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Swampwalker's Journal: A Wetlands Year
David Carroll has dedicated his life to art and to wetlands. He is as passionate about swamps, bogs, and vernal ponds and the creatures who live in them as most of us are about our families and closest friends. He knows frogs and snakes, muskrats and minks, dragonflies, water lilies, cattails, sedges--everything that swims, flies, trudges, slithers, or sinks its roots in wet places. In this "intimate and wise book" (Sue Hubbell), Carroll takes us on a lively, unforgettable yearlong journey, illustrated with his own elegant drawings, through the wetlands and reveals why they are so important to his life and ours -- and to all life on Earth.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
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399 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
May 18, 2023
I've admittedly not actually finished this book. It is a very very slow read, chock full of intricate detail and takes a lot of processing.
What I have read is beautiful nature writing, infused with passion and enthusiasm. The illustrations are exquisite and so detailed, they almost look photographic.
Carroll shows that he is sensitive to the rhythms and needs of the landscape he is studying, carefully treading to avoid disruption or interference.
The only reason this is a 4 rather than a 5 star read is that the level of detail can become overwhelming, forcing a short burst reading pattern (which doesn't always work for me). Otherwise, an excellent nature journal.
What I have read is beautiful nature writing, infused with passion and enthusiasm. The illustrations are exquisite and so detailed, they almost look photographic.
Carroll shows that he is sensitive to the rhythms and needs of the landscape he is studying, carefully treading to avoid disruption or interference.
The only reason this is a 4 rather than a 5 star read is that the level of detail can become overwhelming, forcing a short burst reading pattern (which doesn't always work for me). Otherwise, an excellent nature journal.
March 6, 2008
Great book, basically a journal describing his different wanderings through various types of wetlands. It took me a while to get through it, because every time I read one of his passages, I would get distracted thinking about my own wanderings through wetlands and ponds (i.e. at home, at UNDERC, etc). Overall, a great read, and a good message as well.
December 16, 2013
This beautifully written book was actually over my head. Had I know more botany or maybe biology, I could have appreciated this book more. I learned a lot about turtles and salamanders. Carroll achieved his goal of making me far more appreciative of freshwater wetlands. I'm glad I slogged through this boo.
October 11, 2025
I was originally going to rate this 3/5 until I got to the bogs/fens chapter and the epilouge. The writing is intricate and passionate, and you can hear the disdain for our current state of affairs that I imagine most people reading his book share. At times, it felt like he was making jabs at wildlife professionals and those of us who have dedicated our lives to trying to salvage the mess we have made for our natural world, but in the last chapter/epilouge I felt more like he more meant to jab at humans for putting us in the situation that require such a field to exist? Regardless, the intense daily detail of each observation could sometimes be overwhelming and make this a book that took a very long time to work through. It's a good background book to have.
October 3, 2020
Very interesting , and you can feel the author's appreciation for what he is writing about. But like all books of this type, it is inherently mournful-- a last memory of a dying world.
May 31, 2023
David Carroll has written an amazing chronicle of the wetlands of the northeastern US. He is passionate about swamps, bogs, and vernal ponds and the plants and animals who live in them. He puts a face on the inhabitants of the wetlands, and illustrates his writing with his drawings. Recommend it to all.
April 14, 2010
In a nutshell:
David M. Carroll is a naturalist and artist who resides in New Hampshire. Since childhood, he has had a love for the wetlands. I did not know this until after I’d finished the book, but Swampwalker’s Journal is the third of what Carroll calls his “wet-sneaker” trilogy. The first two books are The Year of the Turtle and Trout Reflections. In Swampwalker’s Journal, he records field observations of the creatures and plants in the wetland ecosystems near where he lives. He uses these observations to underscore how much would be lost and has been lost by human destruction of the wetlands. The book is divided according to wetland type: vernal pools, marshes, swamps, ponds, floodplains, bogs and fens.
Review:
I love reading non-fiction, but I can’t deny that it is often a slower reading experience than reading fiction, especially when it is so dense with detailed observations and facts as Swampwalker’s Journal. The reward of such a reading experience is the deepened understanding of wetlands and the creatures that live in them. Also, I feel smarter.
Carroll’s years among the wetlands are clearly evident in the book. He makes a point of seeing the first salamander migrations of spring. He treks to ponds hoping to see the first of the turtle hatchlings. He knows where to find animal burrows and nests. And yet, it is a pleasure to see how nature continues to puzzle and surprise him. As he says at one point in the book:
"I do not look for human meanings out here; one who looks for human meanings in nature will never see nature." p. 44
When I first started the book, I was a bit daunted by Carroll’s paragraphs about plant life. Though his writing is not dry, I found it hard to picture what he was describing sometimes and lists of plant types and names meant little to me. Where the book shines is in Carroll’s ability to show wetland creatures as individuals. He’s not anthropomorphizing them, but his encounters do imbue them with personality.
