Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival

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Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival

4.09 of 5 stars 4.09 · rating details · 959 ratings · 111 reviews

From award-winning writer and biologist Bernd Heinrich, an intimate, accessible and eloquent illumination of animal survival in Winter.

From flying squirrels to grizzly bears, torpid turtles to insects with antifreeze, the animal kingdom relies on some staggering evolutionary innovations to survive winter. Unlike their human counterparts, who must alter their environment to...more

Paperback, 368 pages

Published January 1st 2004 by Harper Perennial (first published 2003)

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Dec 13, 2012 Florence MacIntosh rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone who cares about cold critters

Recommended to Florence by: Michael Edwards

Shelves: nature, non-fiction, animals, science, 2012, favs-current, reviewed

It’s like spending a couple of weeks with Bernd in his isolated cabin in Maine, ungrudgingly shared with deer mice & an assortment of bugs, all part of it. A remarkable man who’s sole purpose is to answer all your questions and while he’s at it renew your sense of wonder in nature’s complexity. If you’ve grown up with brutal winters and are at all tuned into nature you must have questioned how on earth animals survive it…“by defying the odds and the laws of physics and proving that the fabul...more It’s like spending a couple of weeks with Bernd in his isolated cabin in Maine, ungrudgingly shared with deer mice & an assortment of bugs, all part of it. A remarkable man who’s sole purpose is to answer all your questions and while he’s at it renew your sense of wonder in nature’s complexity. If you’ve grown up with brutal winters and are at all tuned into nature you must have questioned how on earth animals survive it…“by defying the odds and the laws of physics and proving that the fabulous is possible”

- Why do birds flock and why only come winter?
- How do bears, instead of suffering from muscle loss like we would after 6 months of lying around, just wake up, stretch & casually walk up a mountain?
- How do tiny fragile birds like chickadee's not freeze at 40 below?
- And what about those little red squirrels, are they insane? Why are they running around in subzero temperatures instead of hibernating along with the rest of the squirrel kingdom?

Always focusing on cold weather survival mechanisms he covers a lot of territory for such a short book, touching on everything from flying squirrels, bats & butterflies to snakes and turtles. He includes his own illustrations, pencil sketches I believe, a really nice touch.
This isn’t dumbed down so be prepared to pay attention. Most of it I got though admittedly he lost me on super-cooling. The memoir of a biologist, the style is concise & factual but with just enough of a lyrical touch to get a feel for him, a quiet understated style that still manages to relay his passion. My 1st Bernd and I want more. Summer World: A Season of Bounty I think next, I intend on reading all his books.

“Fine feathery snow crystals drift down. There is not a breath of moving air. The sharp clean smell of this new snow prickles my senses and excites. Within a minute I stand at the edge of the pond feeling peace, and just barely hearing the tinkling of snow crystals falling on my jacket. They amplify the stillness”(less)

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Dec 03, 2012 Petra X rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: animals-ethology

Bernd Heinrich isn't a purist. When he takes off to live in the frozen Maine woods for the winter, he might chop wood for heat and cooking but drives into town for a bit of relief every now and again. So reading him is reading a balanced man which is one reason I like his books so much.

The main reason though is that these books go into such extreme detail, the absolute minutae of the natural life and explain it in well-written prose and his own pen & ink drawings. His world is one where evo...more

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Dec 21, 2008 Diane rated it 5 of 5 stars

I have had this book on my shelf for a few years. Yesterday, after receiving about 10" of snow here in New England, it seemed like the perfect reading choice for me. I curled up near the fireplace and front windows where the bird feeder sits, and watched some of my tiny feathered friends brave the elements to fill their bellies. I quickly became fascinated with the book: Winter World; Bernd Heinrich.

