Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating Tour of the Animals of Winter
Review: Anyone who has walked in Thoreau's footprints and who can appreciate clear scientific thought will enjoy this detailed explanation of the fauna of the woods during winter. Heinrich has given us a wonderful tour of animals in wintertime, covering their habitats, physiology and evolutionary adaptations. A word of caution - this is not a book for people seeking warm fuzzy feelings about cute furry little creatures. It is a book about reality in its full splendor.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating Tour of the Animals of Winter
Review: Anyone who has walked in Thoreau's footprints and who can appreciate clear scientific thought will enjoy this detailed explanation of the fauna of the woods during winter. Heinrich has given us a wonderful tour of animals in wintertime, covering their habitats, physiology and evolutionary adaptations. A word of caution - this is not a book for people seeking warm fuzzy feelings about cute furry little creatures. It is a book about reality in its full splendor.
Rating:
Summary: Cold is a relative thing
Review: Have you ever had your leg in a cast? And when the cast comes off your leg is small and wrinkled because of the muscle atrophy that took place during the weeks of inactivity while the cast was on? Have you ever wondered what a bear looks like when it comes out of hibernation, having spent 3 or more months lying around mostly sleeping? Are its muscles smaller? Bernd Heinrich's mind thinks like that, putting such questions together and then he goes off in search of an answer.
If you only weigh a few ounces and are covered in feathers and it's -30 deg outside tonight, how do you live till morning? And why is it a good thing if there's fluffy snow on that evergreen tree? Heinrich knows.
This book is all about how animals live through brutal weather, and the word "ingenuity' in the title is a fine descriptor. For us indoor folk, 20 deg is cold, but for some animals who can make it to -40, that's a cakewalk, and Heinrich will tell you how they do it. It's a wonderful set of stories and observations and scientific fact about many different animals.
I still don't know how it came to be that I found a turtle dying in my garden on a 10 deg day recently (why was he/she out in the first place?), but I know more about why I'd better go fill my birdfeeders before the sun sets so the birds will literally have energy to burn when it's 15 deg tonight!
Rating:
Summary: Thumbs up from nature center staff
Review: I haven't had a chance to read this book yet because my staff has been pouring through it over and over. They love the information and theme of the book so much they won't let me read it yet! If interpreters/naturalists like it that much, it's a good book!
Rating: 
Summary: A Winter Delight
Review: I loved this book. From the unique cover (the colored images seem to be some sort of stickers or something) to the lovely drawings inside, the book is a sensual delight. I loved curling up in front of the fire with this and marveling at the ways animals have evolved to survive in temperatures that would kill us. An avid bird and animal watcher, I nevertheless surprised myself that I had never thought of some of the more complex anatomical and physiological challenges animals face in the deep winter. And while I was so grateful to be the beneficiary of Dr. Heinrich's knowledge, I was also so charmed to me able to follow a human through the winter woods who is as delighted as I am myself to have the privilege of observing birds and animals in their natural settings. Sometimes I think I'm a little weird for enjoying nature so much, but I've found a kindred soul in the author! Anyone who wonders about the ways of nature and would like a tour of the winter woods with a knowledgeable guide will relish this book.
Rating:
Summary: A Winter Delight
Review: I loved this book. From the unique cover (the colored images seem to be some sort of stickers or something) to the lovely drawings inside, the book is a sensual delight. I loved curling up in front of the fire with this and marveling at the ways animals have evolved to survive in temperatures that would kill us. An avid bird and animal watcher, I nevertheless surprised myself that I had never thought of some of the more complex anatomical and physiological challenges animals face in the deep winter. And while I was so grateful to be the beneficiary of Dr. Heinrich's knowledge, I was also so charmed to me able to follow a human through the winter woods who is as delighted as I am myself to have the privilege of observing birds and animals in their natural settings. Sometimes I think I'm a little weird for enjoying nature so much, but I've found a kindred soul in the author! Anyone who wonders about the ways of nature and would like a tour of the winter woods with a knowledgeable guide will relish this book.