The moment I was hooked was when I read Carroll’s description of a wood frog in distress. This happens on about page 10. The account begins when Carroll hears a pathetic cry in the night and he is surprised to see that it is coming from this little wood frog which is being laboriously dragged away by a small snake. In this instance, Carroll frees the frog because he judges from experience that this snake cannot possibly eat a frog of that size. And Carroll muses on the fact that wood frogs are generally a silent species, but this one was compelled to cry out. What could it gain by crying out? Frogs do not come to each other’s rescue. Carroll concludes: “And yet, in the face of unfathomable unhearing, life cries out at times.”
The book is threaded with these kinds of up-close interactions from turtle hatchlings, to beavers, to even a bear. Carroll rarely intercedes as he does with that wood frog, but it’s interesting to see when he does decide to break the role of observer.
This is not a book I would recommend to someone who has never read nature writing before, but if wetlands and/or frogs, turtles and salamanders interest you, then it is definitely a worthwhile read. And don’t just take my word for it. The book’s cover listed praise from such authors as Bill McKibben, Annie Dillard and Sue Hubbell. It also won the John Burroughs Medal for Best Natural History in 2001.
David M. Carroll is a naturalist and artist who resides in New Hampshire. Since childhood, he has had a love for the wetlands. I did not know this until after I’d finished the book, but Swampwalker’s Journal is the third of what Carroll calls his “wet-sneaker” trilogy. The first two books are The Year of the Turtle and Trout Reflections. In Swampwalker’s Journal, he records field observations of the creatures and plants in the wetland ecosystems near where he lives. He uses these observations to underscore how much would be lost and has been lost by human destruction of the wetlands. The book is divided according to wetland type: vernal pools, marshes, swamps, ponds, floodplains, bogs and fens.
Review:
I love reading non-fiction, but I can’t deny that it is often a slower reading experience than reading fiction, especially when it is so dense with detailed observations and facts as Swampwalker’s Journal. The reward of such a reading experience is the deepened understanding of wetlands and the creatures that live in them. Also, I feel smarter.
Carroll’s years among the wetlands are clearly evident in the book. He makes a point of seeing the first salamander migrations of spring. He treks to ponds hoping to see the first of the turtle hatchlings. He knows where to find animal burrows and nests. And yet, it is a pleasure to see how nature continues to puzzle and surprise him. As he says at one point in the book:
"I do not look for human meanings out here; one who looks for human meanings in nature will never see nature." p. 44
When I first started the book, I was a bit daunted by Carroll’s paragraphs about plant life. Though his writing is not dry, I found it hard to picture what he was describing sometimes and lists of plant types and names meant little to me. Where the book shines is in Carroll’s ability to show wetland creatures as individuals. He’s not anthropomorphizing them, but his encounters do imbue them with personality.
The moment I was hooked was when I read Carroll’s description of a wood frog in distress. This happens on about page 10. The account begins when Carroll hears a pathetic cry in the night and he is surprised to see that it is coming from this little wood frog which is being laboriously dragged away by a small snake. In this instance, Carroll frees the frog because he judges from experience that this snake cannot possibly eat a frog of that size. And Carroll muses on the fact that wood frogs are generally a silent species, but this one was compelled to cry out. What could it gain by crying out? Frogs do not come to each other’s rescue. Carroll concludes: “And yet, in the face of unfathomable unhearing, life cries out at times.”
The book is threaded with these kinds of up-close interactions from turtle hatchlings, to beavers, to even a bear. Carroll rarely intercedes as he does with that wood frog, but it’s interesting to see when he does decide to break the role of observer.
This is not a book I would recommend to someone who has never read nature writing before, but if wetlands and/or frogs, turtles and salamanders interest you, then it is definitely a worthwhile read. And don’t just take my word for it. The book’s cover listed praise from such authors as Bill McKibben, Annie Dillard and Sue Hubbell. It also won the John Burroughs Medal for Best Natural History in 2001.
November 13, 2019
This is a wonderful book - richly evocative of being in the landscape, a fascinating window into the differences between US and UK wetlands, passionate in its defence of what we risk losing, without ever becoming strident. Carroll is a model of how to write a book on the environment, combining a lifetime's intimate involvement with deep academic knowledge, leaving the reader with an intense sense of the oneness of everything, and of how few humans seem to understand that. It's not a particularly easy read - the richness of detail demands a lot of the reader, even for a biologist like myself - but nevertheless a truly memorable and deeply thought provoking book which amply deserves my rating.