The author is a biologist, and an illustrator, and this book has the most wonderful hand drawn il...more

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Jan 19, 2013 Janice Williams rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction-nature

I am still reading this book and it will likely take me a while because of other responsibilities I have... but I read several pages each evening. I am not very knowledgable about science, but I love the things I am learning from this author about how animals survive in the winter. Things I always wondered about... There are helpful, beautiful drawings in the book too.

Anyone who wants to be more in-touch with nature and the creatures who live in the woods will find this book interesting. It is...more

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Jul 03, 2010 Bryan added it · review of another edition

Somewhat slow reading but very interesting: This book describes terrestrial life in the cold reaches of the world, emphasis on the forests of Canada and the Northern states of the USA. The text is written in first person in a diary format of the author traveling thru and living in winter environments. This format is punctuated with occassional asides to elaborate on scientific issues. The colors are black and white illustrations which are unfortunate for a nature book, but it does keep the purch...more

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Apr 28, 2013 Tamhack rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book is fascinating. The subject is written about a biologist but he draws the reader into the survival of the animals. His illustrations in the book were wonderful.

From back cover:
"From flying squirrels to grizzly bears, and from torpid turtles to insects with antifreeze, the animal kingdom relies on some staggering evolutionary innovations to survive winter. Unlike their human counterparts, who must alter then environment to accommodate physical limitations, animals are adaptable to an a...more This book is fascinating. The subject is written about a biologist but he draws the reader into the survival of the animals. His illustrations in the book were wonderful.

From back cover:
"From flying squirrels to grizzly bears, and from torpid turtles to insects with antifreeze, the animal kingdom relies on some staggering evolutionary innovations to survive winter. Unlike their human counterparts, who must alter then environment to accommodate physical limitations, animals are adaptable to an amazing range of condition.
Examining everything from food sources in the extremely barren winter landscape to the chemical composition that allows certain creatures to survive, Heinrich's Winter World awakens the largely undiscovered mysteries by which sustains herself through winter's harsh, cruel exigencies."

I learned about birds, turtles, bees, bats, squirrels, bears, frogs, etc. He reveals many intriguing facts about how animals can survive in the harshest winter conditions. Starting with the "miracles of beauty" of the snowflakes. He sites of Bentley's writing and photography of snowflakes.
P22- now because of Bentley, school children are taught that no two snowflakes are alike.
..." it is difficult to find two or more crystals that are nearly, if not the same, in outline" Snow crystals wert to him a metaphor for earth's beauty. They were a "road to fairyland" so that "even a blizzard becomes a source of keenest enjoyment and satisfaction, to man, as it brings to him, from the dark, surging ocean of clouds, forms that thrill his eager soul with pleasure."
P23 " A snow crystal is only the beginning of what makes snow. Snow flakes are composite masses of often hundreds of snow crystals that have collided on their long journey down from the clouds."
P24 " Packed snow has superb insulating properties."
Snow also provides shelter at night for many kinds of birds"
P57-- The engineering skills of wasps building their nests, making it a perfect insulated shelter against cold weather down to 5 Celsius.
P70 Why don't birds use their nests for winter shelters? " They construct amazingly elegant and functional nests with which to attract mates and in which to incubate their eggs and rear their young, but would they build even a crude shelter from the killing cold? Nothing doing! Well, almost nothing doing. There are, as almost always in the winter world, blatant exceptions."
P98 - " Chipmunks are "true hibernators."
P101-102 "For probably the most remarkable story of hibernation and winter survival of any mammal, I turn now to the arctic ground squirrel (spermophilus parryii). This tawny-gold and gray ground squirrel with small white spots is larger than a chipmunk and smaller than a woodchuck. It is the northernmost mammalian hibernator across the Canadian and Siberian tundra. For eight months of the year the squirrel curls up into a ball close to the ice of the permafrost, and maintains a body temperature at or below the freezing point of water. Brian M. Barnes and colleagues at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks have for many years tried to decipher how these animals survive. They have studied them in the field at the Toolik Lake station at the foothills of the Brooks Range, and in enclosures and in the lab of Fairbanks." Exploring how animals use "antifreeze" (P173) and the technique of "supercooling".
P 115 -Exploring the evolution of feathers and how they are used for insulation.
p 136 "The torpor option for conserving energy was little known until the 1950s"...
P 165 " Muskrats have solved their problem of access to oxygen"...
P259 "One of the first issues of hibernating bears to be studied was how, despite maintaining a high metabolic rate (high body temperature) the bear still does not need to drink or urinate all winter. We can, like bears, also go without food for a long time, provided we have body fat. But we can't get along without water."
P262 " Hibernating bears accomplish metabolic feats that, if we knew their secrets, would likely lead to cures for many human ills. They have the secrets of how to survive lack of exercise, and then, after five months of resting, of how to get up and walk up a mountain. In all of those months of what amounts to bed rest, they suffer no bed sores. They have marginal loss of muscle mass and no change in muscle fiber type. Despite their non-weight-bearing position for months at a time, they do not suffer from bone loss or osteoporosis. After burning fat for fuel for months during which their cholesterol levels become double those of humans and those they have in the summer, yet they still don't suffer from hardening of the arteries or gallstones, conditions resulting from high cholesterol levels in us."
p276-- "How bees regulate the temperature of their collective winter cluster"...

