Product Description

Who knew that an investigation into that patch of grass in our backyards could be so fruitful—and so funny?

More than 550 square miles of new lawns unfold each year in the U.S. alone. Although new research shows that these lawns aren’t nearly as "unnatural" as ecologists once thought, no one has offered an accessible exploration of this novel habitat. Until now…

Equipped with a lawn chair and her infectious curiosity, science writer Hannah Holmes spends a year on her lawn hoping to discover exactly what’s going on out there. Under her examination, the lawn teems with life, populated by a bewilderment of birds, a mess of mammals, and a range of plants that record the history of this little piece of ground. As the seasons progress, she guides us through this bustling community, inviting over biologists, ecologists, botanists, entomologists, and energy experts to further unveil the complexities of life in the ‘burbs. Through this investigation, we encounter life-and-death dramas and mysteries that would make a rainforest blush—everything from the behavior of suburban crows and raccoons, to the way plants wage war, to the puzzle of baby pigeons (where are they?).

Funny, smart, and refreshing, Suburban Safari introduces us to a world so extraordinary it’s hard to believe it’s been right in front of us all along.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #263040 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-02
• Released on: 2005-02-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

Amazon.com Review
When science writer Hannah Holmes decided to spend a year studying the inhabitants of her 0.2-acre patch of ground in suburban Portland, Maine, she went about the task with an ecologist's enthusiasm and a scientist's compulsive eye for detail. The result is an entertaining and effortlessly compelling examination of nature's stubborn (and successful) struggle to exist in the face of daunting manmade challenges. Holmes's lawn, unfertilized and rarely mowed, turns out to be a surprisingly diverse ecosystem of bird, mammal, and insect life--a self-perpetuating, constantly evolving community of chipmunks, ladybugs, spiders, slugs, and crows. These creatures, and the complex relationships between them, are the raw material for Holmes's incisive reflections on natural history, urban ecology, and the ignominious story of the over-irrigated, pesticide-laced American lawn--rolling out, Holmes notes, at a rate of one million acres per year. What drives Holmes is not just concern for the natural environment but a ravenous curiosity about every aspect of the world around her, from the sex lives of dragonflies and squirrels, to the murderous tendencies of the English sparrows that have colonized her land, to the survival strategies of the mosquitoes, sow bugs, and slugs that inhabit her yard by the hundreds. Holmes is an environmentalist to the core, but she never sermonizes. With Suburban Safari, an intimate, wry, and often challenging look at a world most of us never bother to notice, she ably demonstrates humanity's responsibility to a natural world that exists all around us--even in our own backyards. --Erica C. Barnett

