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Winter and Summer Worlds #2
Summer World: A Season of Bounty – Animal Migration, Plant Survival, and the Complex Interactions of Nature on a Warming Earth
How can cicadas survive—and thrive—at temperatures pushing 115°F? Do hummingbirds know what they're up against before they migrate over the Gulf of Mexico? Why do some trees stop growing taller even when three months of warm weather remain? With awe and unmatched expertise, Bernd Heinrich's Summer World never stops exploring the beautifully complex interactions of animals and plants with nature, giving extraordinary depth to the relationships between habitat and the warming of the earth.
304 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2009
About the author
Bernd Heinrich
64 books706 followersBernd Heinrich was born in Germany and moved to Wilton, Maine as a child. He studied at the University of Maine and UCLA and is Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University of Vermont.
He is the author of many books including Winter World, Ravens in Winter, Mind of the Raven, and Why We Run. Many of his books focus on the natural world just outside the cabin door.
Heinrich has won numerous awards for his writing and is a world class ultra-marathon runner.
He spends much of the year at a rustic cabin that he built himself in the woods near Weld, Maine.
He is the author of many books including Winter World, Ravens in Winter, Mind of the Raven, and Why We Run. Many of his books focus on the natural world just outside the cabin door.
Heinrich has won numerous awards for his writing and is a world class ultra-marathon runner.
He spends much of the year at a rustic cabin that he built himself in the woods near Weld, Maine.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 151 reviews
July 19, 2020
Summer is quite similar to Heinrichs´ book about winter https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
and I want to especially mention the amazing language and love for nature that´s filling each page of this magnificent work. As it´s often the case with the lucky ones who have made their passion their profession, it´s not just the detailed description of the research, but the epic language and poetic choosing of the right words to describe all those impressions.
In comparison to his book winter world, there is so much to explore, so much we don´t know, just bits of information of certain animals of some climates. What there´s going on in all habitats, climate zones, and especially in the thresholds and borderlines, where the climates and species change, interact, and interbreed, would be a lifelong voyage of discovery for million of biologists. Not even to talk about detailed exploring of one animal group, just all the interconnections, symbiosis, and ecosystems around there.
Personally, I would prefer the summer trip, but I would possibly have no more time for reading and writing as during winter, because I could stay observing at night too and get, again and as so often, far too less sleep. Another fact is, that instead of the starvation, hunger, and shortage of winter, summer is filled with love, joy, and happiness (for alpha predators animals). And survival of the fittest, brutal selection, deadly territorial disputes and mating battles,...
Anecdote time, there is one big problem with summer. No matter if lying in a beach chair or, personal favorite, going out in wild nature to hang a hammock between two trees, preferable somewhere with a great panorama onto the mountains or next to a small creek, the problems start immediately. Instead of being able to read hundreds of pages in one sitting, the amazing environments makes one distracted, one watches birds, insects, clouds, and worst of all, an evil little seductive voice wants one to go on a hike, swimming, explore the woods apart the paths, follow riverbeds, collect whatever one finds, fruits, berries, mushrooms possibly even as food, treasures, etc.. Damn nature with its fauna and flora and epic moments.
A compromise can be audiobooks, podcasts, or, if there really is no other option, conversations with humans while exploring the wonders of nature.
A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real life outside books:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernd_H...
and I want to especially mention the amazing language and love for nature that´s filling each page of this magnificent work. As it´s often the case with the lucky ones who have made their passion their profession, it´s not just the detailed description of the research, but the epic language and poetic choosing of the right words to describe all those impressions.
In comparison to his book winter world, there is so much to explore, so much we don´t know, just bits of information of certain animals of some climates. What there´s going on in all habitats, climate zones, and especially in the thresholds and borderlines, where the climates and species change, interact, and interbreed, would be a lifelong voyage of discovery for million of biologists. Not even to talk about detailed exploring of one animal group, just all the interconnections, symbiosis, and ecosystems around there.
Personally, I would prefer the summer trip, but I would possibly have no more time for reading and writing as during winter, because I could stay observing at night too and get, again and as so often, far too less sleep. Another fact is, that instead of the starvation, hunger, and shortage of winter, summer is filled with love, joy, and happiness (for alpha predators animals). And survival of the fittest, brutal selection, deadly territorial disputes and mating battles,...
Anecdote time, there is one big problem with summer. No matter if lying in a beach chair or, personal favorite, going out in wild nature to hang a hammock between two trees, preferable somewhere with a great panorama onto the mountains or next to a small creek, the problems start immediately. Instead of being able to read hundreds of pages in one sitting, the amazing environments makes one distracted, one watches birds, insects, clouds, and worst of all, an evil little seductive voice wants one to go on a hike, swimming, explore the woods apart the paths, follow riverbeds, collect whatever one finds, fruits, berries, mushrooms possibly even as food, treasures, etc.. Damn nature with its fauna and flora and epic moments.
