Brief poetic vignettes into the natural world

In Wild Moments, environmental writer Ted Williams delivers brief poetic vignettes into the everyday world of plants and animals that focus on the often overlooked aspects of our natural world. Instead of a treatise on just the iconic wolves and bears and eagles, Williams pays homage to muskrats and mudpuppies and horny toads in these short essays collected from his Earth Almanac column in Audubon magazine.

These wild moments are organized by season. Starting with winter, Williams introduces us the sometimes hidden treasures of this time when we humans spend far too much time indoors; from watching ducks to studying how sap freezes on the bark of hardwoods, the reader’s eyes are opened to the how life continues in the darkest end of the year. With spring, Williams marvels at the flight of the bumblebee and the birth of fairy shrimp in shallow pools of water, and he observes the birth of flowers and the courtship of terns. Come summer, he seeks out freshwater jellyfish and the nighttime antics of goatsuckers and nighthawks. As fall approaches and the leaves turn from green, Williams watches the rutting of deer and elk and the hoarding of woodpeckers and jays.

The best approach to reading this collection of stories about the nature that surrounds us all, is with these seasons, maybe a couple pages at time while you eat your lunch and become inspired to seek out the wild moments that all around you. ( )