On Wednesday morning, after snow, sleet, ice, and rain fell overnight, I took a slushy walk at Hedgehog Mountain, where I heard a Pine Grosbeak, my 124th species for the patch. Jeannette has heard and seen them hear a few times lately, so I was happy to catch up with one today. This winter finch “superflight” is really helping to pad my Patch Lists!

It’s supposed to be another frigid morning tomorrow, but you know I’ll be out! At the very least, Sasha needs here walk, so might as well have the binoculars around my neck– not that I can actually leave the house without them! – especially with the plethora of irruptives around. But, I do realize not everyone is as dedicated (read: insane) as I am, so on some of these cold, wintry days, it’s tough to beat curling up with a good book (well, at least while keeping one eye on the feeders!).

Recently, someone asked me what books I have read recently, so I decided to put together this mini-review of the books that I have read in the past few months. Of course, this is in addition to all of the birding magazines, but that’s another story. And, I probably should mention that most of these, are, of course, available from the Wild Bird Center of Yarmouth!

So, here goes:
1) The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions, by David Quammen.

A winner of the prestigious John Burroughs Medal for Natural History writing, this was by far one of the best books that I have read in a while.

It begins with the history of the Theory of Evolution and Island Biogeography, from the works of Alfred Wallace, especially, Darwin (and touching on some of the controversies here), and their contemporaries. Essentially, since islands are isolated ecosystems, evolution and extinction occur more rapidly and more noticeably. Quammen then takes theories about geographical islands and the ebb and flows of species on them and applies it to man-made “islands” – isolated habitats – “carved into island-like fragments by human activity.”

Using his own experiences and specific examples (from Giant Tortoises and Birds of Paradise to Dwarf Elephants and Komodo Dragons; from Ground Beetles and Tenrecs to the Galapagos Finches (As we will be seeing next year on our Wild Bird Center of Yarmouth Galapagos and Ecuador Adventure – see www.yarmouthbirds.com/travels.asp, cough, cough.) and of course, the Dodo, Quammen comes up with an “Insular Menu” to define species and community attributes on isolated islands and discusses why small populations are so perilous,

A thorough discussion of the species-area concepts follows, from the theory’s development (including some math, ack!) and its own evolution from the likes to E.O. Wilson and Robert MacArthur to Dan Simberloff and Jared Diamond.

As the equilibrium theory began being applied to habitat fragmentation and species extinctions on the continent, researchers questioned it, refined it, and redeveloped it into the concept of population viability and as the theoretical and practical work continues, the science of Conservation Biology was maturing – and along with it, the hope that its application will save species such as the Mauritius Kestrel.

One particular quote really hit home for me. Too often, we see the “so what?” attitude when it comes to the impact humans are now having on the life of this plant. This analogy sums it up nicely, and nicely exemplifies the excellent writing of Quammen who has made a very complex subject very digestible, and enjoyable to read:

“There have always been extinctions. So, why worry about these extinctions currently being caused by humanity? And, there has always been a pilot light burning in your furnace. So, why worry when your house is on fire?”

2) Soaring With Fidel: An Osprey Odyssey from Cape Cod to Cuba and Beyond, by David Gessner.

It might not have been fair that I read this book after completing Song of the Dodo. There’s a reason why that book won the Burroughs Award. While this book was by no means poorly written, I may have been holding it to an unfair standard when I began.
But, I did enjoy this book, especially when he recounted his visit to Cape May where places and people were quite familiar to me. Although overall, as a seasoned hawkwatcher, I felt at times that Gessner’s observations were no big deal to me; I would soon find myself just simply enjoying his unwavering (mostly) enthusiasm.

Soaring with Fidel recounts the author’s obsessive, snowballing, trip to travel “with” Ospreys from Cape Cod, down the East Coast, through Cuba, and eventually into Venezuela. Impulsively driven to add to the next leg of the journey, Gessner was also “competing” – at least in his own mind – with a BBC crew who was following Ospreys outfitted with satellite transmitters. (Coincidently, the head of that crew, Rob Bierregaard was actually one of the researchers mentioned in Song of the Dodo.)

Personally, I would have liked a little more science and more commentary on other birds at various locales (although Gessner didn’t really seem to be much of a birder – i.e. comments like birder’s in Cape May would be “chasing Hoary Redpolls through the thickets. IF a Hoary Redpoll were in Cape May, ever, it would not be in a thicket, for example.) . However, the book was less about scientific discovery, but more about personal discovery and following one’s dreams. This is not a bad thing, and I particularly enjoyed his plotting to visit Cuba, and his recounting of his experiences there, especially with the artesanos atop La Gran Piedra.

