Nature reading for the winter season

If you've ever gone outside in the dead of winter and wondered how in the world animals can survive in the harsh conditions, you will find Winter World : The Ingenuity of Animal Survival by Bernd Heinrich a great read. The book describes the adaptations that different animals use to combat the cold temperatures. Much of the book is devoted to the kinglet. While other birds are migrating further south, these amazing little birds spend the entire winter in New England. They have evolved to survive in these conditions and so that they can be the first ones back north in the spring. The drawback is an astonishingly high mortality rate (I seem to remember 80% per year). While I don't always agree with his methods, Heinrich does a great job of explaining the winter lives of the local wildlife.