Backtracking

"When I come upon an animal's tracks in the woods, I find myself moving back against the animal's direction to trace where it started from," Ted Levin writes in Backtracking: The Way of a Naturalist. He also traces his own development as a naturalist from his boyhood roots on suburban Long Island to his present life in northern New England. Along the way he introduces us to all sorts of wild creatures--from red-backed salamanders, cicadas, and rattlesnakes to manatees, coyotes, and bald eagles.