Customer Reviews

Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival

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If you have enjoyed the nature writing of Farley Mowat or
David Attenborough (The Life of Birds, The Private Life of
Plants), you'll enjoy this wonderful book. There are books
on nature which are dry and distanced: this is just the
opposite. There are also books on nature which are primarily
observational, such as Thoreau's Walden Pond and Annie Dillard's
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Neither Thoreau nor Annie Dillard
measured the rectal temperature of insects in the winter to
help determine the mechanics of heat regulation. Most of the
mammals, birds, insects, and trees looked at by the author are
his neighbors in the winter woods: the love and enjoyment and
the curiosity about his environment is very evident. He wants
to know what these creatures do to cope and survive the severe
winters where he lives in Maine and Vermont.

Heinrich writes with great warmth and humor throughout the book.
You'll follow his thoughts and discoveries about how the tiny
golden-crowned kinglet survives the winter, when logic seems to
say that it shouldn't even survive a single below-zero night.
On sunny days, even when the temperature is well below freezing,
several dozen honeybees may emerge from the hive and just a few
seconds later will all be lying dead on the snow: this is a
sacrificial testing mechanism by the hive to ensure that when
the first flowers open up that a head start can be obtained for
foraging. There are all kinds of fascinating things that you
could never imagine going on. Most of the nature in the book
centers on Heinrich's own environment, but he also readily and
often talks at length about other species from around the world.
The book is lavishly illustrated with drawings that help make
you feel even more personally acquainted with the subjects.

Heinrich is a scientist with a wonderful breadth of knowledge,
and a superb talent for relating his love for nature, his
appetite for discovery, and his humorous insights in a style
which gives enormous pleasure to the reader.

I loved this book. From the unique cover (the colored images seem to be some sort of stickers or something) to the lovely drawings inside, the book is a sensual delight. I loved curling up in front of the fire with this and marveling at the ways animals have evolved to survive in temperatures that would kill us. An avid bird and animal watcher, I nevertheless surprised myself that I had never thought of some of the more complex anatomical and physiological challenges animals face in the deep winter. And while I was so grateful to be the beneficiary of Dr. Heinrich's knowledge, I was also so charmed to me able to follow a human through the winter woods who is as delighted as I am myself to have the privilege of observing birds and animals in their natural settings. Sometimes I think I'm a little weird for enjoying nature so much, but I've found a kindred soul in the author! Anyone who wonders about the ways of nature and would like a tour of the winter woods with a knowledgeable guide will relish this book.

Anyone who has walked in Thoreau's footprints and who can appreciate clear scientific thought will enjoy this detailed explanation of the fauna of the woods during winter. Heinrich has given us a wonderful tour of animals in wintertime, covering their habitats, physiology and evolutionary adaptations.

A word of caution - this is not a book for people seeking warm fuzzy feelings about cute furry little creatures. It is a book about reality in its full splendor.

I picked up this book because, living in the northeast, I wondered what happened to all of the animals in wintertime. Which ones hibernate? Which ones migrate? Which ones die? And I wasn't disappointed. Heinrich provides ample explanations, in understandable language, of what happens to squirrels, birds, insects, turtles, trees, and others (although there isn't much about fish). He is also a fantastic nature writer, weaving simple but elegant stories in and out of the science, stories mostly set in his two main observation sites, Vermont and Maine. And the overriding theme of the whole book is the battle of animals to regulate their temperatures and metabolisms to avoid freezing, in the harsh food conditions of winter. This is good introductory reading for anyone with questions about winter survival.

Working at a historic house, I often comment to visitors that it's difficult to fathom how people survived the New England winter before the advent of central heating. As for animals..... how do they DO that, with no houses or heating at all?
Snapping turtles, the couch potatoes of the predator world. Snow fleas?? The food storage systems of squirrels. Jays gluing food to tree branches. Natural antifreeze? These and countless other wonders, taking place unnoticed right outside our own windows, are examined and explained in Winter World. This is a book that can be read as a whole, or, perhaps more practically, by delving into relevant chapters as curiosity dictates. It would make a great gift for science teachers or animal/nature enthusiasts. Definitely a book to be kept readily at hand, along with those bird and wildflower handbooks. Highly recommended.

This book describes terrestrial life in the cold reaches of the world, emphasis on the forests of Canada and the Northern states of the USA. The text is written in first person in a diary format of the author traveling thru and living in winter environments. This format is punctuated with occassional asides to elaborate on scientific issues. The colors are black and white illustrations which are unfortunate for a nature book, but it does keep the purchase price down.

The book itself starts of somewhat slow, but is interesting enough to keep you going. The author describes how various animals living in cold climates have evolved to survive and even succeed. I learned many things in this book that I was unaware of. For instance, birds and mammals are not "warm blooded" in the strictest sense of the word. Specifically, many birds and mammals have body temperatures that fluctuate in cycles to keep track with outside temperatures. Man has a 24-hour cycles to match day-night transitions; during this cycle our body temperature changes by 1 - 3 degrees Fahrenheit. Bears and other hibernating mammals have seasonal cycles to match the change in seasons. The body temperature of a hibernating bear can be 20 - 40 degrees lower than that of an active bear.

Conversely, many other animals that are considered "cold-blooded" in most high-school science textbooks actually are not. For example, a lot of insects living in cold climates will huddle together and shiver to keep their body temperature elevated above the ambient temperature.

Overall, I am glad I read this book, and would recommend it to other people.

Do bees defecate in their hives if it's too cold to make the necessary dash outside? Why don't hibernating black bear lose bone mass and develop sores like a bed-ridden human? How does the 5 gram golden-crowned kinglet (about the size of a large humming bird) survive a northern winter?

