Wild Moments [Hardcover]

Ted Williams (Author), Connie Isbell (Editor), John Burgoyne (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 15, 2004

For more than 30 years Ted Williams has been hailed as one of the foremost nature writers in the United States, with articles and columns that appear in a wide range of national magazines--from Fly Rod & Reel to Audubon. His eloquent advocacy for a host of environmental and wildlife conservation issues have won him prestigious awards. The National Wildlife Federation presented him with their Conservation Achievement Award; his conservation writing won him the Federal Wildlife Officers Association Award; the Outdoor Writers Association of America recognized him with their highest honor, the Jade of Chiefs; and the Coastal Conservation Association of New York named him "Conservationist of the Year."

Wild Moments is a collection of Williams's beautifully crafted seasonal observation columns that is sure to be prized by Ted Williams's fans and to attract a broad new readership. The text is complemented by the illustrations of John Burgoyne, himself the winner of more than 150 awards in the United States and Europe.

Williams explains the weather conditions that bring out the brightest reds in autumn leaves, when to watch for the massive migration of northern flickers, how hungry wolf spiders catch their prey, and why American goldfinches wait until July or August to build a nest and start breeding.

Although Williams's home is in Massachusetts, his columns describe the action of the natural world all across North America, with a few forays to other parts of the globe. So readers will learn why there are so many aspens in Yellowstone National Park and the extent of the burrowing owl's habitat (from southwestern Canada to Argentina).

Written in an inviting, accessible, and entertaining style, these brief columns are packed with in-depth information on a broad range of topics. Anyone who loves the natural world will find this book irresistible.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A seasoned environmental reporter lets his meditative and poetic side shine in this collection of writings from Audubon magazine’s "Earth Almanac" column. These essays, Williams says, functioned as "retreats into what is pure and clean and right with the world"—an antidote to years of writing about air pollution, poisoned fish and electrocuted eagles (though he still writes about these and other issues in numerous outlets, including his "Incite" column in Audubon). Williams offers dozens of brief looks at nature’s beauty, organized by season. His Winter section includes paragraphs on spotting wingless snow fleas (actually a species of springtail that looks much like it did 300 million years ago) and feeding bluebirds to give them a head start over other nesting birds, while Summer chronicles the "Attack of the June Bugs" (they are attracted to light), the "Flying Lanterns" that are fireflies and "Salmon Recycling." The short entries (there are generally two or three per page) make for easy browsing and, as Verlyn Klinkenborg writes in his foreword, the book is "pure perception, a work in which the observer’s presence has been distilled into nothingness, leaving only the world—the moment—that he has seen."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Did you know that bumblebees are native to the North American continent—but honey bees are not? Can you name the marsupial with a 12 ½ day gestation period? And, do you know where to get a yummy sapsickle? Within these one hundred and ninety-two pages, are the answers in one-page sketches of beast and bloom that start in winter and move through the seasons. Differing from many nature books, the author covers the Pacific Northwest, the desert southwest through the prairies, the Midwest, and the East Coast. He is intimate friends with damselflies, Jills-in-the-Pulpit, and fairy diddles and he spins images that puts you next to him in the field: "In flight, puffins resemble badly thrown footballs..." While this book is marketed to adults, I can easily imagine sending small ones to the land of sugar plum fairies with images of fairy shrimp, the Leonids, or woolly bears. Williams contributes to Audubon and Fly Rod & Reel magazines and is the author of The Insightful Sportsman. Lastly, if you enjoy nature, how could you not invest in a publisher who announces on the copyright page: "The mission of Storey Publishing is to serve our customers by publishing practical information that encourages personal independence in harmony with the environment." 2004, Storey Publishing, Ages Adult. (Children's Literature -Chris Gill )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC (November 15, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580175287
• ISBN-13: 978-1580175289
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,970,371 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wild Diamond Prose, November 18, 2004

By 

Susan Beckhorn (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wild Moments (Hardcover)

One needn't travel to distant worlds to encounter the exotic and astounding. One need only have eyes to see what has been before us all along. Williams is the lens through which we glimse wonders and exquisite beauty still abounding in the often cruelly damaged wild world in which we live. In these brief essays, collected from his Earth Alamnac column in Audubon Magazine, he reveals secrets of the commonplace--creatures and plants we may have glanced at many times without really seeing.

The entries are like prose poems in crystalized language which make one stop again and again and say, ah . . . From the sublime: "sweet pepper bush fills the air with a fragrance that freezes the fleeting hours of August, drugs the droning bee, and transports aging wanderers of the woods to a time when summer never ended and one's only commitments were to fish, frogs, and turtles . . ." to the ridiculous: "tufts of silk protrude from the sun-split pods (of milkweed) like stuffing from puppy ripped pillows. . ." And don't forget the magic: "Since this theory (the ancient belief that circular growths of fungus are set by dancing fairy feet) cannot be disproved, why hasten its extinction when you are afield with young companions?"

If you know an environmentalist, give her this book. It will cheer her darkest hours and energize her crusade. If you know someone who is not an environmentalist, give her this book. It will convert her as surely as a full-immersion baptism. And keep your own copy to read and re-read . . .

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and Upliftng, January 14, 2005

By 

Kay Charter "Executive Director, Saving Birds... (Omena, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wild Moments (Hardcover)

Those familiar with Ted Williams' Incite column in Audubon magazine, or his
work in other periodicals such as Fly Rod & Reel, know him to be a tough,
unyielding proponent of sound conservation. Woe to the public official
charged with protecting the environment who finds himself in the sights of
Ted's pointed pen after failing to carry out his job, whether by design,
indifference or incompetence.
Ted's writing grabbed me the first time I read his Audubon column "Incite."
Even though I was an immediate fan of his work however, it wasn't until I
read his first book, The Insightful Sportsman, that I discovered the poetic
quality of his writing. His elegant prose is most evident in "Fairy
Diddling." "Fairy Diddling" (fairy diddles being a nickname for flying
squirrels) is an engaging peek into the lives of these capricious little
characters, who don't emerge from their tree cavities until after the sun
has set. The piece concludes with this evocative sentence: "They are out
there now, wherever the globe has whirled into its own shadow, haunting
woods you thought were spiritless, flying between the cold moon and the
earth, jesting to Oberon - and accomplishing the important work of keeping
the night what it was meant to be."
Now comes Wild Moments, a sampling of Ted's Earth Almanac columns gathered
together for publication. While The Insightful Sportsman is largely a
collection of his hard-hitting investigative columns, this new book reflects
the soft side of a man whose passion for the natural world is second only to
a deep love for his family. In the preface he tells us that these short
essays, packed with fascinating but largely unknown facts about birds, fish,
mammals, insects and plants, celebrate the beauty and magic of nature.
The book is divided into four sections - one for each season of the year.
Winter includes an essay on ruddy turnstones. Ruddy turnstones are
shorebirds that flip over shells and pebbles in pursuit of crustaceans
buried in the sand. Although - as birders - my husband and I have watched
these plump little birds for years, we did not know that one will enlist the
aid of another when encountering difficulty upturning a stone.
Spring doesn't simply arrive for Ted, it comes "as the Northern Hemisphere
leans into the sun..." It is the time when wolf spiders creep from their
burrows in search of food and fairy shrimp hatch in vernal pools. It is
also, of course, the time to witness the elaborate courtship dance of the
male American woodcock.
Ted is big on sharing nature with youngsters, and he recommends taking kids
out to pick berries in summer. While we're out there, we might keep an eye
out for the bright yellow garden spider, whose web is spun with a substance
that is stronger than steel. And if we're in the right place we might see a
flock of nighthawks overhead, foraging on the wing.
"The earth is fat in fall," he writes, "dripping milk and honey into the
mouths of wild creatures and into the souls of humans who will soon be
entering their own form of hibernation in front of flickering fires and
flickering screens."
Ted Williams learned about nature in the same way Henry Thoreau did; he
spent as much time as possible immersed in it. His family owns a "camp" (a
New England term for what we in some other parts of the country would call a
summer cottage) in New Hampshire. He spent much of his childhood at this
camp, one of only fourteen on a 280 acre island. Except for the fact that
his grandfather and uncle took him fishing from the time he was four, there
were no naturalist mentors. His connection with wildlife grew out of
singular explorations of the island. From the time he was six years old, he
rose early and set out alone in a rowboat to travel up into the swamps where
he spent long days attending to the lessons of his outdoor classroom.
Even those who subscribe to Audubon magazine and read Earth Almanac
religiously will appreciate this fine collection, and not only because
previously unpublished material is included. Everyone who cares about
conservation will come away, as I did, with a renewed hope that we are
actually winning the battle. That news, as Ted says, "is remarkable and
uplifting."

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great collection, February 24, 2009

By 

Jack K. Holcomb - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Wild Moments (Hardcover)

WILD MOMENTS by Ted Williams is truly one of the finest collection of nature essays published in recent years. The book is a great way to introudce one to the wonders of our natural world..
I would hope a follow-up would be in the works..
Jack Holcomb