[BCNnet] BCNnet: Blown away by Joel Greenberg's new book

[Birdchris@aol.com]

I just reviewed Joel's new book for a Sierra Club publication and it blew me 
away. I've included my review, below, but didn't focus specially on the birds 
for BCNnet readers. I just know you all will like it a lot. It answered a lot 
of questions for me and old accounts of bird abundance are amazing. 

I bought the book for myself for my birthday and while I hope I get some 
other presents, I don't really need any!

Christine Williamson
Chicago/Cook
birdchris@aol.com


Summer Book Review
New Book on the Natural History of Chicago is Perfect Beach Reading

By Christine Williamson, Conservation Chair

Have you ever been in a forest preserve in the Chicagoland area and suddenly 
realized that you can't see or hear anything that's man-made? 
Does the prospect if getting lost deep in the Indiana Dunes thrill rather 
than scare you? 
Do you ever imagine the landscape of northern Illinois as Father Jacques 
Marquette and Louis Joliet saw it in July of 1763?
If you lean toward the natural in the urban/suburban landscape you live in, 
Joel Greenberg's new book, A Natural History of the Chicago Region, is 
perfect summer reading. In fact, he probably describes how the very beach 
where you'll be stretched out reading was formed. Or how glaciers deposited 
the esker ridge in a Lake County Forest Preserve where you'd plunked down 
your picnic. Or why deer are a big problem on the runways at O'Hare where you 
read peacefully at the gate, waiting for your flight off to your summer 
vacation.
The book was a 17-year labor of love for Mr. Greenberg, a long-time bird 
watcher and dedicated conservationist. His research into the landscape around 
you is exhaustive, yet Mr. Greenberg's gift is the ability to translate that 
wealth of knowledge into a natural history that is actually readable. Mr. 
Greenberg's distillation of more than 200 years of human habitation and the 
prior 30,000 years of natural ecosystem development will change how you view 
Chicagoland.
Analysis of survey maps made between 1821 and 1841, coupled with ecologists'  
modern estimates of soil distribution, plant communities and wildlife 
distribution lead Mr. Greenberg to conclude: "That diversity brought to the 
land an almost unimaginable fertility and an abundance of life that in some 
manifestations was unrivaled by any other terrestrial environment on earth. 
To understand and appreciate this remarkable bounty, one must look at how it 
came to be." 
>From a discussion of glacial impact on northern Illinois, southern Wisconsin 
and northeastern Indiana, Mr. Greenberg moves to thorough discussion of both 
the original and current state of prairie, shrub land, forest, wetland, Lake 
Michigan, river and stream, beach, dune and bluff ecosystems. 
He moves on to discuss the fauna of the region - from those "Beleaguered 
Beetles, Mystery Moths, and a Rediscovered Dragonfly: A Smattering of 
Endangerd Insects" to reptiles and amphibians, birds and mammals. 
I know Joel from many a National Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count dinner, 
where his wit awakens and cheers up even the most frozen bird surveyor, and 
it is in his section on birds that his natural prose style is at its most 
compassionate. 
A Natural History of the Chicago Region is actually a rather emotional and 
personal book, filled with both modern and very old anecdotes about the 
plants, animals and people of the Chicago area. Some are from Mr. Greenberg's 
own life experiences, but many are collected from very old, first-hand 
accounts of settlers. 
>From an 1884 account from Lacon, Ill., for example, Mr. Greenberg found the 
following on how Sandhill Cranes could be shot: "Where corn adjoined a wheat 
or oat stubble, they would alight in that and then approach the corn in the 
most wary skirmisher style… Shy birds? I should say they were. Here they were 
always very careful in looking out for the safety of companions.. with this 
one exception: the cranes… are very greedy and nearly always hungry, hence 
sometimes when a bunch would visit a field.. and the grub was good and 
plentiful, they all fall to eating at once, leaving no sentries. At such 
times one with good care could get quite close to them… Many a one have I 
laid low with my little old single shotgun."
I wondered immediately why anyone would want to shoot a Sandhill Crane: To 
eat it? 
Mr. Greenberg had the answer. A man in the 1830s described a woman he knew 
who had a sweet tooth and just had to make some mince pies for Thanksgiving. 
The man said: "Meat was pretty scarce at the time and fruits and sugar were 
costly articles. But her mind was set on pie, and pie she must have. The 
chopped breasts of sandhill cranes and mashed crab apples, sweetened with a 
spoonful of molasses and well-spiced made that mince meat. A wedge of that 
pie was enough to break the courage of the stoutest settler and never failed 
in a single instance." 
I can virtually guarantee that you won't find as entertaining an account of a 
Sandhill Crane kept as a family pet by early Illinois settlers in any other 
book you read this summer.
Sierrans often tell me how overwhelmed they get by the gloom and doom 
scenario described so often in the environmental press. Mr. Greenberg doesn't 
pull any punches when it comes to describing the reasons behind a reduction 
in biodiversity in the Chicagoland area and the future dangers to the wild, 
natural aspects of our cities, suburbs and natural areas. But this Natural 
History leaves room for hope and describes the many ways that 
conservationists just like you have made a difference in preserving intact or 
perhaps only slightly altered, Chicagoland's natural heritage.
A Natural History of the Chicago Region is a weighty book and still only 
available in hardback. But it is one book you'll keep on your shelf and refer 
to often, I think, when after a Sierra Club outing you wonder what the Lake 
Calumet marshes were like prior to extensive drainage. Or consider what the 
original flora of your town was like as you plan natural gardening 
alternatives for your yard. 
Knowing what the past landscape was like informs what the future will look 
like and I think Mr. Greenberg's new book will be a great help in shaping 
mind sets as well as landscapes.