2025 Naturalist-in-Residence Inspired Book List for Adults

For seasoned spotters and backyard hobbyists alike, this charming guide offers an accessible look at the irresistible world of birding. Wildlife biologist and co-founder of Black Birders Week Danielle Belleny walks readers through the essentials of bird watching, from equipment to locations, offering new ideas for finding avian friends wherever you may be. Engaging profiles of North American bird species, from cardinals and blue jays to raptors and sea birds, are accompanied by whimsical illustrations sure to spark the imaginations of birders from coast to coast.

Acclaimed nature illustrator Clare Walker Leslie invites beginning birdwatchers to hone their observational skills with this this easy-to-use visual guide. Leslie shows readers the key clues to look for, from the shape of the beak or talons to distinctive feather colorings, flight patterns, and behavioral traits. How to Look at a Bird makes bird watching, identification, and appreciation accessible to everyone, no matter where they live.

Many birders travel far and wide to popular birding destinations to catch sight of rare or 'exotic' birds. In Slow Birding, evolutionary biologist Joan E. Strassmann introduces readers to the joys of birding right where they are. In this inspiring guide to the art of slow birding, Strassmann tells colorful stories of the most common birds to be found in the United States--birds we often see but might not have considered deeply before. Available to download: eBook eAudio

Browsable and bursting with helpful illustrations and photographs, Birding Basics offers new ideas for when, where, and how to get to know the birds in your world. Not a field guide but a primer in best practices, authored by birding expert Noah Strycker, this breezy book features easy-to-follow advice on what to look and listen for, how to use field guides and birding apps, the best equipment to start with, and ways to engage with other birders around the world.

Tammah shares her emotional journey of finding comfort and inspiration from her feathered friends, while providing practical tips and tools to help you. Right outside your door flies just what you've been looking for to help ease symptoms of stress, pain, depression, and anxiety. All you have to do is look up, take notice, and open your heart and mind. No matter where you are, what you look like, or what you're going through, you can create sacred space and connection with birds and begin to heal.

Whether you're an avid nature lover or newly discovering the world outside your door, you'll find information and inspiration in this beautifully illustrated pocket companion. Organized by season, its colorful pages are brimming with wondrous wildflowers and plants to discover as you wander, forage, and explore-from alder, foxglove, and fireweed to rosehip and mistletoe.

Wisconsin flora: field guide is a comprehensive manual for identifying essentially all of the vascular plants found growing in the wild in Wisconsin. Based on the author's Wisconsin flora (2019), the field guide is more portable, yet still complete, field reference to the state's flora of more than 2,100 species. Arranged into four major groups (ferns and fern relatives, conifers, dicots, monocots), then alphabetically by family, the field guide offers students of the state's plant life a definitive, easy to use reference for learning more about Wisconsin's biological diversity.

The broad reach of this field guide will lead readers to wildflowers occurring commonly in regions across the Midwest. This eight-state region (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa) contains a surprising variety of ecosystems. This field guide will feature more than 1,000 species in all major midwestern environments, such as forests and woodlands, wetlands, prairies, barrens, and rock outcrops. Nature enthusiasts without formal botanical training will value a practical, botanically accurate guide that is useful to professionals as well.

Identifying and understanding the plants that are changing the North American landscape forever. Full-color photographs make identification simple.

Identify Wisconsin mammals with this easy-to-use field guide, organized by family and featuring full-color photographs and helpful information. Whether you happen upon an animal track or actually see wildlife in nature, interacting with mammals is a thrill. Learn to identify mammals in Wisconsin. With Stan Tekiela's famous field guide, mammal identification is simple and informative. The Mammals of Wisconsin Field Guide features all 71 species found in the state, organized by family and then by size.

With wonder and a sense of humor, Kelly Brenner aims to help us rediscover our connection to the natural world that is just outside our front door--we just need to know where to look. Through explorations of a rich, varied urban landscape, Brenner reveals the complex micro-habitats and surprising nature that exists in the middle of a city. In her hometown of Seattle, which has plowed down hills, cut through the land to connect fresh- and saltwater, and paved over much of the rest, she exposes a diverse range of often unnoticed creatures. 'Nature Obscura' explores the species that inhabit the urban environment across the four seasons.

During the real estate crash of the late 2000s, Christopher Brown purchased an empty lot in an industrial section of Austin, Texas. The property--abandoned and full of litter and debris--was an unlikely site for a home. Brown had become fascinated with these empty lots around Austin, so-called "ruined" spaces once used for agriculture and industry awaiting their redevelopment. He discovered them to be teeming with natural activity, and embarked on a twenty-year project to live in and document such spaces. There, in our most damaged landscapes, he witnessed the remarkable resilience of wild nature, and how we can heal ourselves by healing the Earth.