I suppose the intelligent design folks can explain all of these mysteries without even strapping on their snow shoes, so let us be doubly grateful for naturalists like Bernd Heinrich who learn and test and publish the exact mechanisms for survival in the stark northern winter. There is so much wonder to be had from the truth.

Heinrich is interested in learning how such disparate survival traits such as hibernation and migration actually evolved, and he takes his reader on his journeys of discovery. One of the questions that he answers in "Winter World" concerns the migration of the monarch butterfly.

Do the same monarchs who journeyed up to 4500 kilometers to "twelve extraordinarily small patches of pines and firs" in Mexico, survive to return to their summer haunts in the eastern United States?

Due to an interesting bit of biochemical sleuthing that the author shares with us, we learn that it requires up to four generations of monarchs to make the long journey back to their northernmost breeding grounds.

For that matter, why do monarchs migrate to those small overwintering sites in the Transvolcanic Mountains of Michoacan? Why do these particular butterflies bother to migrate at all?

It is amazing how many winter survival traits involve shivering, and the small temperature range in which animals such as monarchs and bats can shiver and survive. Monarchs migrate to a small area that has exactly the right winter temperature range, and as the author says, "it is a sobering thought that most of the [monarch] population of eastern North America could be wiped out by an irresponsible woodcutter with a chain saw."

According to E. O. Wilson, "Heinrich is a scientist and naturalist of the first rank." He is also a writer who can lead his reader further and further into the winter woods, following a trail of fascinating detail and discovery.

One of the mysteries that lured the author and his ecology students into the woods is the presence of the elusive golden-crowned kinglet. Why doesn't this particular bird migrate?

Monarchs migrate. Robins migrate. So why not kinglets?

Gradually, through the course of many winters, Heinrich and his students discover how these little birds survive. One of the last of the delicate line drawings in this book enlightens us on how kinglets endure the harsh nighttime temperatures of a Maine winter: it shows two of these birds fluffed out and huddled together in a miniature snow cave on a spruce branch--an accidental discovery made by one of Heinrich's students.

This is truly a book of marvels.

Have you ever had your leg in a cast? And when the cast comes off your leg is small and wrinkled because of the muscle atrophy that took place during the weeks of inactivity while the cast was on? Have you ever wondered what a bear looks like when it comes out of hibernation, having spent 3 or more months lying around mostly sleeping? Are its muscles smaller? Bernd Heinrich's mind thinks like that, putting such questions together and then he goes off in search of an answer.
If you only weigh a few ounces and are covered in feathers and it's -30 deg outside tonight, how do you live till morning? And why is it a good thing if there's fluffy snow on that evergreen tree? Heinrich knows.
This book is all about how animals live through brutal weather, and the word "ingenuity' in the title is a fine descriptor. For us indoor folk, 20 deg is cold, but for some animals who can make it to -40, that's a cakewalk, and Heinrich will tell you how they do it. It's a wonderful set of stories and observations and scientific fact about many different animals.
I still don't know how it came to be that I found a turtle dying in my garden on a 10 deg day recently (why was he/she out in the first place?), but I know more about why I'd better go fill my birdfeeders before the sun sets so the birds will literally have energy to burn when it's 15 deg tonight!

This book will enable me to answer my grandchildren's questions of what happens to frogs, toads, bees, field mice, to name just a few, in the winter. Mr. Heinrich stuck to the subject and churned out the information; information that satisfies the reader who requires a certain depth of explanation for biological curiosities. The depth in this instance would be Biology 101 at most universities. His writing style is informative and not condescending, I enjoyed the read, it had more human interest tucked in appropriate places than most textbooks.

Summary:
Naturalist Bernd Heinrich applies his unique blend of science and writing to the many innovative ways in which animals survive winter. Migration and hibernation are famous examples, and Heinrich investigates these phenomena in enough detail so that the reader can appreciate how amazing they really are. He also explores a host of other methods of survival, never allowing us to lose sight of a couple of key concepts that mark the difference between life and death for the untold billions of winter residents. The first is the idea that all behavior and physiology has evolved over the ages since animals first managed to coexist with the strange and frightening conditions that mark the advent of winter. The second is that each individual creature must maintain a positive energy surplus over the cold winter months; all winter survival strategies are predicated on the idea that a creature must stoke its inner fire with energy of some sort.
Along the way, Heinrich interweaves his own experiments and experiences, leaving us with vivid pictures of his encounter with a fatally wounded snapping turtle, and watching a beaver lodge as the sun rises, for example.
The signature winter animal that Heinrich returns to time and again is the kinglet, the world's smallest perching bird that somehow manages to eke out a living despite the fact that it weighs no more than two pennies. The kinglet is a fitting choice for the tireless Heinrich, because he unearths a variety of survival strategies that the kinglet employs, yet still leaves an air of mystery around this amazing bird, whose presence in the cold winter woods is still not fully explained.
The Good and the Bad:
Heinrich's writing remains impeccable. His own enthusiasm for his subjects leaps from every page. In contrast to so many nature writers, Heinrich is someone who derives a spiritual boost every time he walks into the woods, yet doesn't attribute this to any actual spirits. Heinrich is a man of science, first and foremost, and his childlike wonder at each stirring creature destroys the stereotype of scientists who study nature without truly understanding it.
The concepts are explained in simple terms that we can all understand, and I found the mix of science and entertainment to be spot on. The chemical reactions that a bear undergoes while hibernating is educational and interesting; the story of a man who crashes through the ice onto a hibernating polar bear is entertaining.
I have nothing bad to say about this book. Heinrich is at the top of his game, and shows no sign of slowing down.