A compromise can be audiobooks, podcasts, or, if there really is no other option, conversations with humans while exploring the wonders of nature.
A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real life outside books:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernd_H...
April 21, 2026
I quite liked this fresh take on the warmest season.
"The world right now seems dead, but some birds are already stirring...they hop where the snow has melted..."
From the very moment the frost dies away, the world is awakening.
This lovely little book teaches about nature - from the bugs to the birds, and everything in between.
"Summer is a time of green, urgency, and lots of love lost and found."
In particular, I loved all the science behind the season.
Heinrich didn't just list facts, he also went into scientific studies and observations to understand how and why things happened the way they did in the summer.
"Both the flowering and the leafing out determine the insect populations, which in turn make the summer world possible for the majority of birds and most mammals."
I did listen to the audiobook, and after a bit things did get a little samey but I think that's just cause without pictures, it got a little difficult to hold all those facts in my head.
But as a whole, I was quite pleased with this book - I felt like I learned so much and I cannot wait to pick up other books by this author.
And would you look at that, summer is right around the corner!
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May 13, 2015
I enjoyed this book a great deal for the gentle rhythm of observing nature through the summer months and the insights which at some points were hilarious.
Take wood frogs. The problem was to work out why the lads all make such a hell of a racket and then when not as many girls turn up they jump on the ones that do. Why didn't just one call and see if he could attract a single mate?
The answer is that one frog could make a sound that would carry (say) a mile around him but female frogs are not common and just one might have heard him and might have decided to visit him, or might not. But if ten frogs call the area is expanded a hundredfold and many more female frogs might hear the call and as they are more attracted to what seems like a party rather than one single male, they are much more likely to go. So the male frogs think that they have a better chance of scoring if they give a party than if they just howl out on their lonesome.
Seems that frat boys work exactly the same way. Girls walking past places that look like they might have a party are much more attracted to the one where there is loud music rather than the one that sounds 'dead'. Not sophisticated behaviour at all by these university lads but an inheritance from their reptile brains.
I love evolutionary biology because it reveals such points as this - when we think we know it all, turns out we have no idea....
Take wood frogs. The problem was to work out why the lads all make such a hell of a racket and then when not as many girls turn up they jump on the ones that do. Why didn't just one call and see if he could attract a single mate?
The answer is that one frog could make a sound that would carry (say) a mile around him but female frogs are not common and just one might have heard him and might have decided to visit him, or might not. But if ten frogs call the area is expanded a hundredfold and many more female frogs might hear the call and as they are more attracted to what seems like a party rather than one single male, they are much more likely to go. So the male frogs think that they have a better chance of scoring if they give a party than if they just howl out on their lonesome.
Seems that frat boys work exactly the same way. Girls walking past places that look like they might have a party are much more attracted to the one where there is loud music rather than the one that sounds 'dead'. Not sophisticated behaviour at all by these university lads but an inheritance from their reptile brains.
I love evolutionary biology because it reveals such points as this - when we think we know it all, turns out we have no idea....
February 14, 2016
Quite the satisfying read to take on in the dormancy of winter. It wasn’t quite as pleasurable as reading the author’s “Winter World” in the summer. That’s because the latter was so cohesive around the mission of survival while this one is full of essays and adventures that are so diverse in topic. In these Maine woods, fields, and bogs I am so familiar with, living creatures are very busy with reproduction, feeding, keeping from being eaten, and preparing for winter. Heinrich, in his retirement from being a biology professor at the University of Vermont, engages the reader to hang out with him at his cabin and join with him in his pursuit of resolving little mysteries in the web of life in his environment. As a result he heightens our capacity of be more observant about life around us that we typically ignore and imparts some of his sense of wonder about the ingenious strategies that creatures and plants engage in that helps make them winners in the long evolution of organisms on our planet.
He starts with the events of spring we are all familiar with, the early leafing and flowering of plants, the first notable insects, the first songbirds, and the peeping of frogs. He shares his emotions about these discoveries as a triumph over the death clutch of winter, but soon he gets you wondering about why and how the sequence of unfolding of these events is so regular. I wasn’t aware that the flower and leaf buds that open were already fully formed in the prior summer. That trees that flower before leafing are pollinated by wind, which works more efficiently without the leaves; those that leaf later are holding off for the bees or moths to be ready to do that work. Getting an early jump of leafing can be quite advantageous in the competitive race toward the light, but the risks involved are evident when he engages his reader to look with him how a wet snowfall has brought down trees and branches only among the species whose early leafing holds on to the snow and ice.
The same kind of risk and reward applies to the timing of arrival of migratory birds. Getting an early start on mating, nesting, and rearing of babies can put a particular species ahead of the game in reproductive success, but if they arrive too soon for this business the food supply of insects or plants may not be sufficient. Have you ever wondered what robins eat when they arrive while the ground is still frozen? Like Heinrich I have noticed the arrival of hummingbirds in New England before there is an obvious source of flowers with pollen for them to eat. I just assumed they made a mistake in their amazing long journey from Central America. Heinrich solved the mystery from his attention to the feeding strategy of a sapsucker (a form of woodpecker), which in early spring makes openings in the trunk of sugar maples. The seeping sap turns out to be a time-limited food source for a variety of animals, including hummingbirds and bees.
