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More copies of this ISBNThis title in other editionsCentral Park in the Dark: More Mysteries of Urban Wildlifeby Marie Winn
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:Love and loss, life and death, among the nighttime creatures of the city that never sleeps Like her bestseller Red-Tails in Love, Marie Winns Central Park in the Dark explores a once-hidden world in a series of interlocking narratives about the extraordinary denizens, human and animal, of an iconic American park. Her beguiling account of a citys lakes and woodlands at night takes the reader through the cycle of seasons as experienced by nocturnal active beasts (raccoons, bats, black skimmers, and sleeping robins among them), insects (moths, wasps, fireflies, crickets), and slugs (in all their unexpected poetical randiness). Winn does not neglect her famous protagonists Pale Male and Lola, the hawks that captivated readers years ago, but this time she adds an exciting narrative about thirty-eight screech owls in Central Park and their lives, loves, and tragedies there. An eye-popping amount of natural history is packed into this entertaining book—on bird physiology, spiders, sunsets, dragonflies, meteor showers, and the nature of darkness. But the human drama is never forgotten, for Central Park at night boasts a floating population not only of lovers, dog walkers, and policemen but of regulars young and old who, like Winn, hope to unlock the secrets of urban nature. These “night people” are drawn into a peculiar kind of intimacy. While exploring the astonishing variety of wildlife in the city park, they end up revealing more of their inner lives than they expected. Marie Winn is the author of Red-Tails in Love: Pale Male's Story; The Plug-In Drug: Televisions, Computers, and Family Life; and many other books. She was born in Prague, but has spent most of her life in New York City, where she lives not far from Central Park. Marie Winns Central Park in the Dark explores a once-hidden world in a series of interlocking narratives about the extraordinary denizens, human and animal, of an iconic American park. Her beguiling account of a citys lakes and woodlands at night takes the reader through the cycle of seasons as experienced by nocturnal active beasts (raccoons, bats, black skimmers, and sleeping robins among them), insects (moths, wasps, fireflies, crickets), and slugs (in all their unexpected poetical randiness). Winn does not neglect her famous protagonists Pale Male and Lola, the hawks that captivated readers years ago, but this time she adds an exciting narrative about thirty-eight screech owls in Central Park and their lives, loves, and tragedies there. An eye-popping amount of natural history is packed into this book—on bird physiology, spiders, sunsets, dragonflies, meteor showers, and the nature of darkness. But the human drama is never forgotten, for Central Park at night boasts a floating population not only of lovers, dog walkers, and policemen but of regulars young and old who, like Winn, hope to unlock the secrets of urban nature. These “night people” are drawn into a peculiar kind of intimacy. While exploring the astonishing variety of wildlife in the city park, they end up revealing more of their inner lives than they expected. “How great is New York? Right in the middle of all that finance and culture and diplomacy, theres a great reservoir of wildness—and people crazy-wonderful enough to explore it day and night. Marie Winns account will make you want to grab your headlamp and head for the park, wherever you live.”—Bill McKibben, author of The Bill McKibben Reader: Pieces from an Active Life "In her charming 1998 book, Red-Tails in Love, Marie Winn chronicled the story of Pale Male, a red-tailed hawk who made his home in the heart of New York City, romancing a series of mates over the years and siring nearly two dozen offspring from a nest high on the 12th-floor facade of a fancy Fifth Avenue apartment building—a story that would gain worldwide attention in 2004 when the residents of that Fifth Avenue co-op had the nest removed, provoking an outcry from bird lovers and even some hard-core, bird-agnostic New Yorkers. In Red-Tails in Love Ms. Winn also gave us some enchanting glimpses of Central Park as the place where the wild things are, and her new book, Central Park in the Dark: More Mysteries of Urban Wildlife, is very much a companion volume to that earlier account. In these pages she gives us a delightful chronicle of the animals that come out to hunt and play in the park at night, while providing, in