3) The End of the Line: How Overfishing is Changing the World and What we Eat, by Charles Clover.

Yeah, this was an uplifting light read. Seriously though, the topic is very timely, poignant, and important. For too long, fisheries – and their rampant mismanagement – have been out of sight, out of mind. This needs to change if we are going to continue to have a healthy, abundant source protein to feed our burgeoning population, let alone everything else in the sea.

The book begins: “Image what people would say if a band of hunters strung a mile of net between two immense vehicles and dragged it at speed across the plains of Africa . . . this fantastical assemblage, like something from a Mad Max movie, would scoop up everything in its way: predators such as lions and cheetahs, lumbering endangered herbivores such as rhinos and elephants, herds of impala and wildebeest, family groups of warthogs and wild dogs. Pregnant females would be swept up and carried away, with only the smallest juveniles able to wriggle through the mesh. Picture how the net is constructed, with a metal roller attached to the leading edge. This rolling beam smashes and flattens obstructions, flushing creatures into the approaching filaments. The effect of dragging a huge iron bar across the savannah is to break off every outcrop and uproot every tree, bush, and flowering plant, stirring columns of birds into the air. Left behind is a strangely bedraggled landscape resembling a harrowed field. The industrial hunter-gatherers now stop to examine the tangled mess of writhing or dead creatures behind them. There are no markets for about 1/3 of the animals they have caught because they don’t taste good, or because they are simply too small or too squashed. The pile of corpses is dumped on the plain to be consumed by scavengers”

Unfortunately, this is exactly what trawling is. Angry yet? Clover is. Case after case, fishery by fishery, Clover details our routine overexploitation of the sea’s bounty until the fishery collapses, jobs are lost, and the fishing effort moves another step down the food chain.

The author throws reams of facts at you – unfortunately, often resulting (for me at least), in a serious case of information overload. Also, I found the writing to be a little dry, and at times choppy, enough so that at times I found it difficult to keep up or to follow the author’s points on occasion.

From hectic Tokyo fish markets to a sleepy Newfoundland village, Clover shows how inadequate laws, lack of enforcement, and downright apathy as “stealing” fish from the general public, our children, and our grandchildren – the rightful owners of the sea.

His trashing of subsidies is particularly well argued, I thought. Clover tries to inform the public, as consumers, that we need to make good choices that benefit everyone, the ecosystem, and our health. Furthermore, he outlines what needs to be done – in both the short- and long-terms to make our fisheries truly sustainable, from dispelling the cultural sentiment about the fisherman to increasing the number and size of marine reserves.

After grading a number of fisheries on their sustainability, Clover concedes that he, as a recreational angler, is also part of the problem, and one that is often ignored. Both the interests and the impact of recreational fishing needs to be considered as well, he argues.

He also questions and evaluates various sustainability certifications and fish-farming techniques, and discusses the trillion-dollar question: “Who owns the sea anyway?” But, Clover ends the book with an optimistic – but perhaps unrealistic – vision for the future, followed by a brief consumer’s guide.

While I found the book difficult to read at times, and I certainly don’t agree with everything Clover has to say, anyone who likes to eat fish, or wants their children to be able to eat fish, should probably read this book.

4) The Code: The Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the NHL, by Ross Bernstein.

After reading the rather depressing “The End of the Line,” I needed to lighten things up a bit with a good mindless read. I wanted to shut the brain off for a bit, not consider scientific theories, social-environmental interactions, human ecology, or any other ecology. A book about hockey fights seemed to fit the bill!

I really wanted to like this book, as it was indeed very insightful at times, and it made strong case about why fighting needs to be allowed in the NHL and how the instigator rule has damaged the sport. However, I had such a hard time reading and getting into this book, that I think many of the author’s messages were lost on me. Redundant and repetitive, the books basically said the same thing over and over again, using block quote after block quote, with the author writing a few paragraphs that said the exact same thing in between.

In the end, I was just glad to finish this book. However, huge fans of fighting in hockey will lover this book thanks to the many anecdotes from some of hockey’s toughest characters. But, I think this is even more of a worthwhile read to get another viewpoint if you are adamantly opposed to fighting in hockey.