Nature on the Doorstep: A Year of Letters

Nature on the Doorstep reveals the simple pleasures of paying attention to the natural world in one's own backyard over the course of a year. In weekly letters, Angela Douglas shares the joys and curiosities of a decidedly ordinary patch of green in upstate New York cultivated through the art of "strategic neglect"—sometimes taking a hand to manage wildlife, more often letting nature go its own way.

From the first flowers of spring to cardinals singing in the winter, Douglas shows us the ma...