In Close to Home, biologist Thor Hanson shows how retraining our eyes reveals hidden wonders just waiting to be discovered. In urban Los Angeles, hundreds of unknown species abound. In the Pacific Northwest, fierce yellowjackets placidly sip honeydew, unseen in the treetops. And in the soil beneath our feet, remedies for everything from breast cancer to the stench of skunks lie waiting for someone's searching shovel. Close to Home is a hands-on natural history for any local patch of Earth. It shows that we each can contribute to science and improve the health of our planet.

Good Nature reveals how, if we bring nature more into our lives, it can help improve our health and well-being in so many unexpected ways. Oxford professor Kathy Willis has spent her career researching fossilised plants and plant matter - but when she stumbled across a study that showed that patients recovering from surgery improved faster just by being able to see trees from their hospital bed, it radically changed the way she viewed the natural world.

Since the beginning of civilization, humans have built cities to wall nature out, then glorified it in beloved but quite artificial parks. In Urban Jungle Ben Wilson...looks to the fraught relationship between nature and the city for clues to how the planet can survive in an age of climate crisis.

In Eavesdropping on Animals, George Bumann shares the fascinating stories and insights he has gained from studying wildlife around the world for more than forty years, the last twenty of which have been spent leading popular programs on animal language and intelligence in Yellowstone National Park. Bumann shares tips, tricks, and advice for readers living in urban, suburban and rural areas and clearly shows us that you don't need an exotic vacation or a biology degree to have transformative wildlife encounters.

Create beautiful botanical artworks, engage with the natural world around you, and take pleasure in the changing seasons with A Year of Watercolour. Award-winning and bestselling artist and tutor Harriet de Winton takes you through more than 30 step-by-step botanical paintings that span the seasons. Learn to paint cherry blossoms and lambs in the spring, honeybees and wildflowers for summer, oak leaves and harvest mice in autumn, and pine trees and snowdrops in winter.

A gorgeous and comprehensive guide to all things outdoors for anyone who loves being in and interacting with nature, readers will learn how to make a rope sing, go forest bathing, read flowers, build a campfire, and make a forest potion. From practical tips and how-tos to forest folklore, there's something for everyone.

A beautifully illustrated journal to guide your observations of nature wherever you find it--in gardens and yards, city parks and vacant lots, or the sky--enhanced by inspiring prompts and the wisdom of beloved and bestselling author Margaret Renkl.

The Wild Craft delights in nature's abundance and shows you how to create 28 inspirational, comforting and joyful items for yourself, your home and garden.

Birds are astonishingly intelligent creatures. In fact, according to revolutionary new research, some birds rival primates and even humans in their remarkable forms of intelligence. Like humans, many birds have enormous brains relative to their size. Although small, bird brains are packed with neurons that allow them to punch well above their weight. Available to download: eBook eAudio

Explores the unlikely bond between the famous Austrian composer and his pet starling, providing an unexpected window into human-animal friendships, music, and the nature of creative inspiration. Available to download: eBook eAudio 

 Kimmerer highlights how the serviceberry tree, by sharing its abundance with its ecosystem, embodies a model of interdependence and mutual support. This ethic of reciprocity, she argues, shows us that true wealth arises from relationships, not self-sufficiency, and encourages us to reimagine our values in a way that nurtures both people and the planet. Available to download: eBook eAudio

Never afraid to shed the pretense of academic poetry, never shy of letting the power of an image lie in unadorned language, Mary Oliver offers us poems of arresting beauty that reflect on the power of love and the great gifts of the natural world. Inspired by the familiar lines from William Wordsworth, "To me the meanest flower that blows can give / Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears," she uncovers the evidence presented to us daily by nature, in rivers and stones, willows and field corn, the mockingbird's "embellishments," or the last hours of darkness. Available to download: eBook

The forty-seven new works in this volume include poems on crickets, toads, trout lilies, black snakes, goldenrod, bears, greeting the morning, watching the deer, and, finally, lingering in happiness. Each poem is imbued with the extraordinary perceptions of a poet who considers the everyday in our lives and the natural world around us and finds a multitude of reasons to wake early. Available to download: eBook

An investigation into the restorative benefits of nature draws on cutting-edge research and the author's explorations with international nature therapy programs to examine the relationship between nature and human cognition, mood, and creativity. Available to download: eBook eAudio

A lovely pocket guide to observing, identifying, and appreciating wild blooms.

Over the centuries, cities were built over rivers, hoping to address pollution and flooding concerns. However, naturalists now advocate freeing buried rivers to manage urban water issues.

Sylvie keeps it a secret that she is afraid of a wolf, but with the encouragement of a loving aunt, Sylvie is finally able to confront her fear and learns that, instead of running or hiding, she can move forward and live alongside it.

Madison, often considered Wisconsin's premier city, embodies the lush lakefronts, forests, and grasslands that make Wisconsin famous. Urban Trails: Madison dives into the area's numerous natural areas, many of them accessible by public transit, with explorations ranging from lakeshore walks to trails winding through prairie and wetlands preserves, plus multiple segments of the Ice Age National Scenic Trail.
 

A middle-grade guide to environmental stewardship and protecting diverse creatures. Available to download: eBook