Prairie Spring: A Journey Into the Heart of a Season - Hardcover

PETE DUNNE forged a bond with nature as a child and has been studying hawks for more than forty years. He has written fifteen books and countless magazine and newspaper columns. He was the founding director of the Cape May Bird Observatory and now serves as New Jersey Audubon’s Birding Ambassador. He lives in Mauricetown, New Jersey.

Starred Review. Dunne (Golden Wings) presents an intimate account of a two-month trek—accompanied by photographer wife Linda—following the coming of spring across Americas prairie grasslands. Theirs is an odyssey into the time of beginning that weaves together spiritual insight, plant biology, geology lessons and American history—and a plethora of bird sightings, from the mating trysts of the increasingly rare lesser prairie chicken to the plight of the threatened mountain plover. Their journey begins in New Jersey and continues to Nebraska, their arrival timed to witness the annual migration of half a million northbound sandhill cranes. Next come Colorado and a primer on how homesteading sodbusters transformed an ocean of vibrant prairie grasses into a devastating dustbowl; New Mexico and the Sixth Annual High Plains Lesser Prairie-Chicken Festival; back through Colorado and the Pawnee National Grasslands for a glimpse of the threatened prairie dog, once (along with bison) among the environmental engineers of the 19th century Western plains; and into South Dakota, home to between 800 and 1,400 free-ranging bison. Dunnes melodic prose and rhapsodic connection with the natural world brilliantly entice an estranged audience to explore a... now alien environment. Photos. (Mar.)
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