Book: Prairie Spring by Pete Dunne

Or, since most books I read have subtitles, A Journey Into the Heart of a Season.

Pete Dunne, a premier birder, traveled with his photographer wife, Linda, to the western prairies for several weeks in the spring. This is a rather small book, with some photographs, but with enough to color in this somewhat forgotten part of our country. Pete writes about Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Dakota and Montana...with observations on weather, history, botany, sociology, geography, the mammals of the prairies, large and small, and, of course, bird finding and watching. His commentary is not pedantic; he never takes himself too seriously and finds humor in most situations. It was a good book to read while crossing the prairies myself at the end of May, albeit further north. This land is defined by weather patterns, grasses, magnificent skies, water-filled potholes, rivers, creeks, sunshine, county roads, a few major highways, small towns, ranches and farms, aridity in the more western states and only occasional trees.

If the place name Pawnee National Grassland does not pique your interest at all, then you can probably skip reading this book, but if something trips in your heart and soul when reading those words, I think you'll like it.

I refer often to another book Pete Dunne wrote: Essential Field Guide Companion in which he describes most of the birds in the United States. His descriptions often make me smile, as when he describes the snowy owl as a looking like "a small, soot-flecked, partially melted snowman with bright yellow eyes." For me, I can usually confirm a tentative identification after reading his notes on a particular bird.

A couple of examples of how he writes:

"I thought I'd try to calculate how many primroses stood in front of me. Using an average of 350 blossoms per 100 square feet, figuring that to the far hilltop I was looking at an area about three quarters of a square mile, I came up with approximately 73,180,800 flowers."

"A buffalo (American for bison) is a front-heavy ungulate with a head too large and hips too small to win any ribbons at the local county fair stock show."

He is the Director of the Cape May Bird Observatory in New Jersey.