These examples from the book may not be exciting enough to satisfy other readers. Maybe his weird and wonderful life stories of certain insects will do the trick. When I was a kid, I whiled away my summers reading about and observing ants and wasps. I think I collected about 30 kinds of wasps and was enraptured by J. Henri Fabre’s book “The Hunting Wasps”. Many of them, like the mud daubers, paralyze caterpillars, lay their eggs in them, and store them in their nests where the larva have live food ready when they hatch—creepy, but amazing. Heinrich explores some of this. The caterpillar bonanza for predation by birds and bugs is countered by disguises and fascinating behavioral strategies of caterpillars to evade getting eaten. For example, certain ones go to the trouble of gnawing off leaves they have eaten so birds don’t notice their feeding spot. This Heinrich worked out just starting from noticing the leaf remnants at his feet.
As another case of persistent sleuthing, out his back door he discovers a slave raid by a black ant species on a red one; later he notices red ones carrying black ants and larvae, which made no sense until he kept paying attention enough to make a theory (I refrain from spoiling that solution). Sometimes he does a little experiment of sorts that can be humorous. Such when he notice how a bird incorporates paper from old hornet nests as material in its own nest and gets stung trying to get hornet nest paper to see if the bird seeks out the material to avert predators afraid of hornets.
This book makes me hungry to read more of his work to tap into his easy doorway into simple wonderment over nature’s surprises. Besides “Winter World” I long ago appreciated his books on owls and on ravens. I agree with a book blurb from a review from the LA Times:
Bernd Heinrich is one of our greatest living naturalists in the tradition of Gerald Durrell; he’s John Muir (without the wandering), Edward Abbey (without the politics), Jacque Cousteau (without the ocean), Ernest Seton (without the talking animals). Heinrich, author of fifteen marvelous, mind-altering books … is a national treasure.
He starts with the events of spring we are all familiar with, the early leafing and flowering of plants, the first notable insects, the first songbirds, and the peeping of frogs. He shares his emotions about these discoveries as a triumph over the death clutch of winter, but soon he gets you wondering about why and how the sequence of unfolding of these events is so regular. I wasn’t aware that the flower and leaf buds that open were already fully formed in the prior summer. That trees that flower before leafing are pollinated by wind, which works more efficiently without the leaves; those that leaf later are holding off for the bees or moths to be ready to do that work. Getting an early jump of leafing can be quite advantageous in the competitive race toward the light, but the risks involved are evident when he engages his reader to look with him how a wet snowfall has brought down trees and branches only among the species whose early leafing holds on to the snow and ice.
The same kind of risk and reward applies to the timing of arrival of migratory birds. Getting an early start on mating, nesting, and rearing of babies can put a particular species ahead of the game in reproductive success, but if they arrive too soon for this business the food supply of insects or plants may not be sufficient. Have you ever wondered what robins eat when they arrive while the ground is still frozen? Like Heinrich I have noticed the arrival of hummingbirds in New England before there is an obvious source of flowers with pollen for them to eat. I just assumed they made a mistake in their amazing long journey from Central America. Heinrich solved the mystery from his attention to the feeding strategy of a sapsucker (a form of woodpecker), which in early spring makes openings in the trunk of sugar maples. The seeping sap turns out to be a time-limited food source for a variety of animals, including hummingbirds and bees.
These examples from the book may not be exciting enough to satisfy other readers. Maybe his weird and wonderful life stories of certain insects will do the trick. When I was a kid, I whiled away my summers reading about and observing ants and wasps. I think I collected about 30 kinds of wasps and was enraptured by J. Henri Fabre’s book “The Hunting Wasps”. Many of them, like the mud daubers, paralyze caterpillars, lay their eggs in them, and store them in their nests where the larva have live food ready when they hatch—creepy, but amazing. Heinrich explores some of this. The caterpillar bonanza for predation by birds and bugs is countered by disguises and fascinating behavioral strategies of caterpillars to evade getting eaten. For example, certain ones go to the trouble of gnawing off leaves they have eaten so birds don’t notice their feeding spot. This Heinrich worked out just starting from noticing the leaf remnants at his feet.
As another case of persistent sleuthing, out his back door he discovers a slave raid by a black ant species on a red one; later he notices red ones carrying black ants and larvae, which made no sense until he kept paying attention enough to make a theory (I refrain from spoiling that solution). Sometimes he does a little experiment of sorts that can be humorous. Such when he notice how a bird incorporates paper from old hornet nests as material in its own nest and gets stung trying to get hornet nest paper to see if the bird seeks out the material to avert predators afraid of hornets.