I would recommend this book to anyone. The author writes to make world of biology interesting to those of us who aren't biologist. He opened my eyes to my backyard, my neighborhood, the woods around me, etc. His does an excellent job of explaining nature and increased my understanding. It would be a great books for schools to have!(less)

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Mar 05, 2012 Karen rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: didn-t-finish

I feel bad rating as 2 stars a book I didn't really like for the reason that it's not the type of book that I like, but whatever. I found it "OK" and Goodreads says if I only thought it was OK then it gets 2 stars from me. If you loved this book I would never fight you over it.

Long Story Short: This is probably a wonderful book that was just not for me, at least not for me during this particular January, when I was expecting I’d have some cozy dark-early winter times and got instead 80-degree we...more I feel bad rating as 2 stars a book I didn't really like for the reason that it's not the type of book that I like, but whatever. I found it "OK" and Goodreads says if I only thought it was OK then it gets 2 stars from me. If you loved this book I would never fight you over it.

Long Story Short: This is probably a wonderful book that was just not for me, at least not for me during this particular January, when I was expecting I’d have some cozy dark-early winter times and got instead 80-degree weather with trips to the jacuzzi. I didn’t finish it.

Why I Chose This Book: A biologist friend recommended this book to me, and had said he’d found it very inspiring. What with winter coming up, and me always looking for recommendations from real people, I thought it would be the perfect thing for the season. It was not.

The Book’s Strengths: This was a book with a strong voice, told with great detail about a fascinating subject. It was almost a memoir, I thought, and the author had great passion for the subject, as well as a careful and thorough approach to the various explorations of how tiny little animals (and bigger animals) survived during the harsh winters of northern climates. It was peppered with pencil drawings from the author’s own notes, and it was full of interesting observations about the world, and I liked many of the connections the author drew between seemingly disparate things. I mean, I know we use trees for fuel and animals eat other animals, but I never explicitly thought about trees as solar energy containers or rabbits harnessing the sun’s energy for the benefit of the foxes, that kind of thing. (The author said it better, but the book went back to the library weeks and weeks ago.) The author lymoved between loving the natural world and conducting actual experiments about the natural world (like measuring the temperature of bird corpses to see how long they’d hold heat with that shape and that size in frozen temperatures, or sticking his head into tree trunks to measure the amount of squirrel droppings in order to estimate the number of animals using a shelter), with highly readable and almost poetic prose.

