Naturally Curious Day by Day: A Photographic Field Guide and Daily Visit to the Forests, Fields, and Wetlands of Eastern North America

by Mary Holland

This follow-up to Naturally Curious, a National Outdoor Book Award winner, is a day-by-day account of nature observations throughout the year. Daily entries include entertaining and enlightening observations about specific animal or plant activity happening in eastern North America on that date.

Set up as a naturalist's journal, entries describe in detail sightings and events in the natural world and are accompanied by stunning color photographs of birds, animals, insects, plants, and more.
Essays throughout describe specific events in nature happening during each month, while sidebars supply natural history facts and information pertinent to the topics of the month or the time of year.

Genres: Nature

456 pages, Paperback

Published November 7, 2016

About the author

Mary Holland, naturalist, wildlife photographer, columnist, and author, resides in Hartland, Vermont. Marys work in environmental education has included directing the state-wide Environmental Learning for the Future (ELF) program for the Vermont Institute of Natural Science, being a resource naturalist for the Massachusetts Audubon Society, designing and presenting Knee-high Nature Programs for libraries and elementary schools throughout Vermont, and compiling Vermonts Rare Bird Alert for the Vermont Center for Ecostudies. In addition to writing a natural history newspaper column and magazine articles, Mary has written and photographed a childrens book, Milkweed Visitors, which introduces young and old alike to the insects that visit a milkweed patch. "

Reviews

[John Isles · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful guide to wildlife that can be seen every day of the year, with accounts of the life stories behind it, and illustrated by hundreds of color photographs. The main focus is on New England, but most of what's described is also found where we live in the Midwest. There's interesting reading here even for those days when the weather or the mosquitoes keep you indoors!

[Erica · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an outstanding book that will appeal to a wide range of readers. If you are a reader with little knowledge of the natural world--but are eager to learn about it--the little tidbits offered in this book will open up a whole new world. Not only will you learn many amazing facts about a huge range of plants and animals--spiders, squirrels, bees, hawks, moths, chickadees, turtles, birch trees, etc., etc., but you will also find yourself growing more fascinated with the natural world every single day. Inevitably, you will want to learn more and more.

The fact that the entries are arranged by date is what truly makes this book exceptional. You can read about an animal or plant, knowing that you may walk out the door and see exactly the phenomenon described--if not today, then perhaps tomorrow or next week--because you are in the appropriate season. All of the entries are easy reading for a layperson, and most are only 1-2 paragraphs long. All are accompanied by exceptionally clear, close-up photos. No matter how busy, tired, or preoccupied you are, you won't be able to resist skimming through the photos, and undoubtedly, you will find that you get caught up in the reading, our of sheer curiosity.

If you are truly a nature geek or a treehugger with a fair knowledge of the natural world, you will still be fascinated. There is plenty here to satisfy even the most esoteric tastes: earwigs mating, summer moose scat, spiders molting exoskeletons. Don't miss out on this delightful book, and be sure to share it with your children, grandchildren and/or students!

[Anna Nesterovich · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do wish I found this book while I lived for example in Iowa, and not in Florida like I do now. Day to day adventures would have been so much more relevant. Unfortunately, I was reading about seasonal changes in a place without seasons. Nevertheless, there were tons of little tidbits I gleaned from this book and it kept me entertained for over a year (I wasn't always keeping up to date with the entries).

[John Mulholland · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a lot of information in this book but not enough on any one topic to make it useful.