This book makes me hungry to read more of his work to tap into his easy doorway into simple wonderment over nature’s surprises. Besides “Winter World” I long ago appreciated his books on owls and on ravens. I agree with a book blurb from a review from the LA Times:
Bernd Heinrich is one of our greatest living naturalists in the tradition of Gerald Durrell; he’s John Muir (without the wandering), Edward Abbey (without the politics), Jacque Cousteau (without the ocean), Ernest Seton (without the talking animals). Heinrich, author of fifteen marvelous, mind-altering books … is a national treasure.
November 10, 2013
When the rat-race overwhelms I go for a Heinrich hit, take a visit to his cabin for some downtime. A professor of biology it’s not light fare but he’s got such an approachable style. “Aside from walking around aimlessly and gawking, I have spent the last three mornings comfortably perched on a solid branch of a pine tree growing at the edge of our bog. At dawn, an hour before the sun’s glare bleeds the colors; it’s a study in pastels”
I too am an aimless gawker - how I get anything accomplished when gardening is a mystery - waste hours in a distracted daze so my favorite chapter was on Ant Wars. “There is a solution that beats a lawn chair, or a television set with 100 channels by a mile: watching ants and other critters” Hey, instead of feeling guilty now I'll imagine him applauding:)
I’ve heard complaints that it’s disjointed, reads more like a series of essays. Fair enough but I have him pegged as the absent minded professor type, figure he’s just staying in character. So try this if you’re curious about why leaves change colour, why trees grow upwards & bushes outwards. If you like knowing stuff like migrating hummingbirds cross The Gulf of Mexico, 520 miles of open water at 30 miles an hour, a nonstop flight of 17 hours! Or why nature sometimes throws all the rules out the window with spring flowers blooming in fall and birds nesting when they should be migrating. “Mistakes or imperfections provide variety for natural selection to work on, to permit evolution. There is even a mechanism whose only “purpose” is to produce variation. It’s called sex.”
Cons: More personal preference than a negative this book’s main focus is on BUGS. I prefer mammals and birds so got more pleasure from “Winter World”, my review if you're the same.“https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...” And the chapter on Wood Frogs? Talk about a disgusting sex life. The males put a death-lock on the nearest available female and all pile on. He describes finding a ball of fifteen with one poor girl dead in the centre…
3 ½ stars rounded to 3
I too am an aimless gawker - how I get anything accomplished when gardening is a mystery - waste hours in a distracted daze so my favorite chapter was on Ant Wars. “There is a solution that beats a lawn chair, or a television set with 100 channels by a mile: watching ants and other critters” Hey, instead of feeling guilty now I'll imagine him applauding:)
I’ve heard complaints that it’s disjointed, reads more like a series of essays. Fair enough but I have him pegged as the absent minded professor type, figure he’s just staying in character. So try this if you’re curious about why leaves change colour, why trees grow upwards & bushes outwards. If you like knowing stuff like migrating hummingbirds cross The Gulf of Mexico, 520 miles of open water at 30 miles an hour, a nonstop flight of 17 hours! Or why nature sometimes throws all the rules out the window with spring flowers blooming in fall and birds nesting when they should be migrating. “Mistakes or imperfections provide variety for natural selection to work on, to permit evolution. There is even a mechanism whose only “purpose” is to produce variation. It’s called sex.”
Cons: More personal preference than a negative this book’s main focus is on BUGS. I prefer mammals and birds so got more pleasure from “Winter World”, my review if you're the same.“https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...” And the chapter on Wood Frogs? Talk about a disgusting sex life. The males put a death-lock on the nearest available female and all pile on. He describes finding a ball of fifteen with one poor girl dead in the centre…
3 ½ stars rounded to 3
May 13, 2015
Long ago, when I was shorter and much more innocent, my dad's aunt Elsie used to take me gently by the hand and lead me around her garden. She would point out all manner of bugs and plants, carefully explaining the names of each, and impressing me, not only with her knowledge, but her respect and reverence for nature.
The author of this book is obviously a kindred spirit to Miss Elsie. He patiently examines the birds and the bees, the mud daubers and the trees. Caterpillars and moths, beetles and bald faced hornets all crawl and wing their way through the pages - eating, mating, laying eggs and ultimately, preparing for death.
Anyone who loves nature and all its wonders, even the much maligned black fly, should enjoy and learn from this book.
The author of this book is obviously a kindred spirit to Miss Elsie. He patiently examines the birds and the bees, the mud daubers and the trees. Caterpillars and moths, beetles and bald faced hornets all crawl and wing their way through the pages - eating, mating, laying eggs and ultimately, preparing for death.
Anyone who loves nature and all its wonders, even the much maligned black fly, should enjoy and learn from this book.
