Field Notes from a Hidden City

October 21, 2013
Award-winning nature writer Woolfson muses on the natural ecosystem of her adopted home of Aberdeen, Scotland, over the course of a full year. A departure from her most recent work (Corvus), in which she focused on the lives of crows, in Field Notes she casts her sharp eye more broadly. Through richly crafted prose she depicts the city and its inhabitants, both human and non-human, as they manage their lives and come to grips with natural elements and each other. Woolfson describes the “Den,” a narrow wooded valley surrounded by houses and fenced off from visitors: “You could live here for a long time and never know it’s there.” While her short, almost-daily musings are evocative, Woolfson is at her best when she gives herself the space to explore her thoughts more deeply. Her sections on living with rats, the lives of slugs, and of herring gulls are joys to read, and she is both passionate and poetic when she turns her attention to the human species, focusing on the nature of cruelty or what it means to be Jewish (as she is). Woolfson’s careful observations bring to our attention elements of the natural world often taken for granted.

Starred review from January 15, 2014
Chilly Aberdeen, Scotland, may seem an unlikely place to investigate the natural world, but Woolfson (Corvus: A Life with Birds, 2009) offers a vivid portrait of birds, animals, insects and plants--and her place among them--in the city where she has lived for decades. Located at 57 degrees north latitude, Aberdeen is cold, damp and stark, with changeable weather that "flits and blows, defies forecast and forecasters" to emerge as "several seasons in a day, only some of them recognizable...." Weather is a frequent topic of conversation, and adverse weather, many believe, is a punishment for hubris or, perhaps, too much joy. "Our climate is sombre," Woolfson writes, "our mood, our stone, our mode of building against the weather." In a gesture of hopefulness, she planted roses in her garden, but along with her clematis, it died during a cold spell. But other species flourished: rooks and jackdaws, gray squirrels and butterflies, oystercatchers and bluebells. Some were labeled pests: Woolfson called an exterminator to get rid of rats living under her house, and the city took measures to circumscribe starlings. The author cautions against intervening: "[W]ithin the limited framework of the artificial spaces of nature we have created, learning to stand back is all we can do." Taking us through a year in Aberdeen, Woolfson closely observed changes in bird life and animal visitors, soil and sky: "different kinds of wind, different kinds of snow, different kinds of twilight." Interwoven with diarylike entries are longer meditations on spiders, pigeons, jackdaws, sparrows and the complexities of the slug, who shoots a "love dart" as part of its mating behavior--a phenomenon, Woolfson speculates, that's possibly the origin of Cupid's arrow. Woolfson is an elegant, precise writer, and this transcendent memoir conveys exquisitely the vibrant world she inhabits.

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November 15, 2013
Scottish naturalist and bird rescuer Woolfson sees her hometown of Aberdeen, on the coast of the North Sea, as much more than a community of people living in houses. On her daily walks, she notices an abundance of wildlife, not only in gardens and parks but also around old quarries and abandoned lots. Despite long winters and short summers, opportunistic species thrive across the city. Although many of Woolfson's neighbors consider pigeons, rats, spiders, squirrels, and gulls as pests, she regards them as admirable survivors that contribute to the health of the local environment. In brief diary notes and longer essays, including verses from favorite poems, she defends unpopular urban animals as victims of eradication campaigns often based on bad science and false accusations. Always tolerant and respectful, Woolfson offers both philosophical and scientific arguments for the conservation of all city life. She also updates stories from her previous book Corvus: A Life with Birds.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)