The Book’s Weaknesses: I am going to fudge on this section, because I can’t really say that the things I didn’t like were weaknesses. I just prefer not to read books that have these things in them. I don’t as a rule read memoirs, because I don’t care that much about people’s introspections on their own lives, and although this book was not a memoir it had an awful lot of “I” in it. I just do not care that much about this guy’s feelings about the natural world. I care much more about the natural world itself, except that I don’t care enough about it, I guess, to learn about the guy while I’m learning about the world. I disliked Thoreau’s Walden for much of the same reason. I would have been happier with a different book about the exact same topic, but I realize that’s not an actual weakness, and I understand that I am dismissing a book because it’s not what I prefer and not for any objective reason. But I just got tired of him.

The marketing text for the book includes this sentence: “Biologist, illustrator, and award-winning author Bernd Heinrich explores his local woods, where he delights in the seemingly infinite feats of animal inventiveness he discovers there.”

I’m sure I would delight in these things myself if I were reading about them directly. But I didn’t delight in reading about the author’s delight. Does that make sense?

What Should Have Happened: I should have read a different book that matched my preferences, I guess. I don’t really have a recommendation here.

Short Story Shorter: I don’t like my non-fiction mixed up with memoir. Maybe you do.(less)

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Feb 19, 2012 Jenny Brown rated it 5 of 5 stars

I live out in the country in New England and had always wondered how the tiny birds got through the winter and what the insects did to survive the deep cold. This book answered many of my questions and taught me a great deal about the animal life in the woods near where I live.

My only quibble with it is that after a very strong start the book slows down and the logic that connects the chapters is not terribly clear.

Also, when Heinrich talks about blood sugar he makes embarrassing mistakes, for...more

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Jan 26, 2010 Julia rated it 5 of 5 stars

Although I would agree with every other reviewer on this site that "Winter World" is a facinating read, accessible to a non-scientist, has gorgeous wildlife sketches by the author, and perfectly compliments a snowy day in my cold weather clime, I would add one other accolade to the pile: it completely changed the way I now look at the wild animals that share this frigid corner of Ohio with me, and made me respect them all the more. They are not beggars that live on the warm-heartedness of humans...more

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Oct 29, 2011 David rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: biology, science, audiobook

How do animals survive in the winter? The Arctic ground squirrel hibernates in the winter, and digs himself a small hole and sleeps there for 11 months each year! Its body temperature drops to -2 to -2.9 C, though in the laboratory, its blood plasma freezes at those temperatures! Once a month its body temperature rises to around 30 C for about a day, during which the squirrel experiences REM sleep. Why does its temperature rise, which uses up half of its available fat energy supply?

How does the...more

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Jan 02, 2012 Stasia rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 04-nonfiction

Animals are amazing! And this book is full of crazy examples of just why they're so amazing.

I was a little worried when I started and was confronted with a chapter called "A Note on Terms and Definitions," which was about as interesting as it sounds, but from there it went nowhere but up. Heinrich covers a whole bunch of different winter adaptations, from frogs who freeze solid for months at a time (that's a pretty crazy one), to super-arctic moths who live for THIRTEEN OR FOURTEEN years in larv...more

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Nov 27, 2010 Ammie rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was worried when I started this for two reasons: in the first chapter or two there was a lot of needless italicizing of key words (something I detest and which makes me think of the bible you find in hotel room nightstands) and very little humor, which I usually need a touch of to engage me in scientific writing. But I was happily surprised: the italics disappeared (except for maybe one chapter further on), and the lack of witty writing posed no impediment to my wholehearted enjoyment. Heinric...more

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Feb 08, 2011 Katie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 21st-century, american, favorites, natural-history

Winter World truly one of the most fascinating books I've ever read. Heinrich is a master of observation and has a talent for making even dense scientific explanations accessible. His writing is intellectual, graceful, and compassionate.

I've read Winter World twice now - both times in January, which in my opinion is best time of year to read it. In our snug homes, surrounded by a seemingly barren landscape, it is easy to overlook the miracles of winter survival that play out daily, year after ye...more

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May 22, 2007 Fins rated it 4 of 5 stars

Heinrich offers some of the best science/nature writing for both scientific and lay audiences. Even though I was a biology major in college, I was amazed by this book. Easy to read, but not "dumbed down science".

