For many of us who love being out in nature, the sensation we feel when we find ourselves able to achieve even a fleeting moment of particularly deep and meaningful connection with an animal, a plant, or perhaps even the land itself is difficult to put into words. So imagine the challenge of doing so when for years one has had the extraordinary privilege of being able to sit down with a wild animal.
It was two o’clock in the morning. Having just arrived in England mid-afternoon of the preceding day, I was severely jet-lagged and just drifting off to sleep in a farm-field facing room of the Berkshire countryside hotel that would be my lodging for the first half of my stay in the UK. Suddenly, out of […]
Every so often, one finds a book written for an adult audience that upon reading, the thought at some point enters the mind “This has the makings of a very worthwhile book for children in it as well.” Such was not the case when I first read the fascinating “How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog)” by Dr. Lee Alan Dugatkin and Dr. Lyudmila Trut. But then, of course, as I’m the first to admit, I’m not always the most perceptive in such matters.
Dr. Castelló is once again back in the Newly Noted column with his next addition to the Princeton Field Guides series: “Canids of the World; Wolves, Wild Dogs, Foxes, Jackals, Coyotes, and Their Relatives.” Following the same highly effective format he employed in his 2016 field guide to bovids, this new guide covers not only every species of wild canid presently inhabiting the planet but every recognized subspecies of them as well.