Book Review:
Feathered Forest: Aloft with Birds in Ancient Trees by Marina Richie
Reviewed by Allison De Jong
Marina Richie’s new book is one you can (and should) judge by its cover: verdant, lush, rich with life and movement and unfolding layers, there’s more to discover—and love—with each closer look. Dayna Walton’s gorgeous illustration captures the eye, and Marina’s vivid storytelling, a wonder-filled weaving of science and personal experience, draws you along amongst the ancient forests and diverse wildlife of Cascadia.
Feathered Forest is an homage to the ancient trees that used to cover our landscapes and have now been reduced to small, scattered refugia. Yet these relict forests still teem with layers of life, from soil full of mycelial connections to the cool, protected mid-layers to the sunshine-drinking, fog-scraping canopy. Marina is a lifelong naturalist, and her knowledge of these places, and the flora and fauna that inhabit them, shines through this book like sunlight filtering through old-growth trees.
This book is also a love story. Marina’s soul-deep care for western redcedars and Sitka spruces and Douglas-firs and redwoods, and the Pacific Wrens and Spotted Owls and Vaux’s Swifts and Marbled Murrelets and all of the other creatures that depend on them, is the thread that runs throughout. And a story about loving wild places and wild creatures, in this overwhelming time of development, habitat loss, and ever-intensifying climate change, is of necessity one of heartbreak.
Feathered Forest will break your heart, maybe more than a little. It clearly lays before us the challenges old-growth forests and their diversity of species face. Yet it also reminds us that all is not lost. These ancient trees and feathered marvels still exist because of humans who advocated and fought for their protection. Let us, as Marina writes, “Save every wild feathered forest left….Renew and heal what we have harmed.”
Join Marina in Missoula at Fact & Fiction on Thursday, November 19th, at 7:00 p.m. for a book reading and signing!