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Feb 09, 2009 Jessica rated it 4 of 5 stars

What a wonderful book for winter! I loved reading about how everyone, from bears to bees, copes with the cold, but I'm all the more convinced that humans just aren't made for these northern climes.

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Jun 12, 2009 Juliet Wilson rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: nature

In this wonderful book, Heinrich takes us into the winter woodlands of Maine to observe nature and how living things survive the cold. He looks at insects (especially bees), bears and trees but concentrates on the kinglet, a tiny bird closely related to the European goldcrest (one of my favourite birds). The book is full of the enthusiasm of someone who is genuinely fascinated by the natural world and who has the skills of a true field biologist to back that up. Not to mention artistic talent to...more

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Apr 20, 2010 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

I really enjoyed this book. Heinrich is a biologist, but also a wonderful naturalist and observer. Heinrich splits his time between Vermont (where he is a professor) and a cabin in Maine and has both observed and studied what animals who don’t migrate do during the winter. Turns out the strategies employed by birds, insects, bears, beavers, squirrels, frogs and the like are all very different. I am not sure after reading this that I could pass an essay exam on the differences between topor and h...more

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Feb 15, 2011 John rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: nature, wildlife, ecology

Winter World is an engaging book on how various animals survive through Maine's long and extremely cold winters. The animal at the center of the book is the Golden-crowned Kinglet, a tiny bird that needs to find and eat enough insects to survive very cold nights. Heinrich also investigates the survival strategies of mammals such as squirrels, beavers, and bears; herps such as frogs and snapping turtles; and insects such as honeybees. Along the way he discusses individual vs. communal strategies...more

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Jul 05, 2012 Nomad rated it 3 of 5 stars

I honestly really like non-fiction. I truly beleive that no matter how wonderful the plotline of a book is, it can't hold a candle to the strangeness and the miraculous in real life. Nature, gardening, food and travel writing make me revel in all that real life has to offer. So I began this book with very high hopes. I also went into it with a certain amount of nostalgia as well. I am originally from New England, Rhode Island specfically, and now that I live in San Diego county, autumn and winte...more I honestly really like non-fiction. I truly beleive that no matter how wonderful the plotline of a book is, it can't hold a candle to the strangeness and the miraculous in real life. Nature, gardening, food and travel writing make me revel in all that real life has to offer. So I began this book with very high hopes. I also went into it with a certain amount of nostalgia as well. I am originally from New England, Rhode Island specfically, and now that I live in San Diego county, autumn and winter are no longer parts of my life. I miss the colder months, the brilliant colors as the leaves turn in autumn, the way snow blankets everything so perfectly in winter. So reading this book, which is set in the forests of Northern New England (Vermont and Maine) brought back a lot of happy memories for me.

The world that is hidden in the snow, the animals who live there, much of it was extremely interesting. The chapters on mammals, everything from mice to bears, the chapters on birds of all sorts, the chapters on winter plantlife and trees were all top notch. I was riveted and felt like I was learning more and more with each page. That is the best sort of non-fiction, when you are learning something, but never feel like you're in a classroom. Bernd Heinrich is also very captivated by his subject and his enthusiasm is a treat. In certain ways he is the shrewd scientist, but in others, he is the small child, out in the snow covered woods overcome with a sense of wonder and the magical. When he lets that side out, it really speaks to the inner child in everyone.

However, there are some bad things, otherwise I would have given this book more stars. For all his wonder, for all the interesting information given on plants, avians, amphibians and mammals... there are three long chapters on nothing but insects. Now, for anyone who is interested in insects, this is great, however for anyone who isn't, and I am not, this part of the book drags. It drags enough that it took me a month to read 3 chapters. It was right in the middle, and the insect chapters weren't spaced out over the course of the book, so I had no choice but to plow on through them. It took a while and it almost made me put the book down and never come back.

