Pete Dunne

If you want to see a region of NJ that may even surprise many who live here, one really must venture down to the Delaware bayshore.

Once home to a number of thriving communities that made their living from the rich bay waters, plentiful with blue crabs and oysters, today visiting them is often like stepping back in time. And if you can deal with the insects, one of the few things that may thankfully retard development, it is a wild and beautiful area.

"Likewise, there is no green like salt show more marsh hay. It is deep and rich and pure; untainted by blue, untinged by yellow. Just pure, pure primary green. Green enough to make the Emerald Isle want to trade up. Green enough to make you wonder what the rest of Eden was like, because after its equilibrium was shattered by a simple act of harvest, it is pretty clear that some of it washed up here, on the shore of the Delaware Bay."

Mr. Dunne, a resident, with his wife, of the charming Cumberland county town of Mauricetown, vice president of the the New Jersey Audubon Society and director of the Cape May Bird Observatory loves the bay coast of NJ and has written a book that makes that very clear. It is also a book that will share that beauty with the reader.

Part history, part geology, part natural science book and 100% love story with the land and hardy people that make this area their home, Bayshore Summer is a delightful book. How can I not love a look that takes us several time to his local Wawa convenience store, a store I know quite well, and explains where the name Wawa comes from? How can I not love a book that tells us, time and time again, about the amazing array of incredible insects that populate this area? Having been driven back to the safety of my car, blood running down my arms and legs, when the breeze died down and the attack of the green heads began, I so understand.

But don't get me wrong, Mr. Dunne does not sugar coat the story. It is a place with its challenges. He takes us along with a fishing captain trying to eke out a living catching blue crabs and bait fish and often barely breaking even with his costs of going out. He takes us to a couple of the farms of Cumberland county that depend on migrant workers..illegal migrant workers...and introduces us to a few of those workers that return, year after year, to support their families back home. We travel along to Thompsons Beach, a community reclaimed by the bay, the houses that lined the shore washed away and go along with Mr. Dunne to see the constant battle between deer poachers and game wardens. He discusses the delicate balance that saw a virus almost totally wipe out the once thriving oyster harvest, overfishing that almost destroyed the bay's Atlantic Sturgeon, the harvesting of the horseshoe crab, a prehistoric looking creature if there ever was one, that had a huge effect on the millions of migrating birds that feed along the coast.

But it is not all a negative story. We visit a family farm that still successfully harvests salt hay, a harvest with a history that is centuries old in the area. Herons and egrets are once again plentiful, ospreys successfully nesting and hatching young throughout the marshlands. Harvesting the horseshoe crab is now proscribed and hopefully they will start making a comeback and maybe the weakfish will return in greater numbers some day soon. And maybe a book like this will help more people understand what a treasure we have along our bayshore and help to protect it. show less

These stories represent many of the best studies of wildlife ever written. Dunne gives us both a detailed glimpse of wildlife going about their daily lives, and occasional humor and wit. Some of the stories touch on border topics, such as the individual personalities and loyalty of some rural hunting dogs.

One story which shares the books title is the very best I have read in explaining how a person can enjoy both birding and hunting with equal fervor. In that essay he equates hunters being show more actors in a play while he equates birders as being in the audience watching the play. But then he goes further and does a great job giving us glimpses of the excitement of both and showing that they are not mutually exclusive.. show less

As always with Pete Dunne, well written with plenty of humor. A great birding adventure, right down to the very last story of the venerable National Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count.

As the title implies, this is not a field guide. There are no illustrations and no maps. Rather, this is the next best thing to going birding with an expert -- the little details and intangibles that experts use to identify birds, as well as textual descriptions of the appearance and range. (The descriptions aren't the reason to buy the book, though it's interesting to see Dunne's interpretations, as he often stresses different things than does the author of your favorite field guide.) The show more reason to buy this book are the other details -- accounts of behavior, general appearance, other birds (and, when relevant, other animals) found in the same locations, etc.) I've found this book both useful and fun, and recommend it to anyone wanting to go beyond field marks for bird identification. show less