Wild America

NewMexiKen has been reading Return to Wild America: A Yearlong Search for the Continent’s Natural Soul by Scott Weidensaul. It’s a travel narrative detailing Weidensaul’s reprise, 50 years later, of the famous trip and book by naturalists Roger Tory Peterson and James Fisher. Wild America had inspired Weidensaul as a boy. At times he inspires us now.

Visiting many of the same places as the original, Return to Wild America brings us bad news but also much that is good: species that have recovered, land that is being preserved. Faithful to Peterson, we read descriptions of, frankly, more birds than I care about, but still the book conveys the wonder of North America that makes one want to throw the sleeping bag into the car and take off for Newfoundland, or the Everglades, or Kartchner Cavern.