I'm glad I did though, because all the chapters after those three were right back to the high level one can expect from a Heinrich book. So if you can get past the tedium of the middle section... I recommend this book. If you don't think you can, I would recommend that you give this book a pass. (less)

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Jan 31, 2012 Matt Britton rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book is a first-hand account of winter in the author's homes in Vermont and Maine, supplemented with published studies and papers and the observations of other naturalists. Heinrich discusses the remarkable feat of winter survival, mostly among small animals such as birds, squirrels, beavers, butterflies, and all sorts of insect larvae. While some species survive the winter by leaving (migration), the most interesting stories here are of those who stay, and either hibernate or find ways to...more This book is a first-hand account of winter in the author's homes in Vermont and Maine, supplemented with published studies and papers and the observations of other naturalists. Heinrich discusses the remarkable feat of winter survival, mostly among small animals such as birds, squirrels, beavers, butterflies, and all sorts of insect larvae. While some species survive the winter by leaving (migration), the most interesting stories here are of those who stay, and either hibernate or find ways to feed and burn energy through the winter.

Heinrich emphasizes the central necessity of keeping up body temperature, and explores a variety of mechanisms that organisms use to supercool their blood, slow their hearts into a torpor, create anti-freeze solutions in their body, and in some cases, simply freeze solid. While many of the specifics behind these mechanisms are not well studied, Heinrich peppers his writing with his own theories derived from careful observation of local species. He often explores nests and experiments with grubs or other hibernating animals, raising them inside and trying to determine what conditions cause them to hibernate or wake up.

So, content is an A. The reason I'm giving this three stars however, is the writing style. Heinrich does not strike me as a natural writer, but rather as someone who would rather be teaching a class (he is a professor at UVM), and is trying to condense a rambling but incisive vocal style into a book. He frequently ends chapters with observations about the wider relevance of this work- for example how global warming is negatively affecting wildlife with timed hibernation schedules, or claiming that science done for its own benefit is superior to that done for monetary gain or product development. He rarely spends more than a page and a half on this subject right before the end of the chapter, and the result is a stilted, jerky passage through the book. The chapters are also very short, and don't always logically cohere- it would be easy to merge some of them into more complete, longer chapters.

Also, Heinrich illustrates many of his points through recollections of walks around his home, vacations at his cabin, experiments with wasps nests and flying squirrels inside his home, etc, but does not mention his wife until more than halfway through the book. We then find out she is a biologist and a participant in his work. It's not a big deal, but the inconsistent way in which information is revealed hurts what is subject-wise, a very interesting book. Still definitely worth a read, though if you've read the first half, the second will hold fewer surprises, and I found myself having trouble slogging through. (less)

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Dec 13, 2011 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science

Reading a book about winter while it's the middle of December and 50 degrees with no snow yet...

The best and most important thing Heinrich does with this book is promote a spiritual / romantic outlook on the New England winter and his Maine cabin lifestyle. He asks "what is death?" while examining animals that freeze solid during the winter or go to a hibernation state that fits most of our criteria for death. It makes you rethink basic "facts" we take for granted -- if you have lungs, you need...more

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Feb 13, 2011 Betsy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: natural-history, non-fiction, nature-writing

Henrich is a great writer and makes an incredible amount of information accessible and easy to learn in a short book. I really liked how focus on kinglets throughout the book and how he provokes curiosity and awe in us readers. However, there are a few facts in the book that I would disagree with. Mainly, I would argue that most naturalists would say that bears do not actually hibernate. Also, he discusses Bohemian waxwings eating berries throughout the winter, including high-bush cranberries an...more

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Mar 06, 2010 Happyreader rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nature

This was the perfect winter book - and now that spring appears to be almost here, I'm finally done. There's a frozen nature drama going on that most of us are unaware of - weasals stalking chipmunks into their chipmunk dens, nests built with extra layers of insulation, frogs frozen solid yet not dead, beavers and muskrats locked for months under frozen lakes, bears living in dens all winter and changing their metabolism to prevent the creation of waste products, catepillars that live in the Arti...more

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May 31, 2010 Bird rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, nature-and-animals

There were many things to like about this book, but it just didn't succeed in holding my attention for very long. It's been on my "currently-reading" shelf for almost six months and yes, I've been slowly making my way through it for much of that time.

