Overview

Take an enchanting journey through the shifting seasons in a wildlife sanctuary home to wetland, forest, and grassland and supporting an incredible diversity of plants and animals. Flocks of waterfowl exploding into steely skies above frozen marshland, salamanders creeping across the forest floor to vernal pools, chorusing frogs peeping their ecstasy while warblers crowd budding trees, turtles sunning on floating logs, the ecological engineering of beavers—these are but a few of the sights and sounds marking a year at Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary and its neighboring landscapes in Southern Maryland. In an absorbing account of a year in the life of this sanctuary, naturalist Colin Rees invites us to join him as he explores the secrets and wonders of the changing natural world. Alongside the author, we witness spring's avian migrations, quickening of aquatic vegetation, burgeoning of myriad invertebrates, and the assaults of extreme weather conditions. We revel in summertime's proliferation of fish, fowl, and mammals. We become attuned to the shifting climate's impacts on autumnal transitions, and we marvel at amazing feats of biological inventiveness in preparation for winter conditions. Through these visions of the fleeting—and yet enduring—cycles of nature, Rees shares deep insights into the ecological and behavioral dynamics of the natural environment. Enhanced by more than two dozen color plates, the book touches on a wide range of issues, from microbial diversity, bird banding, and butterfly phenology to genetic diversity and habitat fragmentation. It also examines the challenges of conserving these and other natural features in the face of climate change and development pressures. Thoughtful and lyrical, Nature's Calendar speaks to all readers, scientific and lay alike. Fascinating profiles of flora and fauna celebrate the richness and complexity of a unique ecosystem, exploring the entire ecology of this dynamic and delicate area.

Full Product Details

9781421427430

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Reviews

Birds led Colin Rees - a former environmental advisor for the World Bank - to Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary. There he discovered a wider love, of the natural world, so strong it led to his latest book, Nature's Calendar: A Year in the Life of a Wildlife Sanctuary ... In Jug Bay, Rees documented an ecological year from a variety of viewpoints. His weekly visits to the park coincided with citizen science projects, sampling and surveys with volunteers or researchers. During active times in the sanctuary, he visited as often as three times a week to make his observations, which take the form of a diary of sorts, much in the style of Sand County Almanac. -- Kathy Knotts * Bay Weekly *

Rees captures, in painterly prose, an entire year of nature in all of its changing beauty, fragility, brutality, and complexity . . . Filled as it is with a lifetime of knowledge and skilled observation, we can still hear in Rees's writing the infectious wonder of a young boy in Wales who fell in love with birds and went on to devote his life to the natural world. Readers should need no further convincing to go vicariously with him on this meditative yearlong excursion. -- Lucie Lehmann * Wilson Journal of Ornithology * Written in exquisite prose, Nature's Calendar: A Year in the Life of a Willife Sanctuary is a year-long ramble through southern Arundal County's Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary. Colin Rees entwines the delight of an explorer, the awareness of a lifelong naturalist, the scope of an historian, and the insight of a professional conservationist . . . Any nature enthusiast will appreciate the care and breadth of this book-its celebration of Jug Bay's exceptional wildlife, the esteem of its custodians and students, and an unflinching look at threats to its integrity, including climate change, invasive species, and human activity. Nature's Calendar will surprise, educate, and inspire. It's a book to be savored, studied and re-read. -- Barbara Johnson * Outlook by the Bay * Birds led Colin Rees - a former environmental advisor for the World Bank - to Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary. There he discovered a wider love, of the natural world, so strong it led to his latest book, Nature's Calendar: A Year in the Life of a Wildlife Sanctuary . . . In Jug Bay, Rees documented an ecological year from a variety of viewpoints. His weekly visits to the park coincided with citizen science projects, sampling and surveys with volunteers or researchers. During active times in the sanctuary, he visited as often as three times a week to make his observations, which take the form of a diary of sorts, much in the style of Sand County Almanac. -- Kathy Knotts * Bay Weekly *

Birds led Colin Rees - a former environmental advisor for the World Bank - to Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary. There he discovered a wider love, of the natural world, so strong it led to his latest book, Nature's Calendar: A Year in the Life of a Wildlife Sanctuary . . . In Jug Bay, Rees documented an ecological year from a variety of viewpoints. His weekly visits to the park coincided with citizen science projects, sampling and surveys with volunteers or researchers. During active times in the sanctuary, he visited as often as three times a week to make his observations, which take the form of a diary of sorts, much in the style of Sand County Almanac. -- Kathy Knotts * Bay Weekly * Written in exquisite prose, Nature's Calendar: A Year in the Life of a Willife Sanctuary is a year-long ramble through southern Arundal County's Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary. Colin Rees entwines the delight of an explorer, the awareness of a lifelong naturalist, the scope of an historian, and the insight of a professional conservationist . . . Any nature enthusiast will appreciate the care and breadth of this book-its celebration of Jug Bay's exceptional wildlife, the esteem of its custodians and students, and an unflinching look at threats to its integrity, including climate change, invasive species, and human activity. Nature's Calendar will surprise, educate, and inspire. It's a book to be savored, studied and re-read. -- Barbara Johnson * Outlook by the Bay * Rees captures, in painterly prose, an entire year of nature in all of its changing beauty, fragility, brutality, and complexity . . . Filled as it is with a lifetime of knowledge and skilled observation, we can still hear in Rees's writing the infectious wonder of a young boy in Wales who fell in love with birds and went on to devote his life to the natural world. Readers should need no further convincing to go vicariously with him on this meditative yearlong excursion. -- Lucie Lehmann * Wilson Journal of Ornithology *

Author Information

A former global biodiversity specialist with the World Bank and faculty member in the Zoology Department at the University of Maryland, lifelong birder and environmentalist Colin Rees is the steering committee chair of the Maryland Bird Conservation Partnership.

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