June 13, 2025
Книжка восхитительная. О том, что окружает автора, как он за этим наблюдает, какие выводы делает. Она не слишком сложная, не перегружает терминами. Специфическая в контексте обсуждаемых растений, животных и насекомых - у нас по соседству таких не найти :) С очень милыми и понятными рисунками. Очень летняя. Немного про грусть - не могла не поймать себя на мысли - а с глобальным потеплением, увидим ли мы все еще этих чудесных насекомых? (книга была написана в начале 2000ых). Немного про жестокость флоры и фауны - к себе, и к другим участникам. Про баланс и взаимосвязанность всего и везде. Читать это поздней весной было категорически приятно.
January 8, 2020
Bernd Heinrich is among my favorite writers. In this book he looks at the animals and plants around us and speculates and does simple experiments about how they live in a temperate world as the seasons change to the bounteous months of summer. He also includes observations about frogs and birds and Elderberry bushes in his yard, and their strange characteristics that make them perfect survivors both in the season and in the micro-environment that is their home.
I love this book and recommend it to everyone who has a bit of time to look at the lives of our "neighbors" that share a yard with us.
I love this book and recommend it to everyone who has a bit of time to look at the lives of our "neighbors" that share a yard with us.
April 16, 2017
Audiobook version. I listened to this book to help me go to sleep, or go back to sleep when I woke up in the night, but that's not an insult. The book is amazingly interesting, with the author detailing facts and observations about nature in the summertime. It was soothing to listen to, and it made me realize how disconnected I am from the earth when I sit in an office all day and my house all night. So much to observe that I don't see. Gives me a greater appreciation for the natural world. Very enjoyable book!
April 13, 2019
50th book for 2019.
In this book Heinrich (mostly) takes a close look at life between the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes in his own neck of the woods in Maine.
I didn't really like the structure of the book every much. There isn't much of a systematic feel for the material he presents. Mostly we learn about insects—lots and lots of chapters on insects—because that's what Heinrich likes, but there is also a some stuff on birds (because he likes birds), and then a teeny-tiny bit on animals (because he's not that into them I guess). He also has a chapter on deserts and equator, presumably for completeness, but this jars as most of the material based around his cabin in Maine.
I read his earlier book Winter World some years ago an remember liking it more. This feels like a publisher encouraged follow-up after the success of the former book.
Still an interesting book, but just not as good as some of his best ones.
3-stars.
In this book Heinrich (mostly) takes a close look at life between the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes in his own neck of the woods in Maine.
I didn't really like the structure of the book every much. There isn't much of a systematic feel for the material he presents. Mostly we learn about insects—lots and lots of chapters on insects—because that's what Heinrich likes, but there is also a some stuff on birds (because he likes birds), and then a teeny-tiny bit on animals (because he's not that into them I guess). He also has a chapter on deserts and equator, presumably for completeness, but this jars as most of the material based around his cabin in Maine.
I read his earlier book Winter World some years ago an remember liking it more. This feels like a publisher encouraged follow-up after the success of the former book.
Still an interesting book, but just not as good as some of his best ones.
3-stars.
August 18, 2016
Heinrich is one of my favorite nature writers, and I have read quite a few of his books. A great book to enjoy in the summer when birds are nesting, dragonflies are eating mosquitoes, caterpillars are eating leaves, ... He's so observant and a scientist. Did I say a skilled and interesting writer too? I live on 200 acres in the Columbia River Basin in Oregon, and Heinrich's observations and experiments make me notice new things about the creatures living on our property. Perhaps one of the reasons Heinrich is so special is because he is a generalist. He writes about ravens, phoebes, beatles, dragonflies, trees, and so much more. Highly recommended . p.s. you even get some philosophy reading his works -- just enough to get you thinking deeply as you go on your walk-a-bouts. :)
June 21, 2013
There were a few chapters toward the beginning that seemed a little slow, but on the whole, a fun book. I read this aloud to my son, one or two chapters a day over several weeks, as part of our ongoing natural history and science literacy readings. I enjoyed the lovely glimpse into the mind of a scientist — endearing and funny and relentlessly curious. There are a few phrases and words ("proximal," and its variations, for instance, which he uses two or three times in nearly every chapter) that have already become part of our family vocabulary. A good book for sharing.
March 29, 2017
This is a great informal tome on natural history (emphasis on New England wildlife, but mentions interesting trivia tidbits from around the world). I bet that even an experienced naturalist would learn something from it, and a novice would learn tons. It's a companion to his better-known book Winter World but can easily stand alone.
September 20, 2022
As in Winter World, Bernd Heinrich conducts experiments with nature mostly just in his backyard in Vermont. Even though what he finds out is fascinating, his experiments generally disregard the welfare of the individual in favor of gaining knowledge. For example, he might take a camouflaged caterpillar from its native shrub and place it in a shrub where it is not camouflaged and see how long it takes a predator to find it and eat it. Or he might take a red ant and put it in a black ant nest and record what happens. And he talks about it as a detached scientist without any qualms.
