Notes from the shore

Summary: "For three years Jennifer Ackerman lived in the small coastal town of Lewes, Delaware, in the sort of blue-water, white-sand landscape that draws summer crowds up and down the eastern seaboard. Notes from the Shore is a book about discovering the natural life at the ocean's edge: the habits of shorebirds and seabirds, the movement of sand and water, the wealth of creatures that survive amid storm and surf. It weaves together science and description with personal observation and reflection, in the spirit of such writers as Rachel Carson, Lewis Thomas, and Terry Tempest Williams." "A cape at the southern lip of the Delaware Bay across from Cape May, New Jersey, is the setting for Ackerman's explorations of shore life, but the images she evokes apply wherever land touches sea. In "Between Tides" she looks at the strange hive of life beneath the sand flats of the cape. "The Great Marsh" tells of the rhythms of a place half-land, half-sea. In "Spindrift" a storm-battered beach gives rise to reflections on other chaotic phenomena, such as the flocking of birds and the evolution of sea life." "Notes from the Shore will be relished by anyone who has walked a beach at sunset or watched a hawk hover over a winter marsh and felt part of the natural world. With a quiet passion and friendly, generous intelligence, it explores the way that landscape shapes our thoughts and perceptions and shows that home ground is often where we feel the deepest response to the planet."--Jacket.