This is How a Robin Works (urban essays on nature)

This is How a Robin Works is a unique book by an American naturalist, on how nature is not just in a park or in the wild, but often right outside our door.

Nature can be a jumping spider on the screen, the bug in the shower, or the cluster of ladybirds. It’s the moss on brick (where gutters spill), a sprout in a storm drain, and the trash can lid that that birds bathe in.

The book begins with the author’s recollection as a child of being the only one to notice a dragonfly that had landed on a hat in a goodwill store.

She secretly takes it out to release it, wondering what would have happened, if nobody else had noticed it. And would they have rescued it too?

This ‘late-blooming naturalist with chronic illness’ now spends much of her time exploring the natural world, and encourages us to also have a zealous love for the flora and fauna that surrounds you. This urban almanac is weaved into 52 short lyrical essays, with earthy humour. 

Each essay offers a sketch of everyday wonders, focusing on habitat loss. Despite the sadness of a dead sparrow (perhaps due to preventable bird strike) or a dawn chorus that may not make your migraine better (but for sure won’t make it worse), this book celebrates nature by season, just as it is. On the pavement, in the backyard, in the park or in the parking lot.

Joanna is a suburban Thoreau. In essays that can be read as daily meditation, she takes us to pocket parks, dead mall parking lots and concrete canyons in pursuit of little ecological marvels. Georgann Eubanks 

She is a gift to the trees, the bees, the bats, the birds and me – as well as anyone else who is looking for microhabitats of hope on a fractured planet. She is my new favourite nature writer. Nancy Lawson

Brichetto’s keen eye wonders about the purpose of dandelions – is a dandelion to blow, or is it (as Thoreau mused) ‘the sun itself in the grass?’ Almost anything alive or dead merits her curiosity, voiced in cocktail party-worthy chatter. Barbara Jacobs

Joanna Brichetto is a certified naturalist, whose essays appear widely in the media. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee (USA).

How to help urban city wildlife

• Make roads safer for wildlife.
• Pigeon Rescue (pick up and hair/string to avoid tangling feet)
• Give seagulls back their seaside homes.
• Help wild foxes. Learn how to protect chickens from predators (same advice for rabbits and guinea pigs – foxes can survive on other foods from fruit to earthworms).
• Read how to how to help your wildlife rescue
• Report wildlife crime to Crimestoppers (anonymous)

Wildlife-friendly urban gardens

• Only cut and prune vegetation from September to February, outside of breeding periods (to help nesting birds).
• Provide wildlife-friendly gardens and ponds (for amphibians)
• Safe havens for garden birds (what not to feed birds and how to buy, site and clean feeders/houses and bird baths – keep cats indoors at dusk/dawn when birds are feeding – avoid ‘climbable’ poles)).
• Stop bird strike (switch off unused lights, avoid facing indoor foliage to gardens and place feeders less than 1.5 feet or more than 10 feet away).

If you share your home with animal friends, learn about pet-friendly gardens and use nontoxic humane slug and snail deterrents.

Living with Urban Wildlife is a book by the late John Bryant, who was England’s best expert on humane wildlife deterrence. He gives practical advice on how to humanely deter squirrels, pigeons and moles, without causing distress.