January 15, 2021
This is my third Bernd Heinrich book, and I feel like the key to getting the most out of his words is to let them soak in gradually, over time and when you need to fall asleep or are out working in the garden. It's currently 10 degrees and the ground covered in feet of snow, so I let the summer world hit me over weeks on the precipice of sleep (via audible).
I will always be this author's fan. He passionate, thoughtful and so observant it makes me feel like I have my hand over my eyes every time I step outside. I wish there were more people like him in this world, we'd certainly see a lot more of it if there were.
I will always be this author's fan. He passionate, thoughtful and so observant it makes me feel like I have my hand over my eyes every time I step outside. I wish there were more people like him in this world, we'd certainly see a lot more of it if there were.
July 22, 2021
This insightful naturalist observes the hidden wonders of the world, taking the mundane ant or moth and turns it into a thing of interest and beauty. The summer in Maine is short and those animals and trees that call it home start preparing well before summer starts and it all get explained in detail in such a way that keeps you intrigued and turning pages.
September 23, 2023
Borrow.
Whether you love nature, are hoping to get back into touch with it, or have maintained the curious inquisitive eye of a child, Heinrich could be for you.
I think this is something I will return to and only fully appreciate once retired and sitting on my back deck.
Whether you love nature, are hoping to get back into touch with it, or have maintained the curious inquisitive eye of a child, Heinrich could be for you.
I think this is something I will return to and only fully appreciate once retired and sitting on my back deck.
May 23, 2019
I was given this by a visiting friend who heard him speak. What a delight that must have been had he spoken at all as he writes. The reading of this book was so thoughtful and calmly meditative and while I generally am not fascinated by ants or caterpillars, the reading of his thoughts and theories about them was enthralling. His descriptions of bird and animal life were vivid and delicate and I loved the pace of his thoughts. I remember reading reviews for Mind of a Raven and hope to read that at some point in the future. His descriptions of birds are beautiful.
I love his drawings and his eye for the world around him.
Simply lovely.
I love his drawings and his eye for the world around him.
Simply lovely.
August 21, 2021
I wasn't expecting the level of philosophical pondering that Heinrich reaches in this, and it was fantastic combined with the analytical approach to the interactions of nature. His late-book meditations on death and humans as a "perpetual summer species" at first feel sudden, but then you see hints of it in all of the book you had read up to that point. What I really like about Summer World is that it focuses on nature at a small scale, the biggest non-human animals (other than trees, if you want to get weird) that the book really covers are birds, and the book is predominantly about insects. These small and often unobserved creatures end up being rich in behavioral depth, and reading about the "evolutionary arms races" that they undergo, as well as the mysteries yet unsolved, is great. Personal favorite chapter is the wood frogs.
May 30, 2021
This book focuses mostly on entomology (specifically wasps, caterpillars, beetles and ants), which isn't my favourite field, but I still found it fascinating. It also explores the sex lives of wood frogs in more detail than I ever thought I needed, and the lives of small birds, with phoebes as the star. Of course, trees also play a big part, but it ultimately comes down to whatever is interacting with the insects. I was hoping to learn a little more about mammals than I did, but maybe Winter World will focus more on them.
July 6, 2021
I was disappointed by this book. There were some very interesting parts but the through line of Summer was not a strong enough link to make the book cohesive or provide a good flow. And there are strong elements of the traditional white environmentalist movement, especially in the political asides of the author.
The author blames human disconnection from the natural world for our environmental troubles, but then tells stories reinforcing his way of being in the environment as the one right way. He complains about new houses in his neighborhood all while constantly talking about his two homes. There is a self awareness lacking especially in the stories and asides. The actual science is interesting.
The author blames human disconnection from the natural world for our environmental troubles, but then tells stories reinforcing his way of being in the environment as the one right way. He complains about new houses in his neighborhood all while constantly talking about his two homes. There is a self awareness lacking especially in the stories and asides. The actual science is interesting.
August 22, 2024
5 stars!!! Love love love this book!! Love nature and the observations about the world around us and how even as time passes the world and nature moves on and grows! I thoroughly enjoyed the illustrations!
December 9, 2021
More on the new England woods. I read winter world years ago and was quite impressed. Summer world is as fascinating as well looking into the details of the woods of New England.
March 7, 2020
I just read Winter World last week and feel pretty much the same way about this one as I did about that one. It has a lot of interesting observations on birds, insects and plants but there are some goofy ideas that are really hard for me to ignore. First off, I think my biggest problem with this guy is the way he experiments on animals. There's not really anything terribly inhumane about what he does but I still feel like curiosity isn't enough to justify this stuff. It's not like the survival of our species depends on knowing all this, and it shouldn't even be needed to sustainably steward our ecosystems if that's the excuse. Even worse, in a lot of cases these are things other scientists have already figured out anyway, as he admits himself a couple times. Every now and then he also throws in some weird theory or random thought that I disagreed with. He takes a very unscientific stance on the existence of free will, says Neanderthals didn't interbreed with Homo Sapiens (not only does everyone know this is wrong now but I'm pretty sure scientists already found Neanderthal DNA in modern humans at the time this book was written), and even tries to make the case that Neanderthals were as furry as bears and possibly hibernated in caves, which seems completely ridiculous to me.
