The Common Uncommon Quotes

“In my forest, where the chestnuts now grow, the turkeys have also returned. Both are multiplying. The forest is largely a mixture of American ash, yellow and white birches, red and sugar maples, American beeches, black cherries, and some white pines, red spruces, and balsam firs. By planting the chestnuts, I breached an artificial boundary. Species are being readmitted to their ancestral home where they were part of a complex ecosystem. By planting four trees, I am helping the jays, and more, make it whole again. The Homing Instinct, 2014”
― Bernd Heinrich, The Common Uncommon: A Forest Journey

“But to now see it optional in the phoebe, as a matter of choice, invoked in me awe and wonder. If a phoebe can plan, then we are not alone. There is more to life than we can see or assume.”
― Bernd Heinrich, The Common Uncommon: A Forest Journey

“biologist Herbert Spencer’s quote of 1860 in Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical: “Whoever has not in youth collected plants and insects, knows not half the halo of interest which lanes and hedgerows can assume. . . . where imbedded treasures were found.”
― Bernd Heinrich, The Common Uncommon: A Forest Journey

“If you love the forest, it becomes a part of you.”
― Bernd Heinrich, The Common Uncommon: A Forest Journey

“I credit my discoveries to intimate contact with nature, perhaps by first watching bumblebees in the field and then going from there. Curiosity, love, and inspiration lead to looking closely and finding wonders that may lead to morphology, physiology, behavior, ecology, or evolution, if not the meaning of Life.”
― Bernd Heinrich, The Common Uncommon: A Forest Journey

“Getting to know animals of other species leads to empathy with them and perhaps sometimes to putting them into their place in an iconic identity.”
― Bernd Heinrich, The Common Uncommon: A Forest Journey