There are wonderful descriptions and information about the animals in the northeastern United States and how they each handle the harsh winters found there. But all of the information is presented in a long-winded, meandering sort of way, so that I...more

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Sep 18, 2008 Patti rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book was fascinating all the way through. The individual adaptions each species makes to survive are truly amazing. The students that Professor Heinrich teaches a The University of Vermont are truly lucky. After reading this book, I want to stop and intently watch every bird and bug and mammal, etc that I encounter on my walks.

Here is a sample of what can be learned in this book.

The adult goldenrod fly injects an egg into a goldenrod stem in the early summer. Chemicals injected with the egg...more

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Nov 30, 2012 Viewpoint rated it 4 of 5 stars

Winter World by Bernd Heinrich (audiobook). At the beginning, the reader sounds bored, as if reading scientific books is just a job. But the author's many stories of what he has seen in the winter woods soon drew in both the reader and me, the listener. This book is an interesting, informal mix of science and anecdote. It gave me concepts I hadn't met before (such as the subnivean zone), and a fresh perspective on animal and plant strategies for survival during cold, lean times.

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Mar 10, 2009 Cooper rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was a pretty interesting read, but heavy on the ecology/biology. I found it engaging and I followed nearly all of it since I have some background in ecology and biology. Without an background knowledge this might be a bit academic for readers, it seems like a great book for an ecology class focused on the north east, but not so much for the layman just interested in the winter. It's also very focused on North Eastern (greater New England) United States.

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Jun 14, 2011 Jenn rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I wanted to like it. I enjoyed some bits, but most often I felt like it was either too much surface info or not enough. There are beautiful sketches inside of various animals, which is nice. But about halfway through I gave up, due to being overloaded too often, not given enough info when he finally did peak my interest, and the jumbled overall feeling of disorganization. I think some good editing would have made this readable.

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Aug 03, 2009 Todd Martin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: environment-science

Winter World examines the varied strategies animals use to survive cold temperatures. Interestingly nature has solved this problem in a number of different ways both evolutionary and behaviorally. Strategies include: torpor and hibernation, den and nest building, clustering, migration, caloric loading, and food caching. Heinrich describes cold research that has been conducted on insects, birds and mammals, interspersing the text with personal stories and his own experiments as a biologist and as...more

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Jan 14, 2013 Brian rated it 3 of 5 stars

I love Bernd Heinrich; his death grip on reality is impressive. His devotion to experimentation and collecting data to answer questions motivates me to be a better scientist. This book however, seemed a bit thrown together, with little flow and a cobbled-together feel. It included some interesting facts but overall not up to what I have grown to expect from him.

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About Bernd Heinrich

Bernd Heinrich was born in Germany (April 19, 1940) and moved to Wilton, Maine as a child. He studied at the University of Maine and UCLA and is Professor Emeriti of Biology at the University of Vermont.

He is the author of many books including Winter World, Ravens in Winter, Mind of the Raven and Why We Run. Many of his books focus on the natural world just outside the cabin door.

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Books by Bernd Heinrich

Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds

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“We gauge what we think is possible by what we know from experience, and our acceptance of scientific insights, in particular, is incremental, gained one experience at a time.” — 2 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/254705.Winter_World?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1173183655l/254705.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/254705.Winter_World?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival by Bernd Heinrich[/url]

Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival

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