He also hits on one of my biggest pet peeves when he talks about the problems modern humans are facing and how we should deal with them. He is at least on "the right side" by caring about the damage we're doing to the environment but he says it's impossible to go back to simpler lifestyles. His view is that we just need to decrease human population and everything else can stay pretty much the same. I don't see it that way at all. My view is that the infrastructure needed to produce even a single car, airplane, cell-phone or MRI machine is already unsustainable. Remember, it takes a lot to build this crap. You can't just focus on individual materials within a certain machine. You have to think about what it takes to bring all those materials together, which means mines, factories, roads, power lines, communication networks, science labs, militaries, entire forests converted to books so people can even keep this knowledge... You also have to consider whether we can still do this without the economies of scale that come from billions of people demanding these gadgets. When human population drops below a certain point, the things that are affordable now will cost so much more that no one will be able to afford them anymore and therefore they won't be able to justify producing them anyway. Sorry, I just don't see that working. The idea that there isn't enough land for us to live simply makes absolutely no sense. Simpler lifestyles use LESS resources per person than modern lifestyles, and they cause way less damage to surrounding wilderness. If we're producing enough to feed ourselves now, with way less efficient farming techniques (per acre of land, not per hour of labor), and more wasteful distribution (half of what's produced ends up thrown out), as well as building all this other stuff that we wouldn't need, then why couldn't people produce at least as much food as we do now if they spread out and grew it themselves? I would like to see human population decrease too but the argument that that's all we need is kind of backwards. Population isn't as big of a problem as lifestyle is. It really pisses me off how so many people can still be ignoring that.
He also hits on one of my biggest pet peeves when he talks about the problems modern humans are facing and how we should deal with them. He is at least on "the right side" by caring about the damage we're doing to the environment but he says it's impossible to go back to simpler lifestyles. His view is that we just need to decrease human population and everything else can stay pretty much the same. I don't see it that way at all. My view is that the infrastructure needed to produce even a single car, airplane, cell-phone or MRI machine is already unsustainable. Remember, it takes a lot to build this crap. You can't just focus on individual materials within a certain machine. You have to think about what it takes to bring all those materials together, which means mines, factories, roads, power lines, communication networks, science labs, militaries, entire forests converted to books so people can even keep this knowledge... You also have to consider whether we can still do this without the economies of scale that come from billions of people demanding these gadgets. When human population drops below a certain point, the things that are affordable now will cost so much more that no one will be able to afford them anymore and therefore they won't be able to justify producing them anyway. Sorry, I just don't see that working. The idea that there isn't enough land for us to live simply makes absolutely no sense. Simpler lifestyles use LESS resources per person than modern lifestyles, and they cause way less damage to surrounding wilderness. If we're producing enough to feed ourselves now, with way less efficient farming techniques (per acre of land, not per hour of labor), and more wasteful distribution (half of what's produced ends up thrown out), as well as building all this other stuff that we wouldn't need, then why couldn't people produce at least as much food as we do now if they spread out and grew it themselves? I would like to see human population decrease too but the argument that that's all we need is kind of backwards. Population isn't as big of a problem as lifestyle is. It really pisses me off how so many people can still be ignoring that.
January 12, 2011
I need Bernd Heinrich in my backyard. My quarter acre lot in the middle of Midwestern suburbia features a few oak trees, a maple tree and several large perennial gardens. All summer long - other than pulling a handful of weeds, squishing a few slugs and drowning scores of Japanese beetles - I pretty much let Mother Nature have her way with the place. As a result, the yard is often teeming with various critters. While there's typically a hoard of the usual suspects, like rabbits, crows and mosquitoes; there are also plenty of more enigmatic creatures, like moths, bumblebees, spiders and ants - dozens of different kinds - about which I know very little. I think Bernd could be the guy to explain all the mysterious details for me.
In Summer World, he does just that, describing the various natural wonders he encounters during summers on his two rural and isolated properties in the woods of Vermont and Maine. Unlike anyone I've ever read, Heinrich is an improvisational scientist extraordinaire. Plop him down anywhere in the natural world and within five minutes he'll have found some fascinating detail and designed some sort of complicated experiment to understand it better. One day he's puzzled when he spots red ants carrying seemingly cooperative black ants of another species across the forest floor. Within minutes he's digging up ant colonies and meticulously counting black and red ants to try and make sense of their unusual cooperative behavior. His subsequent data collection goes on for years.
You can read the rest of my review at Summer World.