Rating:
Summary: Where are all the animals in winter?
Review: I picked up this book because, living in the northeast, I wondered what happened to all of the animals in wintertime. Which ones hibernate? Which ones migrate? Which ones die? And I wasn't disappointed. Heinrich provides ample explanations, in understandable language, of what happens to squirrels, birds, insects, turtles, trees, and others (although there isn't much about fish). He is also a fantastic nature writer, weaving simple but elegant stories in and out of the science, stories mostly set in his two main observation sites, Vermont and Maine. And the overriding theme of the whole book is the battle of animals to regulate their temperatures and metabolisms to avoid freezing, in the harsh food conditions of winter. This is good introductory reading for anyone with questions about winter survival.
Rating:
Summary: superb nature writing
Review: If you have enjoyed the nature writing of Farley Mowat or
David Attenborough (The Life of Birds, The Private Life of
Plants), you'll enjoy this wonderful book. There are books
on nature which are dry and distanced: this is just the
opposite. There are also books on nature which are primarily
observational, such as Thoreau's Walden Pond and Annie Dillard's
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Neither Thoreau nor Annie Dillard
measured the rectal temperature of insects in the winter to
help determine the mechanics of heat regulation. Most of the
mammals, birds, insects, and trees looked at by the author are
his neighbors in the winter woods: the love and enjoyment and
the curiosity about his environment is very evident. He wants
to know what these creatures do to cope and survive the severe
winters where he lives in Maine and Vermont.
Heinrich writes with great warmth and humor throughout the book.
You'll follow his thoughts and discoveries about how the tiny
golden-crowned kinglet survives the winter, when logic seems to
say that it shouldn't even survive a single below-zero night.
On sunny days, even when the temperature is well below freezing,
several dozen honeybees may emerge from the hive and just a few
seconds later will all be lying dead on the snow: this is a
sacrificial testing mechanism by the hive to ensure that when
the first flowers open up that a head start can be obtained for
foraging. There are all kinds of fascinating things that you
could never imagine going on. Most of the nature in the book
centers on Heinrich's own environment, but he also readily and
often talks at length about other species from around the world.
The book is lavishly illustrated with drawings that help make
you feel even more personally acquainted with the subjects. Heinrich is a scientist with a wonderful breadth of knowledge,
and a superb talent for relating his love for nature, his
appetite for discovery, and his humorous insights in a style
which gives enormous pleasure to the reader.
Rating:
Summary: Educational and entertaining.
Review: Kept me interested throughout satisfying my curiosity regarding the ways in which animals, and some insects, survive the extremes of winter. Mr. Heinrich spends a little more time on Kinglets than other species as they are obviously his favorites. However, there's sufficient variety of information in Winter World to satisfy most everyone.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!!
Review: Really great information written in a conversational/relaxed style which makes the information very accessible. (In many sections it feels like you're there with the author as he describes what he saw and conclusions drawn. Wonderful drawings throughout. There are all sorts of topics covered. The chapters are as follows:
- Fire and Ice
- Snow and Subnivian Space
- A late winter walk
- Tracking a weasel
- Nests and Dens
- Flying squirrels in a huddle
- Hibernating squirrels
- The Kinglet's feathers
- The Kinglet's winter fuel
- Hibernating birds
- torpid turtles under ice
- iced-in rodents
- frozen frogs on ice
- Insects: from the diversity to the limits
- Mice in winter
- Supercool(ed) houseguests
- Bats and butterflies
- Aggregating for winter- winter flocks
- berries preserved
- bears in winter
- storing food
- bees' winter gamble
- winter buds
- the kinglet's key? As winter is almost upon us here, I will be looking back to this book as a neat reference as I wonder about the Great Mystery that keeps life beating on through the cold. Definitely recommend this book.
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