Welcome to Subirdia: Sharing Our Neighborhoods with Wrens, Robins, Woodpeckers, and Other Wildlife

Praise for Welcome to Subirdia: Sharing Our Neighborhoods with Wrens, Robins, Woodpeckers, and Other Wildlife

"This excellent book documents engagingly how wildlife has adapted to urban and suburban areas, often in surprising ways. . . . Most highly recommended for all interested in wildlife, city planning, and urban ecology."—Library Journal (starred review)

"Enjoy and bond with nature where you live and work. Marzluff has done this, and it has given him contagious joy that shows in the pages of this enjoyable and informative book."—New York Review of Books

"Marzluff’s academic work and his lifelong passion for birds have merged in his beautiful and informative new book . . . His conclusions offer hope in an era of despair at what humans’ destructive habits are doing to wildlife."—Seattle Times

"Marzluff has hit a winner . . . This easily read but engrossing account offers something for everyone . . . Writing with the sure hand of an inveterate observer—a crack scientist with the soul of a nice guy next door—Marzluff takes readers into his life in Seattle, working with teams of his graduate students and some admirable neighbors. Readers visit ten cities around the world and marvel at the simplicity of the author's ten rules . . . Beautifully illustrated in black-and-white by Jack Delap, with accuracy and touches of humor. For scientists, bird lovers, philosophers—and everyone else. Highly recommended."—Choice

". . . Marzluff writes well, and with passion appropriate for motivating his target audience, the layman. He cites many convincing statistics . . . and he has timed his writing to take advantage of a growing awareness among suburbanites that the nature they knew as children has been replaced . . ."— Douglas W. Tallamy, University of Delaware

Listing

"A triumph! Everything you wanted to know about suburban birds—and more."—Tim Birkhead, author of Bird Sense and Ten Thousand Birds: Ornithology since Darwin

"With enthusiasm, wit, and compelling scholarship, John Marzluff challenges us to reconsider a forgotten landscape. Welcome to Suburdia is more than entertaining—it will change the way you think about cities, nature, and your own backyard."—Thor Hanson, author of Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle

"What is a scientist to do when he discovers that he's seen more bird species in New York's Central Park than he did in Yellowstone? Study the phenomenon, of course. Marzluff's exploration of this seeming paradox leads him to 'subirdia'—that edgy place between suburbs and wilderness. If you love nature, but feel guilty about owning a plot in the 'burbs,' or being a city denizen, take heart. Birds—and other wild creatures—are doing better there than most of us think, Marzluff reveals in this engaging and beautifully written book.
 
"You'll come away, too, with a bird's appreciation of your own backyard. That (unmowed) lawn is a savannah! Those parkway trees, a forest. The birdbath, a pond. We haven't lost the birds and animals; we've brought them to us. Marzluff's book shines with insights and revelations into a natural world many of us live in but fail to see: our own backyards."—Virginia Morell, author of Animal Wise: How We Know Animals Think and Feel

"John Marzluff has combined his experiences as an ornithologist, urban ecologist, and observer of nature into a very readable book about birds, humans, and our linked fates in a rapidly changing world."—Stephen DeStefano, author of Coyote at the Kitchen Door: Living with Wildlife in Suburbia

"John Marzluff writes with authority and insight about the lives and habits of birds around us and suggests steps we can take to protect them in an increasingly hostile world."—Peter Doherty, Nobel Laureate and author of Their Fate is Our Fate: How Birds Foretell Threats to Our Health and Our World