Altamont writer releases second book on the natural world
Bill Danielson is a lucky man. His favorite place for his favorite hobby is just steps away: his own backyard. There at his Altamont home, and at places all over the Capital District and beyond, he spends his free time out of doors, observing and photographing the tiniest insects to the biggest moose.
That hobby has also brought Danielson 13 years of success writing a Speaking of Nature, a column for The Recorder of Greenfield Massachusetts that was also picked up a few years ago by the Times Union. Now, he’s releasing his second book, `Still Speaking of Nature: Further Explorations in the Natural World,` through SUNY Press, a decade after his first, self-published book.
Like his first book, readers will find a selection of Danielson’s most popular columns, mixed in with his own favorites. They’re sectioned off by season, so the reader starts in the spring and ends in the winter, and are accompanied by many of his own pictures.
`This is almost a carbon copy of the format of the first book,` the author said. The key difference is that the photos are in black and white, which also allows more of them to be included.
`We’re certainly very excited about it. We love to publish local authors, and Bill is certainly a well-known name,` said Fran Keneston of SUNY Press. `He’s a wonderful writer and his photographs are great.`
After penning more than 530 columns, one would think Danielson would be running out of subjects to write about. The vast subject of nature and his own changing understanding of that world keeps things varied though, he said, as does the task of explaining it to both novices and experts alike.
`What a lot of my readers like takes the ordinary and shines a light on it, and then it becomes sort of interesting,` he said.
That’s partly why, in addition to articles that focus on specific creatures (the black rat snake or the moose, for example), Danielson also writes about the experience of being in nature with pieces concerning spring rains or his trips to John Burroughs’ cabin in the Catskills. Even in these, he still works in plenty of information so the reader always leaves enlightened.
It’s the real-life spirit of the columns that keeps readers coming back for more, though. One of Danielson’s most popular recent topics has been Lionel, a chickadee with a deformed beak that has been visiting his home feeder. Danielson keeps his readers updated on the bird’s comings and goings through his website and column, often to his readers’ rapt attention.
`You wouldn’t believe the fan mail that guy got,` he said.
Though he’s always kept journals, Danielson did not start off as a writer. After graduating from college, he went to work with the National Park Service as a law enforcement ranger stationed in Sandy Hook, N.J. Though this was not the most picturesque posting, it did provide him with his first set of photography equipment after a camera bag washed up on shore after a hurricane.
In a way, writing about nature is an extension of the protection duties he had as a forest ranger, Danielson said.
`If they know more about something, then they’ll care about it and want to preserve it,` he said.
He hopes to further that mission in his day job as a teacher of biology and physics at Pittsfield High School in Vermont.
Danielson will be at The Book House in Stuyvesant Plaza on Saturday, March 26, at 3 p.m., to celebrate the official New York release of his book and to sign copies. He’ll also be at the Guilderland Library’s `Discover the Great Outdoors` program providing a slideshow and book signing Saturday, April 30, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.“