May 11, 2017
A gem. A nature book that I relished over the course of a year, reading one section at a time, then putting it down. The book was wonderful, but just too rich and too full of information to read all at once. The author's knowledge of wetlands was amazing, his vocabulary equally so. A very rich and enjoyable read.
August 3, 2011
David Carroll is a passionate advocate of wetlands. He introduces the reader to the secret worlds of vernal pools, swamps and bogs using the most beautiful descriptions! I was inspired that he could communicate his passion in a manner that captivated me.
June 19, 2017
A fantastic book. I became entranced by Carroll's descriptions and observations of different wetlands.
A refreshing perspective on the environment, encompassing natural history while sharing concerns about our impact on the planet's future.
A refreshing perspective on the environment, encompassing natural history while sharing concerns about our impact on the planet's future.
April 3, 2021
I really wanted to like this book, but I had a hard time sticking with it. There was very little narrative. While some passages were beautiful descriptions and I learned some things, it often felt like long lists of plants.
June 17, 2020
My birthday present! Just what I asked for, I'm very excited to start reading this. I'm hoping to learn more about the various wet places I frequent.
Finished, read it slowly in the mornings with my coffee. A very detailed observation of all forms of land that involves natural water. He describes all the plants in all the places. It is a little mind numbing at times, but when I think about my experience reading this book I realize I felt as if I were walking in the places myself. His passion for turtles comes out as he has an opportunuty to include turtle encounters, and I know more than I ever thought I would now, about different species of turtles. I'm saving this as a reference book for future travels- to read up on the various wetlands, marshes, rivers, bogs and fens I may come across.
Finished, read it slowly in the mornings with my coffee. A very detailed observation of all forms of land that involves natural water. He describes all the plants in all the places. It is a little mind numbing at times, but when I think about my experience reading this book I realize I felt as if I were walking in the places myself. His passion for turtles comes out as he has an opportunuty to include turtle encounters, and I know more than I ever thought I would now, about different species of turtles. I'm saving this as a reference book for future travels- to read up on the various wetlands, marshes, rivers, bogs and fens I may come across.
June 10, 2025
Great book for wetland nerds! This is a journal of Carroll’s visits to several wetlands where he documents the notable plants and animals he finds, along with some behavioral observations. As such, it is probably best enjoyed by people with some knowledge of wetland flora and fauna. While it does contain some musings on land ethic (see A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There), this is not a major focus of the book.
May 12, 2008
this is the BEST book on wetlands, even if it focuses on new england/new hampshire
fantastic drawings and sublime prose. you must read this if you like natural history writing, as it is a superb example.
fantastic drawings and sublime prose. you must read this if you like natural history writing, as it is a superb example.
November 12, 2014
Good stuff, but something about it is slow, which is why I haven't yet finished it. I'd rather be out in the swamps than reading about it, perhaps that's the issue....
Wonderful writing, though, and filled with great information on the lives of swamps.
Wonderful writing, though, and filled with great information on the lives of swamps.
May 2, 2013
This book helped immensely in opening my eyes to the vast and critical web of life that we are still loosing at an alarming rate, yet it is still not realized we actually depend, for our own health, on its restoration!
January 7, 2013
A dense read as my brother stated from reading the first 10 pages and it stays that way. There a number of plants that he talks about that certainly wet your appetite to get out there and explore some wetlands.
January 19, 2008
Read this one several years ago. Don't remember it in detail, but I recall it taking some effort to finish and being slightly dry and stoic. And this is a subject I'm interested in.
August 5, 2011
As an aspiring naturalist, I loved reading Carroll's work. He captures the sense of wonder and how the science expands it perfectly. I find myself itching to take to the woods after this read.
November 7, 2011
Frogs, turtles, newts, salamanders, beavers, bogs, marshes, swamps. Wondrous, mysterious places -- how do they work? A book that answers all this in prose that enchants.
September 9, 2014
I really wanted to give this five stars. I love to wander the flood plains and prairies near my house, but it was slow going. Don't know why just was. Fascinating stuff.
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October 22, 2014Swampwalker's Journal 03102010 A Wetlands Year by David M. Carroll
Also books by DMCThe
Year of the Turtle
Trout Reflections
I loved it.
Also books by DMCThe
Year of the Turtle
Trout Reflections
I loved it.
September 16, 2015
When I read this book, I am walking with Carroll in the swamps and wetlands. It is a slow read, but almost like being out there myself.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews