Wild Moments

Rating:
Summary: Wild Diamond Prose
Review: 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 . . .

Rating:
Summary: thank you, ted
Review: Ted Williams eloquently describes everything that we love as well as that which we take for granted in the natural world. This book serves as both a reference guide and a collection of daily affirmations that remind us of our exquisite relationship with nature. Thank you, Ted Williams for capturing these wild moments, and for inspiring me to get out and see them for myself.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and Upliftng
Review: 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."