her operatic account of the ups and downs of a group of screech owls, a gripping narrative that rivals that of Pale Male and his mates. Ms. Winn, a former nature columnist for The Wall Street Journal, is not only highly knowledgeable about the park and its many inhabitants, but she is also able to communicate her passion for this patch of urban wilderness with grace, humor and élan. She gives us affectionate portraits of the other wildlife aficionados who share her willingness to brave rain, snow, cold and dark to observe the parks nocturnal critters . . . The most compelling story in this volume, however, is the saga of the little screech owls that were released as part of the parks departments efforts to reintroduce 10 plant and 10 animal species into the citys parks. Several were casualties of car collisions, an increasingly dire hazard given the birds flight patterns and increased auto traffic in the park. One seemed to have been eaten by the great horned owl. And another appeared to have been murdered by a different screech owl, which perhaps coveted its territory. Ms. Winns accounts of the owls she and her friends came to know best—Little Red and her mate, known as the Riviera gray, and another pair known as Spiffy and Unmade—possess all the anthropomorphic charm of her telling of the ballad of Pale Male and his mates, and they leave the reader eager, upon finishing this book, to rush to Central Park in search of a glimpse of Harry Potters favorite birds. 'As I write these last words at the last possible moment before my book goes to press,' Ms. Winn says at the end, 'the owl scene is hopping in Central Park. Three pairs of screech owls are nesting in various parts of the park—owl etiquette prevents me from telling you the exact location, Im sorry to say, but someone will show you the way. Wear binoculars—thats the key. And beware—owl-watching is addictive.'"—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times "Ms. Winn's passion for the life of the park extends to all manner of creatures—the large, the small and even the slimy . . . She is equally lyrical on observing the fly-out of an owl—the occasion when the bird awakens, preens, looks around and in various stages of contemplation decides finally to get up and go to work . . . Ms. Winn writes as affectionately of her park companions as she does of the wildlife experiences that are their bond."—Geoffrey Norman, The Wall Street Journal "Bird and bug watchers are easy targets for mockery. But Marie Winn, one of their number, draws a portrait of them as a group of gentle, generous oddballs. It is incidental to her purpose to draw this portrait, but not incidental to the pleasure of reading her charming account of the natural nighttime wonders of Central Park. As the most important and exciting parts of many animals' lives, such as hunting and mating, occur in the dark, Winn's group of nature lovers gather at dawn or dusk to spot bats, owls, robins. Winn also becomes a member of the Central Park Mothers (rhythms with 'authors') who gather in half light or dark to observe caterpillars, moths, crickets, slugs. While this may sound dull, Winn's account of slug sex, which she promises as a treat and then withholds for several chapters, is indeed hot. Close observation and keen speculation lead to the thrilling discovery of the bedtime rituals of huge packs of robins. Winn's most extended narrative concerns the experiment of introducing owlets into the dwindling stock of the park. This account becomes a tragic story of love, sex, parental longing, and loss. Winn transforms herself and her pals from a group of awkward loners into a band of daring explorers."—Barbara Fisher, The Boston Globe "As a reporter for The Wall Street Journal in the early '90s, Marie Winn made a celebrity out of a red-tailed hawk, dubbed Pale Male that nested on a Fifth Avenue apartment, high above Manhattan's Central Park. Pale Male and his mate, Lola, became stars of Winn's 1998 book, Red-Tails in Love. Now Winn is back exploring the nocturnal drama in the 843-acre urban wilderness. It's both charming and instructional. Winn does justice to the park's owls, raccoons and moths, as well as the scientists and amateur naturalists who study them. It even turns erotic with a detailed and rhapsodic account of the sex lives of slugs."—Bob Minzesheimer, USA Today "Winn's latest book, Central Park in the Dark, is also set in Manhattan. But Winn manages to forge a connection between us and the very urban wildlife she watches at night. Winn is one of us, a curious citizen wildlife-watcher. She weaves fact, observation and adventure into a book that celebrates wildlife after dark in the park—or in your back yard."—Jim Williams, The Star Tribune (Minneapolis) "Central Park in the Dark is a fine follow-up to Winns popular Red-Tails in Love, which chronicled the human and avian dramas surrounding the activities of a now-famous pair of New York City raptors. Her new book focuses on the nocturnal habits of Central Park's nonhuman residents, and the flashlight-wielding community of nature enthusiasts who venture out after sunset in search of the next natural phenomenon. Winn saunters through a wealth of natural history on owls and moths, bats and stars; she writes with contagious excitement, in a jovial, even giddy, tone. Her devotion to these pursuits is fierce. No question is left unasked, no species left unkeyed, and no natural process is denied its proper attention and reverence . . . Whether it is watching owls rise, slugs mate, moths feed, or hawks hunt, the park is constantly providing these paramount opportunities for 'quasi-religious exhilaration.' And so in the end, it is the park itself, rather than any of the many creatures in it, that provides Winn with her most essential relationship. Central Park in the Dark reminds us of what it feels like to love and depend on a place, a home. If you want to experience some sense of this communion, head over to Central Park at sunset. Look for a group gathered under an owls tree. 'Your binoculars are all the credentials you need.'"—Kathleen Yale, Orion magazine “New York City never sleeps, as Marie Winn proves in this delightful blend of natural history and human obsession. With her usual grace and humor, Winn weaves stories of tiny owls, exotic moths—even slug sex—into a captivating tapestry depicting the nocturnal wonders of America's most famous park.”—Scott Weidensaul, author of Of a Feather and Living on the Wind “How great is New York? Right in the middle of all that finance and culture and diplomacy, theres a great reservoir of wildness—and people crazy-wonderful enough to explore it day and night. Marie Winns account will make you want to grab your headlamp and head for the park, wherever you live.”—Bill McKibben, author of The Bill McKibben Reader: Pieces from an Active Life “Marie Winns new book is another gem. You pick it up and immediately have fun, learning a lot as you read about what goes on at night in the city.”—Bernd Heinrich, author of Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival “Marie Winn lights up Central Park at night with wit, intelligence and a warm humanity that makes this book a love song to the natural world, an elegy for a lost friend, and an invitation to the unknown reader to follow her into the inviting dark.”—Jonathan Rosen, author of The Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature “Winn, author of the popular, well-received Red-Tails in Love: A Wildlife Drama in Central Park, continues to chronicle and celebrate the surprising abundance of wildlife in the midst of New York City's massive urbanization. She engagingly describes the park's crepuscular and nocturnal owls, bats, moths, frogs, cicadas, katydids, rodents, and much else. The sex lives of slugs even rate a chapter. Despite living in a city bright with light pollution, Winn writes of the abundant and quite visible astronomical phenomena: planets aligning, how to tell a waxing from a waning moon, and more. The three stages of twilight and their proper nomenclature are also included, as are the different classes of clouds. She even works in a little neurophysiology. As interesting as this night wildlife is the diverse and abundant cast of human characters who observe it: the expected naturalists as well as astronomers, musicians, celebrities, couturieres, and even a secretary of the treasury. Winn is witty, literate, and extremely well informed and writes with flair.”—Henry T. Armistead, Library Journal “What happens when curiosity about Central Park fauna trumps fear of the dark? The charm of Winn's wildlife accounts—besides its descriptions of the nighttime habits of New York City screech owls, bats and slugs—is its depiction of the community of fans who gather to observe and document even the slightest movements of the park's shyest denizens. Winn is part of an informal group of bird-watchers who turn to the study of nocturnal species; using a black light and a sheet, they track moths, observe slugs having sex and search out the ‘boy's dormitory of robins. Winn's riveting account of the last stage of cicada metamorphosis highlights the animating philosophy of these after-dark naturalists: ‘sharing our adventures increase[s] our own enjoyment of them. A surprising amount of science (owl-pellet dissection; official names for the stages of twilight) is packed into these narratives, illuminating the somewhat arbitrary line between enthusiast and expert, but never bogging down the reader. Winn's style is as conversational as a good friend's and as informative as a seasoned guide's.”