining rambles on a selection of Maine’s mammals, birds, reptiles, fish and bugs. He fondly recounts hunting woodcock with his grandpa; grumbles about the wild turkeys who maraud in his yard; wonders why the first person to eat a lobster did so; and explains the differences between hares and rabbits, dragonflies and damselflies, appreciatively mixing together personal anecdote and observation with basic facts of wildlife biology.

We learn that squirrels make tasty eating and that woodchucks have led to “all kinds of misery” for him. He is particularly vexed by coyotes whose howling keeps him up so much he thinks they’re out to get him personally – “I’m one hundred percent convinced that coyotes purposely taunt me.” (I wonder what Passamaquoddy poet Jason Grundstrom-Whitney would think about this …) Interspersed among the chapters on animals are little one-page boxed entries recounting cute stories of wildlife encounters, including his pursuit of a 10-pound brown trout named Old Walter.

Fans of Maine outdoor writer George Smith are likely to find “Wild Critters of Maine” a delightful stroll through the woods. Tom Seymour lives in Waldo, has led many nature walks, and has been a columnist for midcoast newspapers. “Wild Critters of Maine” is available from Just Write Books as well as online and local book sellers.

 

Off Radar takes note of poetry and books with Maine connections the first and third Thursdays of each month. Dana Wilde is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. Contact him at universe@dwildepress.net.

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