In Summer World, he does just that, describing the various natural wonders he encounters during summers on his two rural and isolated properties in the woods of Vermont and Maine. Unlike anyone I've ever read, Heinrich is an improvisational scientist extraordinaire. Plop him down anywhere in the natural world and within five minutes he'll have found some fascinating detail and designed some sort of complicated experiment to understand it better. One day he's puzzled when he spots red ants carrying seemingly cooperative black ants of another species across the forest floor. Within minutes he's digging up ant colonies and meticulously counting black and red ants to try and make sense of their unusual cooperative behavior. His subsequent data collection goes on for years.
You can read the rest of my review at Summer World.
June 24, 2018
What I love about Heinrich's books is being able to follow his experiments on the animals and plants that surround his Vermont home and Maine cabin. He is able to share his questions about why things behave as they do and then to share his experiments (some that take years to bear answers), documenting his observations and the effort that he puts into making those observations. He brings to the reader a deeper understanding (and awe) of the world around us.
But what makes this book so important is that he is now exploring broader theses about humanity, its origins and its future. Here he posits that we are a species that desires perpetual summer and are creating that environment for ourselves at the cost to the species around us, many of which that we depend upon. Heirrich's book "Winter World" was about evolution and adaptation to the cold of winter, "Summer World" is about adapation and evolution, and it contrasts the species around us with humanity itself.
The profession of "Natural Philosopher" has been supplanted by Scientist, but Heinrich harkens back to Darwin in a way that few scientist/writers do. I think of Stephen Gould and Jared Diamond and E. O. Wilson, but their writing is more speculative than Heinrich's. Heinrich stays a Naturalist and shares his perspective on the world that we all share.
But what makes this book so important is that he is now exploring broader theses about humanity, its origins and its future. Here he posits that we are a species that desires perpetual summer and are creating that environment for ourselves at the cost to the species around us, many of which that we depend upon. Heirrich's book "Winter World" was about evolution and adaptation to the cold of winter, "Summer World" is about adapation and evolution, and it contrasts the species around us with humanity itself.
The profession of "Natural Philosopher" has been supplanted by Scientist, but Heinrich harkens back to Darwin in a way that few scientist/writers do. I think of Stephen Gould and Jared Diamond and E. O. Wilson, but their writing is more speculative than Heinrich's. Heinrich stays a Naturalist and shares his perspective on the world that we all share.
April 25, 2009
"The one and perhaps only true religion that I can in good conscience honor is one that encompasses the Earth we walk on and that promotes our well-being and our physical connection to it." So says Bernd Heinrich in Summer World. This quote accurately sums up the author's philosophy, and anyone who has a passion for nature will enjoy reading this book. Heinrich's narrative is a series of observations he has made of the summertime world around him. He seems to take great pleasure in the ordinary progression of the plants and animals around him. The chapters in the book focus mostly on birds and insects that he has encountered around his home in Maine, but he also has chapters on plants and trees as well as on man's impact on nature. Heinrich provides enough details to make his anecdotes interesting without giong into too many specifics that would daunt someone who didn't major in biology. As the summer season approaches, I would recommend this book to anyone who can take pleasure in simply watching the ants and birds.
April 17, 2020
I did not really enjoy this book at all although occasionally there were a few things of interest.
The book describes animals and plants in northern New England (Vermont, Maine) during summer time and the adaptations that they make to survive hot weather. One thing I did find interesting was how certain insects use heat as a method of war and survival. Subtle differences in the tolerance to heat can mean life of death for certain animals or insects if they can tolerate temperatures above those of their predators. The book is filled with various anecdotes and occasional experiments intended to understand how and why insects, birds etc do what they do. Unfortunately, the anecdotes were often rambling and uninteresting, the 'experiments' were not rigorous or insightful, and there seemed to be little structure or order to any of it. I didn't feel like I was learning much or being entertained. I would skip this one.
The book describes animals and plants in northern New England (Vermont, Maine) during summer time and the adaptations that they make to survive hot weather. One thing I did find interesting was how certain insects use heat as a method of war and survival. Subtle differences in the tolerance to heat can mean life of death for certain animals or insects if they can tolerate temperatures above those of their predators. The book is filled with various anecdotes and occasional experiments intended to understand how and why insects, birds etc do what they do. Unfortunately, the anecdotes were often rambling and uninteresting, the 'experiments' were not rigorous or insightful, and there seemed to be little structure or order to any of it. I didn't feel like I was learning much or being entertained. I would skip this one.
August 19, 2009
Its too bad that I read Winter World before reading Summer World, because I might have been more receptive. Summer World is no Winter World. Winter World was written because the author was fascinated by the survival techniques of animals utilized to get through a New England winter. Summer World was written because his publisher thot it would make an interesting companion piece. Hmmm ....
Part of the charm of Winter World was Heinrich's quirky study methods, such as his interminable whacking of trees with a club to flush out their residents. Summer World has very little of this eccentricity.
There were interesting chapters, particularly about insects.
Part of the charm of Winter World was Heinrich's quirky study methods, such as his interminable whacking of trees with a club to flush out their residents. Summer World has very little of this eccentricity.
There were interesting chapters, particularly about insects.
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