Common Ground: A Naturalist's Cape Cod"In these compassionate, quietly evocative essays, Mr. Finch makes an eloquent case for dealing with nature not just as an extension of ourselves but as a world apart." -- New York Times Book Review When Common Ground was first published, Annie Dillard praised Robert Finch's essays for "their strength, subtlety, and above all their geniality." New readers will have a chance to discover that Finch's Cape Cod is indeed a wonderful place. The birds, fish, and animals that share the cape's fragile ecology on any given summer day with the human residents are described with the fresh eye of a first-rate nature writer. |
Contents
Night in a Dune Shack | 3 |
Cormorant Ashore | 10 |
Hurt Junco | 13 |
The Wilderness Experience | 17 |
Snowy | 20 |
Wilderness at the Run | 26 |
Loon | 29 |
Roofing | 34 |
A Day for Dead Mans Fingers | 78 |
An Assault of Grackles | 83 |
A Civil Death | 88 |
A Moth in the Eye | 92 |
Old School Pictures | 95 |
Very Like a Whale | 99 |
After the Storm | 105 |
A Paines Creek Sundown | 111 |
The Uses of Wind | 38 |
Foxes on the Marsh | 41 |
Tide Fingers | 47 |
Woodcock Flight | 52 |
Dawn Walk | 56 |
November Woods | 60 |
Gannet on the Bluffs | 63 |
Winter Solstice | 70 |
Local Gods | 74 |
A Vintage Woodland | 115 |
Going to Seed | 117 |
Beach Plum Weather | 121 |
Good Ghosts | 124 |
Thinning the Woods | 128 |
Return to the Dunes | 134 |
Common Ground | 139 |
Back Cover | 143 |
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Common terms and phrases
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