From Publishers Weekly
When science and travel writer Holmes (The Secret Life of Dust) turned her attention to her suburban backyard, she discovered a community of wildlife desperately trying to survive in a sprawling world of "Wal-Marts and White-Crowned Sparrow Estates." Holmes manages to find signs of hope and humor amid the spread of civilization, and she reports animal activities in her yard with the fervor of Wild Kingdom's Marlin Perkins and the laconic glee of Garrison Keillor. "I'm a bit embarrassed to report that Cheeky has become the sun around which my world revolves," she confesses about her resident chipmunk. That small mammal is just one of the many creatures to whom Holmes gives names and personalities, but she keeps her naturalist credibility intact by inviting scientists and other experts to join her in her lawn chair vigil. With their help, she includes plenty of facts about the habits of common crows, insects, squirrels and even trees. Science and humor serve as well-managed launching points for environmental lessons. By the end of her year, Holmes has gently taught us that the American lawn is a pesticide-laden patchwork that's increasing by a million acres every year, that heating a house can produce five tons of pollutants annually and that stewardship of our own backyards is our responsibility.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
For readers who believe lawns are simply something needing mowing, science writer Holmes has news for them. Spending a year in her yard in South Portland, Maine, "was to learn how to administer this patch of ground in the best interest of all its citizens." Depending on the season, her two-tenths-acre empire is home to birds that lived in the ornamental shrubs, an oak tree, two pines, a chokecherry tree, and some sumacs. She records her yard as home to ladybugs (as dexterous as cats), crickets (they rarely hop, but plod along like the rest of us), and ants (they stop and tap antennae with each other). There are squirrels (one mated with five females and dropped dead), chipmunks (one lived in Holmes' house, and the book is dedicated to him), mice, skunks, woodchucks, and raccoons. All these creatures are her family, she says, "and mine to take care of, to the best of my ability." REVWR
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Who Knew Sitting on a Lawn Could Mean Life in the Fast Lane?
Battling crickets. Tailless squirrels. Weeds as our friends. Crow antics. A Cheeky chipmunk. Drama, comedy, and huge life and death decisions compete for writer Hannah Holmes's attention out on her two tenths of an acre back lawn. This is a wonderful book in so many ways. Number one - it's beautifully written. Passionate, funny, informative, and engrossing, Holmes's prose has been honed as fine as one blade of feral grass on the Freedom Lawn she so treasures in her back yard. Number two - it's chock full of details regarding some of the common, yet extraordinary, things we see every day. The reader may laugh over the antics of Holmes's crows, but at the same time, she is teaching us about crow ecology - what they contribute to our environment and why they're important. She does this with each carefully considered topic - from why weeds are good to how many threads make up Babbette the spider's web in her study. Number three - A Year on the Lawn is an important educational and ecological tool that would be a great asset to high school science classes. Number four - things we idly wonder about while sipping iced tea in our own backyards are honored here in spades. This is a great read, no matter the season, whether you're on a summer-kissed deck or looking out at the piles of snow covering the backyard grill. Move it to the top of your pile.

Might turn casual lawn nature viewers into informed enviromentalists!
This is a really fascinating look at the life that exists in a small suburban lawn---the many stories that play out there, with birds, squirrels, trees, grasses, even fungi! It's written in a light and very readable way, and is enjoyable from start to finish.

A few things would have made this book even better in my eyes. I'd have loved a drawing or map of the yard---the author often refers to different regions of the yard, like the Bamboo Forest, and I just couldn't quite picture how the yard was set up. Also, like many people, I didn't have a good idea how big 2/10th of an acre was---It would have been great to have been given something to compare the size of the yard with. At times, also, the author is a little more cutesy that I like, with slangy names for things that seem a little forced, like she was trying too hard not to be technical.

The most interesting thing I learned from this book was how huge the problem of non-native species is in this country! I remember doing a report in high school on periwinkles, which were all over the Maine coast I grew up on, and finding out they were introduced to the coast just centuries before. I checked several other sources as I just couldn't believe that to be true---there were so MANY of them! Now I realize how giant the problem is, and how MOST of the life in the author's yard is non-native. I wonder what we can do about this problem?

Certainly a recommended read, especially for those who enjoy watching the birds and wildlife close to home and would like to better understand what they see!

Don't be scared by the subject matter--this is a fast-paced and fun book!
Even though this book was so highly recommended, I had trouble picking it up. A year examining the backyard? What?

As soon as I started the book, through, I was hooked on the intense social lives of Holmes's crows, the eating and gathering habits of her local chipmunk, her people-wary squirrel clan (many of whom lost parts of their tails), the oh-so-important bugs, and more. I'm not generally a reader of biology and nature books, so trust me when I say this book reaches across genres to the armchair reader.

In fact, Holmes supports her thrilling narrative with citations from many biology books. I can only imagine how dry these texts are, and I thank her for giving us the "best parts" in narrative form. I learned about the navigational skills of robins and the extensive scientific studies conducted on the species, as well as the fact that hummingbirds have to learn to love the color red for its sugar, and many a baby hummingbird can be found picking at dry brown leaves and stems. Holmes also discusses experiments that were conducted to learn how squirrels know to eat white oak acorns (which germinate before winter) and save red oak acorns (which can be stored through winter without germination). Holmes manages to pack all this scientific information and more into a terrific narrative about a woman and her backyard.

This book is highly recommended. I can think of nothing else that compares, and the story of Hannah and her backyard is anything but mundane.