Two New NYC Nature Books

New York City is of course a fantastic place to see birds—and other lifeforms, as you readers know—through the year, a fact that plenty of people both here and elsewhere still aren’t savvy to. Urban nature, inevitably given the urbanization of the world, is getting a lot more attention than it used to, and our archipelago on the estuary is prime time for all this.

Two recent works broadcast the reality that you can often do a lot better here than in many a National Park when it comes to the wild things. (OK, we don’t have bears…or do we? See William Kotzwinkle’s The Bear Went Over the Mountain.)

Ryan Goldberg’s Bird City: Adventures in New York’s Urban Wilds is a mix of reporting on the New York City birding scene and his own becoming of a birder. I was particularly pleased with his profiles of Peter Dorosh and and Don Riepe, people I know and think should get more credit for what they do, and being introduced to others who were just names to me.

I learned some other things here as well. For instance, the death-worshippers of the Rockaways really have it in for Piping Plovers because they’ll be damned if they will share the beach. I should have remembered this from Nantucket, where “tastes like chicken” bumperstickers greeted efforts to help this endangered species there. This of course brings up the point that as rich as life is here, it’s constantly under threat from ignorance and malignity; poisons/pollution; glass/lights; habitat-destroying developers; and foragers.

Ryan Mandelbaum and Chelsea Beck’s Wild NYC: Experience the Amazing Nature in and Around New York City is a guide-book covering the spectrum of the city’s wild life and the places to see them, from plants to animals, lichens to dolphins. Five boroughs make for wide range of habitat: ocean-front beaches, upland and lowland forests, wetlands, salt marshes, serpentine barrens, manicured parks, backyard hodgepodges, lone street trees amid the concrete….

The book is organized by general information, setting the scenes; species accounts, with great pictures; and field trips, with maps. This all makes it a handy reference.

I’m not unfamiliar with both Ryans (this isn’t a blind review!) and I applaud their wherewithal and energy in putting together, and helping put together, these books, which are worthy additions to the NYC and urban nature bookshelves.

I know you’ve still got bookshelves.