Return to Warden's Grove: Science, Desire, and the Lives of Sparrows (Sightline Books)

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Norment, an avian biologist, studied the breeding biology of Harris' Sparrow in the Northwest Territories of Canada for several seasons. He lived in a small cabin at the edge of the Thelon River, northeast of Great Slave Lake.The author closely observed the bird and animal life in a harsh,remote but beautiful landscape. His is a sensitive, emotional portrait of the natural world, beautifully written. This is one of the best nature memoirs I have ever read.

The structure of his book echoes this path, moving from the general and objective to the specific and subjective.The beginning is concerned with setting up the project - repairing the bear-trashed cabin, finding the sparrow's nests, trapping and banding birds, recording the data. He chooses to study Harris's Sparrows, for two good reasons. In 1988, at age 37, with an 18-month-old daughter and a precarious financial outlook, biologist Norment decides to chuck his steady, if unsatisfying teaching job, and pursue his doctorate. Not until the end of the book do we learn of the nightmares he had about horrible accidents befalling his tiny daughter, or how deeply aware he was of the effect his youthful experiences in Warden's Grove had had on his psyche, as if coming back could make him young and carefree again. For one, they breed in a beautiful, isolated patch of the Canadian arctic that Norment remembers with longing from a youthful 3-year stint there. And the second good reason is that because the place is so remote, very little is known about them.His book describes the three summers that he spent in Warden's Grove - from the initial uncertainties, failures and fears of failure to his increasing confidence in himself and affection for his subject. We learn little about his research assistants (there was a different one each year), but at the end of the book he admits he kept them - even the two who were close friends - at arm's length, never discussing anything personal.As he settles more comfortably into the project, he describes the satisfaction he gets from the work, his pleasure in maps and the beauty of scientific names, the hours of watching undone by the superior patience and attention of a small bird, the plagues of mosquitoes and black flies and the differing personalities of the clouds of delicate, crafty mosquitoes and the hordes of frenzied, voracious black flies.We share his relief when one of the female sparrows escapes a shrike attack and his ambivalence about "collecting" - killing birds (outside his project area of course) for science.Norment gives us a feel for the work and the attention to detail, but he gives us an even stronger feel for the scientist, his place in the scheme of things, his relation with the wilderness. The writing is contemplative, vivid and sometimes dryly humorous, mostly when dealing with bugs: "Mosquitoes hovered at the screen door, persistent in their obsessive interest, their collective hum an ironically gentle susurrus."This is a book for anyone interested in the natural world and especially in one man's journey as he gropes his way through life with determination, doubt and eloquent reflection.