- This entry in Patricia Lichen's Uncommon Field Guide series is all about slugs and dippers and bedstraw and 63 other animals, plants and natural phenomena common to the Pacific Northwest.
- Uncommon is a fitting title for these guides, as they are not reference books in the traditional sense. Instead, each book in the series offers a collection of brief profiles that focus on particular critters or environments, complemented by interesting facts, anecdotes and little-known details.
- In this book, the featured creatures are arranged in the order they might be encountered on a hike going uphill. Midway through the book, the author presents the little brown bat and explains when to expect it and how to test its echolocation with small pebbles tossed up into its feeding flight. Then, she adds this intriguing bit of bat behavior:
- "Roosting bats hand upside down, of course, but when a female is about to give birth, she takes advantage of gravity. The prospective mother hangs by her thumbs, bending her tail upward so that the membranes form a cup into whic the baby is born. The pup's feet, delivered first, grab the mother's fur or foot as soon as they emerge (being born while your mother dangles from a ceiling is a risky business). The pup actually helps birth itself by pulling with its legs as the mother's contractions push it out."
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River-Walking
Songbirds & Singing Coyotes
by Patricia K. Lichen Sasquatch Books, 2001 |
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