—Publishers Weekly “Even blanketed in darkness, Manhattan's crown jewel teems with fascinating wildlife. So says Winn, though she admits that as a youngster she was terrified of Central Park after dark. Now, on balmy summer nights, the fearless author and her merry band of ‘night people (including a man dressed as Dracula) can be found traversing the park's leafy, serpentine pathways, armed with flashlights. They have rapturously observed moths rallying around a sap-dripping tree, rodents scampering through the underbrush and various owls on the wing. (The text devotes particular attention, compassion and emotion to these nocturnal fliers.) For Central Park's ‘bioblitz, a daylong census of all living things in specific areas of the park, Winn's group intrepidly ensnared bats with a net to identify species and habitat. Inviting readers to share her love for animals in their natural habitat, the author mingles personal observations with a plethora of factual information: the echolocation abilities used by bats, distinguishing details of owls, etc. She also includes meticulously detailed notes sent to her by fellow explorers and a posthumous homage to nature-walk ‘accomplice Charles Kennedy. Pale Male and Lola, the two hawks perched high above Fifth Avenue chronicled in Winn's previous book, make cameo appearances here. Her group turned its attention to insects at the Parks Department's ‘Bug Night; an entomologist pushing a portable generator to power his black light showed them a host of colorfully winged wonders (mostly moths) fluttering over the Ramble. Though she chronicles a few unsettling encounters with questionable characters lurking in the shadows, Winn does her best to mitigate our instinctive fear of after-dark jaunts in the urban jungle by showing what a breathtaking array of insects and animals it harbors. Exuberantly illuminates Central Park's vibrant, 843-acre nocturnal world.”—Kirkus Reviews Synopsis:Central Park in the Dark explores a natural world that flourishes in the midst of a crowded and mechanized city. These exuberant essays lead the reader through the cycle of seasons as experienced by nocturnal beasts (raccoons, bats, black skimmers), insects (moths, wasps, fireflies, crickets), and other denizens of the park's trees and swamps and thickets. Alongside a cadre of amateur and expert naturalists, Marie Winn reveals a world that lies hidden in the dark between the bright lights and traffic of Fifth Avenue and Central Park West. Synopsis:Love and loss, life and death, among the nighttime creatures of the city that never sleeps Like her bestseller Red-Tails in Love, Marie Winn's Central Park in the Dark explores a once-hidden world in a series of interlocking narratives about the extraordinary denizens, human and animal, of an iconic American park. Her beguiling account of a city's lakes and woodlands at night takes the reader through the cycle of seasons as experienced by nocturnal active beasts (raccoons, bats, black skimmers, and sleeping robins among them), insects (moths, wasps, fireflies, crickets), and slugs (in all their unexpected poetical randiness). Winn does not neglect her famous protagonists Pale Male and Lola, the hawks that captivated readers years ago, but this time she adds an exciting narrative about thirty-eight screech owls in Central Park and their lives, loves, and tragedies there. An eye-popping amount of natural history is packed into this entertaining book--on bird physiology, spiders, sunsets, dragonflies, meteor showers, and the nature of darkness. But the human drama is never forgotten, for Central Park at night boasts a floating population not only of lovers, dog walkers, and policemen but of regulars young and old who, like Winn, hope to unlock the secrets of urban nature. These night people are drawn into a peculiar kind of intimacy. While exploring the astonishing variety of wildlife in the city park, they end up revealing more of their inner lives than they expected. Marie Winn is the author of Red-Tails in Love: Pale Male's Story; The Plug-In Drug: Televisions, Computers, and Family Life; and many other books. She was born in Prague, but has spent most of her life in New York City, where she lives not far from Central Park. Marie