The Inner Sanctum

     A few weeks ago, John, from Seattle asked me to show some photographs of my library, and Marcia in New Hampshire said she'd like to see the artwork on the walls in my office, so this post is an attempt to satisfy two requests, and hopefully it will be of interest to others too.

     Let me start by showing the picture of Charles Darwin, my lifelong hero, who greets me at my desk each day, and continues to fill me with inspiration and wonder for the natural world.

      I prefer this picture, which shows the impressionable young Englishman about to embark on his voyage aboard The Beagle, rather than the more familiar image one sees of the older, bearded Darwin.

I too am old now, but I don't believe I have lost one scintilla of my zeal for nature, and the experience of it thrills me every bit as much today as it did when I was a curious child turning over rocks.

     There is going to be no particular order to this account, and basically it will follow the sequence of pictures I took, with a few words of explanation. 

     One bookcase is devoted to regional bird guides and the like, beginning as you might imagine, with Canada.

     Other regions of the world, particularly those where I have travelled in search of birds, occupy many shelves too.

     Here is a typical section of the crowded shelves, a soothing balm to a bibliophile like me!

     On the shelves the books are organized taxonomically so that all the references for different families of birds are grouped together.

     Various mementos, some I have acquired myself, but mostly gifts, are arranged in front of the families they represent. I can already see one in a picture above that is out of place. All that means is that I have moved the picture to get to a book behind it, and sooner or later it will be returned to its rightful place.

     Feathers verge on totemic for birders and I am pleased to have a wonderful selection of Sulphur-crested Cockatoo feathers to remind me of happy times spent in their company in Australia.

     Here is another picture to show how the books are taxonomically arranged.

     Moving out of the bird families various volumes deal with aspects of the avian life cycle common to all species.

     Migration, for example.....

     Anatomy and physiology.....

     The ancestral origins of birds, the fossil record, the beginnings of flight.....

     And many other topics having relevance to a multitude of species.....

     My primary interest is birds, but there is not a single component of the natural world that fails to fascinate and thrill me and my library reflects this simple truth.

     Mammals.....

     Insects.....

     Reptiles and amphibians.....

     Trees, wildflowers and fungi.....

     General interest, textbooks, biographies, scientific discussions, and so on.

     On and on it goes.....

     Here are a few more pictures to give an overall impression of my cherished space.

     It has been difficult to take photographs of the pictures on the walls, Marcia. The office has fluorescent lighting, and every time I stood in front of a picture the reflection was so visible you could barely make out the detail. So, I offer you a sideways view.

     Here you see the beautiful detail on an art quilt Miriam made for me of Barn Swallows, a species that garnered our attention for several years at SpruceHaven.

     A few more views.....

     At any given time a few books may be out on loan, and there will be others on the bedside table (Miriam claims I am the only person for whom night-time reading means books filled with charts, graphs and statistics!).

     My love affair with books, my passion for learning, are simply part of who I am. I wouldn't change that for anything.

     I hope that you enjoy this post Marcia and John, and I trust I have not wallowed in self indulgence. It has been fun doing it.