The Common Uncommon

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From the renowned author of A Year in the Maine Woods, the intimate reflections of a lifetime spent observing the natural world. For forty years, Bernd Heinrich has been ensconced in the woods of the northern, or boreal, forest, living in his log cabin amidst a vast sea of spruce, fir, and larch in the mountains of western Maine. In a land of winter snow, summer heat, and at times fire, drought, and flood, all life confronts vast and occasionally rapid environmental changes, as one day, and one season, may be a completely different environment from the next. The Common Uncommon captures the rhythms of Heinrich's seasonal life. From the forest he first encountered as a child of German refugees, Heinrich combines his powers of observation with professional expertise, as he notes the beautiful, but not entirely idiosyncratic characteristics—the "common uncommon"—of spiders, ants, chestnut trees, porcupines, owls, and mice. From the