Birds do it. Bees do it. As for educated fleas… well, I’m not so sure. But I do know that bats do it and that Pterodactyls did. Fly, of course. An advance reading copy of David E. Alexander’s forthcoming book On the Wing: Insects, Pterosaurus, Birds, Bats and the Evolution of Animal Flight arrived from Oxford […]
Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweþ sed and bloweþ med
And springþ þe wde nu,
Sing cuccu!
So begins that best known of Middle English songs “Sumer is icumen in.” Not surprisingly in a song celebrating the emergence of the land from the darkness and cold of winter, the call of the cuckoo figures prominently.
As this week seems to be shaping up to be one devoted to new field guides, it’s well worth noting that in May of this year, Johns Hopkins University Press will be publishing Leslie Day’s new Field Guide to the Neighborhood Birds of New York City.
Just prior to Christmas a number of books arrived on my desk; most of which I had been expecting but one was a complete surprise – an advance reading copy from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt of Scott Sampson’s forthcoming “How to Raise a Wild Child; The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature.”