I suppose I had expected the book to focus more on the variety of oak species, their habitats, etc. Instead, Tallamy writes of the many birds and many (many!) insects that live on oaks. This is a book about oak trees as ecosystems. It's an original idea, but just didn't hold my attention as much as I might have supposed. ( )

Tallamy writes books that make you appreciate the native nature around you and want to protect and enhance it. In this book, he focuses on Oak trees. When I saw this book (I think on Lois's thread?) I knew I'd love reading about the 3 white oak trees we have in our back yard. We have a small suburban yard that has two tiers. The upper tier has about a dozen enormous trees, White Oaks, American beeches, and Sweet Gum. Many of our neighbors have taken trees down, and I'm proud of our remaining trees that are beautiful, provide shade and privacy, and now I know support a ton of wildlife.

This book gets a little bogged down in caterpillars, but overall I found it really interesting to read about all the life that is sustained by an oak tree and a little about the life cycle of the tree. ( )

The Nature of Oaks is a quick and informative dive into the ecology of oaks. Tallamy takes on a yearlong guided tour and peek behind the scenes of what's happening to the oak in your backyard and reveals just how crucial oaks are to the ecosystem. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. ( )

A compelling argument for planting oak trees in your yard.

Doug Gallant writes about science in an easy to read, understandable almost novels like manner. Don't be fooled though, he isn't dumbing down the information or message. This book made me want to go out and plant a handful of pans in my yard to help our ecosystem rebound from development. It made me happy that some changes (primarily by my wife) that we have been making to our yard are both described and approved for a healthier ecosystem. Our long term goal is to enhance the biodiversity of our living spaces and increase animal life diversity. This book gives a starting roadmap to get on track to do so. Do something good this year and plant some oak trees. Your descendants will thank yiu. ( )

Talllamy, an ecologist and professor, takes us through a year-long cycle, charting both the oaks themselves and rich ecology that depends on them—-all in under two hundred pages. That rich ecology includes birds, deer, squirrels…etc., but also means every caterpillar, weevil, ants, moths, all manner of bugs… And one comes away with a thorough and fascinating lesson on everything you probably never knew about acorns.

One does develop over the course of this book a real appreciation for the species and the importance of them in the ecosystem. We have many, many oaks on our property, I will try to remember all this the next time I step on an acorn :-) ( )