A Bush Calendar: A Seasonal Diary from Australia with Nature Watch Activities

by Amy Eleanor Mack, Michelle Morrow, Sarah Graham (illustrator)

Leopold Classic Library is delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive collection. As part of our on-going commitment to delivering value to the reader, we have also provided you with a link to a website, where you may download a digital version of this work for free. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. Whilst the books in this collection have not been hand curated, an aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature. As a result of this book being first published many decades ago, it may have occasional imperfections. These imperfections may include poor picture quality, blurred or missing text. While some of these imperfections may have appeared in the original work, others may have resulted from the scanning process that has been applied. However, our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. While some publishers have applied optical character recognition (OCR), this approach has its own drawbacks, which include formatting errors, misspelt words, or the presence of inappropriate characters. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with an experience that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic book, and that the occasional imperfection that it might contain will not detract from the experience.

Genres: Australia

115 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1909

About the author

Born in 1876 in Port Adelaide, Australia, Amy Eleanor Mack was the daughter of the Rev. Hans Hamilton Mack, and his wife Jemima James, both of whom immigrated to Australia from Ireland. Mack was one of seven children, and her sister Louise Mack was also to become a writer. She was educated at the Sydney Girls' High School, and went to work as a journalist after graduation.

Mack was editor of the 'Women's Page' of the Sydney Morning Herald from 1907-14, publishing her first book, a collection of essays entitled A Bush Calendar, in 1909. Her first children's book, Bushland Stories, was published in 1910. She married zoologist Launcelot Harrison in 1908, and the two traveled to England in 1914, where he did his postgraduate work at Cambridge. Mack worked in London as a publicity officer for the ministries of munitions and food during WWI.

In 1919, the couple returned to Australia, where Harrison worked as a professor of zoology at the University of Sydney from 1922. Mack published her book, The Wilderness, that same year, and continued to contribute to the literary page of the Sydney Morning Herald. She was honorary secretary of the National Council of Women of New South Wales from 1920-23, and accompanied her husband on scientific expeditions until his death in 1928. Mack herself died in 1938.

Reviews

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book each month, matching the calendar in the book.

It was interesting to compare the plant and animal species I saw each month in the Northside of Sydney to the book which I also understood to be set in the same area.

Often the species noted were quite similar. Other times the bird species particularly were different, or ones I do not notice on my regular bushwalks.

The author certainly has a talent for making observations and naming the species the mentioned. It helped me in learning further and expanding my own knowledge.Eager to see if I can get better at spotting nesting birds and flowers in the seasons noted.

I found it immensely valuable to have the species list at the end of each chapter - and the more modern names listed alongside was really helpful to research further. The names used by the author are reflective of the times (1909). This really helps you step back in time.

I did find some of the practices of the author to be a little invasive, and reflective of the times. Walking off with armfuls of flowers from the bushland would be frowned upon and illegal today. I didn’t like the way the author often disturbed birds nests in the story also.

Otherwise a delightful step back in time and a reminder of the fraility of nature over time and how easily species density can be lost.

The illustrations by Robin Singh really helped look through the authors own eyes.

[Clare S-B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Each month the Australian bushland has some new spectacle to offer - perhaps as subtle as grey grevilleas or as exuberant as clouds of wattle; prehaps as noisy as nestling cuckoos or as discreet as a morepork's camouflage. A BUSH CALENDAR is full of these sights and pleasures.

Amy Mack takes us tramping in the early morning through the summer bush still wet with dew to breakfast with her beside a bank of wild violets. Or we down chores and escape to the midday stillness of a rocky path, or set off in the late afternoon and delay to see the moonlight catch in silhouette in the dramatic shapes of the she-oaks. Along the way there are birds and flowers to observe and identify, the nutty smell of the bush to inhale and the sounds of cicadas and birdsong.

I really enjoyed reading through a chapter of this book each month, but it is also sad as there is not much bush like that anymore, although you can still see many of the plants and animals, but they are even more scarce.