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    Unavailable
    The Wood for the Trees: The Long View of Nature from a Small Wood
    Unavailable
    The Wood for the Trees: The Long View of Nature from a Small Wood
    Unavailable
    The Wood for the Trees: The Long View of Nature from a Small Wood
    Audiobook11 hours

    The Wood for the Trees: The Long View of Nature from a Small Wood

    Written by Richard Fortey

    Narrated by Mike Grady

    4/5

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    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    From one of our greatest science writers, this biography of a beech-and-bluebell wood through diverse moods and changing seasons combines stunning natural history with the ancient history of the countryside to tell the full story of the British landscape.

    ‘The woods are the great beauty of this country… A fine forest-like beech wood far more beautiful than anything else which we have seen in its vicinity’ is how John Stuart Mill described a small patch of beech-and bluebell woodland, buried deeply in the Chiltern Hills and now owned by Richard Fortey. Drawing upon a lifetime of scientific expertise and abiding love of nature, Fortey uses his small wood to tell a wider story of the ever-changing British landscape, human influence on the countryside over many centuries and the vital interactions between flora, fauna and fungi.

    The trees provide a majestic stage for woodland animals and plants to reveal their own stories. Fortey presents his wood as an interwoven collection of different habitats rich in species. His attention ranges from the beech and cherry trees that dominate the wood to the flints underfoot; the red kites and woodpeckers that soar overhead; the lichens, mosses and liverworts decorating the branches as well as the myriad species of spiders, moths, beetles and crane-flies. The 300 species of fungi identified in the wood capture his attention as much as familiar deer, shrews and dormice.

    Fortey is a naturalist who believes that all organisms are as interesting as human beings – and certainly more important than the observer. So this book is a close examination of nature and human history. He proves that poetic writing is compatible with scientific precision. The book is filled with details of living animals and plants, charting the passage of the seasons, visits by fellow enthusiasts; the play of light between branches; the influence of geology; and how woodland influences history, architecture and industry. On every page he shows how an intimate study of one small wood can reveal so much about the natural world and demonstrates his relish for the incomparable pleasures of discovery.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins Publishers
    Release dateMay 5, 2016
    ISBN9780008104689
    Unavailable
    The Wood for the Trees: The Long View of Nature from a Small Wood
    Author

    Richard Fortey

    Richard Fortey retired from his position as senior palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in 2006. He is the author of several books, including ‘Fossils: A Key to the Past’, ‘The Hidden Landscape’ which won The Natural World Book of the Year in 1993, ‘Life: An Unauthorised Biography’, ‘Trilobite!’ and ‘The Earth: An Intimate History’. He has been elected to be President of the Geological Society of London for its bicentennial year of 2007, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society.

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    Reviews for The Wood for the Trees

    4/5

    22 ratings2 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Like a David Attenborough show. Very peaceful and interesting listening. Not a book if you’re after adventure or drama. A beautifully narrated, lovingly written description of a small wood in England and all the flora and fauna it contains, along with a reflection on the human history that’s been there.
    • 4/5
      I used to regularly walk and bird a certain path, through a prairie back to a wide, shallow wetland. After a few years, I had landmarks in my head: that's the Olive-Sided Flycatcher tree; that's the pond where the loon was once; the Black-Crowned Night Herons like to sit over there; this is the Chickadee Woods, and if I'm lucky, the Ospreys might be on their nest. It was like the bar in Cheers: "where everybody knows your name." Or, well, I knew theirs and liked to think maybe some of them recognized me and my dog. So I've always loved the idea of knowing a place so intimately that you know what all the trees are, when the pussy-willows bloom, and where the Red-Headed Woodpeckers swoop. Richard Fortey, after a lifetime of scrutinizing the stony remains of creatures that no longe exist as chief paleontologist of the magisterial Natural History Museum in London, decided it was time to get outside into the living world. He and his wife bought four acres of beech woods, and he settled into learning everything and everyone who lived there. He begins with the spring, figuring out what all those fetal greenlings are that start to poke up out of the leaf litter, and takes us through the year - and through the millennia as well. He counts the trees - and has an elegant cabinet hand-made from a fallen wild cherry tree. He captures moths at night and identifies them by the shape of the fringe on their antennae. He turns over logs and tells us that the tiny orange speckles are a sort of fungus. A bug he doesn't know? He pops it in a jar, gets on the train to London and has his friend the entomologist have a peek and give it its name. It's charming, fascinating - his own curiosity and erudition make it irresistible to look over his shoulder as he stoops down and says, "Oh, look at this!" Fortey credits his wife for the sections on the human history: the landowners, knights, charcoal-burners, and eccentric spinsters who have owned or crossed his wood through the centuries, and the history of his village is intriguing. While I myself am hooked by the history of the 100-year-old house I live in, it may not be as interesting to others, so I found some of this aspect a bit too long. Fortey's friendly ramble will appeal to those who like to turn over rocks and wonder what that many-legged critter is that scurries out, or who find joy in patting the smooth gray bark of a beech tree. He is the companion you would like to have on those outings.