SEASONS IN THE DESERT: A NATURALIST'S NOTEBOOK

Nominated for the Western States Book Award

By Susan J. Tweit
Illustrations by Kirk Caldwell

Chronicle Books
$19.95 hardcover
0-8118-1685-0
244 pages, 40 color illus.


A very special homage to arid landscapes, exploring the eclectic wild inhabitants of the American Southwest's deserts from the tiny fairy shrimp that flourishes in the ephemeral desert lakes to the regal saguaro cactus, and from the rarely glimpsed night-blooming cereus to the ubiquitous Chihuahaun raven. Season by season, we are invited to discover the startling beauty of the Mojave, Sonoran, Great Basin, and Chihuahuan deserts and their indigenous populations through the "notebooks" of a dedicated naturalist.

Susan Tweit's notebook is a wonderful addition to the library of all of us who love the desert.
--Tony Hillerman

Put your other concerns aside for a moment, for this book is an event you won't want to miss. Inhale its fragrances, listen to its songs!   - Gary Paul Nabhan

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Spring Night-blooming Cereus - Rough Harvester Ant - Joshua Tree - Curve-billed Thrasher - Tumbleweed - Giant Desert Centipede - Burrowing Owl - Razorback Sucker - Saguaro

Summer Couch's Spadefoot Toad - Ocotillo - Costa's Hummingbird - Big Sacaton - Giant Desert Hairy Scorpion - Screwbean Mesquite - Western Diamondback Rattlesnake - Arizona Sister - Kit Fox - Tube-forming Termite - Fairy Shrimp

Autumn Sacred Datura - Desert Tarantula - California Condor - Frémont Cottonwood - River Otter - Pallid Bat - Century Plant - Desert Bighorn Sheep - Gila Monster - Mountain Lion

 Winter Chihuahuan Raven - Christmas Cholla - Common Poorwill - Coyote - White Sands Pupfish - Pinacate Beetle - Greater Roadrunner - Lichen - Northern Grasshopper Mouse - Creosote Bush

 

From the book:

FREMONT COTTONWOOD

To understand why desert people venerate cottonwood trees, you may need to spend a summer day in the open desert, far from the sight or sound of running water. When the glaring light has numbed your brain and the heat has parched your body. Search out the green canopy of a cottonwood tree. Sitting in its cool shade, your back braced against its furrowed trunk, listening to the raindroplike rustling of its leaves, you may begin to understand alamo's magic.

Although these big trees thrive throughout the deserts, cottonwoods cannot survive without water: they grow only where the soil retains moisture much of the year. Early desert travelers learned to search for cottonwoods; their leafy canopies signaled the presence of water like green beacons. Even a lone tree in a seemingly dry wash will suffice. Dig in the wash near the base of the tree until you reach damp sand, and water will eventually fill the hole. No wonder our affinity for a tree that proclaims the presence of water in these arid landscapes: we are 98 percent water, by weight, and we cannot survive without the liquid either.

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