Winn's Central Park in the Dark explores a once-hidden world in a series of interlocking narratives about the extraordinary denizens, human and animal, of an iconic American park. Her beguiling account of a city's lakes and woodlands at night takes the reader through the cycle of seasons as experienced by nocturnal active beasts (raccoons, bats, black skimmers, and sleeping robins among them), insects (moths, wasps, fireflies, crickets), and slugs (in all their unexpected poetical randiness). Winn does not neglect her famous protagonists Pale Male and Lola, the hawks that captivated readers years ago, but this time she adds an exciting narrative about thirty-eight screech owls in Central Park and their lives, loves, and tragedies there. An eye-popping amount of natural history is packed into this book--on bird physiology, spiders, sunsets, dragonflies, meteor showers, and the nature of darkness. But the human drama is never forgotten, for Central Park at night boasts a floating population not only of lovers, dog walkers, and policemen but of regulars young and old who, like Winn, hope to unlock the secrets of urban nature. These night people are drawn into a peculiar kind of intimacy. While exploring the astonishing variety of wildlife in the city park, they end up revealing more of their inner lives than they expected. How great is New York? Right in the middle of all that finance and culture and diplomacy, there's a great reservoir of wildness--and people crazy-wonderful enough to explore it day and night. Marie Winn's account will make you want to grab your headlamp and head for the park, wherever you live.--Bill McKibben, author of The Bill McKibben Reader: Pieces from an Active Life In her charming 1998 book, Red-Tails in Love, Marie Winn chronicled the story of Pale Male, a red-tailed hawk who made his home in the heart of New York City, romancing a series of mates over the years and siring nearly two dozen offspring from a nest high on the 12th-floor facade of a fancy Fifth Avenue apartment building--a story that would gain worldwide attention in 2004 when the residents of that Fifth Avenue co-op had the nest removed, provoking an outcry from bird lovers and even some hard-core, bird-agnostic New Yorkers. In Red-Tails in Love Ms. Winn also gave us some enchanting glimpses of Central Park as the place where the wild things are, and her new book, Central Park in the Dark: More Mysteries of Urban Wildlife, is very much a companion volume to that earlier account. In these pages she gives us a delightful chronicle of the animals that come out to hunt and play in the park at night, while providing, in her operatic account of the ups and downs of a group of screech owls, a gripping narrative that rivals that of Pale Male and his mates. Ms. Winn, a former nature columnist for The Wall Street Journal, is not only highly knowledgeable about the park and its many inhabitants, but she is also able to communicate her passion for this patch of urban wilderness with grace, humor and elan. She gives us affectionate portraits of the other wildlife aficionados who share her willingness to brave rain, snow, cold and dark to observe the park's nocturnal critters . . . The most compelling story in this volume, however, is the saga of the little screech owls that were released as part of the parks department's efforts to reintroduce 10 plant and 10 animal species into the city's parks. Several were casualties of car collisions, an increasingly dire hazard given the birds' flight patterns and increased auto traffic in the park. One seemed to have been eaten by the great horned owl. And another appeared to have been murdered by a different screech owl, which perhaps coveted its territory. Ms. Winn's accounts of the owls she and her friends came to know best--Little Red and her mate, known as the Riviera gray, and another pair known as Spiffy and Unmade--possess all the anthropomorphic charm of her telling of the ballad of Pale Male and his mates, and they leave the reader eager, upon finishing this book, to rush to Central Park in search of a glimpse of Harry Potter's favorite birds. 'As I write these last words at the last possible mom About the AuthorMARIE WINN has spent most of her life in New York City, and lives not far from Central Park. She has written for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and other publications, and is the author of Red-Tails In Love: Pale Male's Story and The Plug-In Drug: Televisions, Computers and Family Life. What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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