"Norment's cabin, like Thoreau's, opens into the widest prospects of hearts and minds. "Return to Warden's Grove" is a story of fortitude, love of truth, and a wandering, wondering heart. The picture appears gradually, humbly, in the repeated daily acts of minute observational and intellectual honesty from which science is built. He is willing to feel and question everything. What good is science? How much of science secretly draws from intuition, heart, and that mysterious connectedness to the natural world that no one can explain, or explain away? And how can a person really be at home anywhere? I don't know of another work that better engages these foundational questions."--David Oates, essayist and poet, author, "Paradise Wild: Reimagining American Nature" and" City Limits: Walking Portland's Boundary" "Chris Norment's narrative of his summers studying Harris's Sparrows in the far north is one of the most stirring accounts of biological fieldwork I've read. It memorably conveys both the clarity of his scientific methods and findings and the complications of their philosophical, ethical, and emotional context. Norment's discussion of the relationship between scientific nomenclature and a vivid awareness of nature was particularly impressive for me.

" --John Elder, author, "Reading the Mountains of Home" and "Pilgrimage" "to Vallombrosa".