Vesper Flights

 Vesper Flights was written by Helen Macdonald. The book contains a series of 41 essays about nature. The author writes about birds, insects, animals, trees. foraging for mushrooms, travel, and the environment. Her enthusiasm about nature is compelling. One chapter is about common swifts. A wildlife rehabilitator specializes in common swift babies that fall out of the nest. She feeds them insects by hand and manages to save most of them because she has learned, by trial and error, what to feed them and how to care for them. When it comes time to release the swifts it has to be done slowly. Just tossing them into the sky would injure them. The trick is to place them on your palm and turn your hand so they are facing into the wind. After a few minutes the swift will begin to shiver, warming up the flight muscles, and prepare to take off. As they fall from the hand the first wing flaps are clumsy and the bird flutters just a foot above the ground. Eventually they get the hang of flying and will fly continuously, day and night, for up to ten months. Ten months! That is a long time to fly. They drink water by skimming their mouth into a lake. They sleep in flight. They mate in flight. Another chapter is about feeding birds. Much money goes into buying bird food and generally feeding birds is socially acceptable. But is it ethical? As an example, she talks about feeding pigeons. Feeding pigeons is not seen as a good thing in some places. Actually there is a house about four blocks from mine where the home owner feeds pigeons and squirrels by placing the open tray of bird food at ground level. But what about other animals. The author lives in Great Britain. Some people there feed deer and fox. Most people are against feeding fox because the fox would become dependent on human intervention. Isn't that also true for birds? This book offers hope that by observing wildlife we gain guidance and comfort.