Three more books about birds and birders.
Me, I watch birds.Today I stroll in the park and I no longer see plain birds. I see gadwalls and buffleheads and, if I'm really on a hot streak, a single old squaw. A road trip finds me watching the sky as much as the pavement. It gets harder to pass a sewage treatment pond, that notorious bird magnet, without pulling out my binoculars. When somebody cries, 'Duck!' I look up.
No longer is it accurate to call me a birdwatcher, a term the pros use to dismiss the spinsters and retired British army colonels who wait passively for birds to come to them. I have become an enthusiast, a chaser -- a birder. -- from The Big Year : a Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession, by Mark Obmascik
Dunne, Peter. The Feather Quest : a North American Birder's Year (New York : Mariner Books, 1999).
Peter and his wife, Linda, spend a year observing, birds, birders, and the places you'll find them.
But there are about seven million Americans who have discovered that this window to the natural world doesn't end at the property line. It opens to the world, paves an avenue of adventure that runs out in every direction. This year, Linda and I would take that road -- on a quest across North America. It would carry us to many wild and exciting places and into the lives of a wonderful host of characters -- North American birders. -- from The Feather Quest : a North American Birder's Year, by Peter Dunne
Kaufman, Kenn. Kingbird Highway : the Story of a Natural Obsession that Got a Little Out of Hand (New York : Mariner Books, 1997).
Join Kenn Kaufman on his "Big Year" of birding. A hobby turns into an obsession as Kaufman tries to set a record for the most birds seen in North America in 1973. Find out what he learns about birds and himself.
In the midst of the turbulent sea and sky, I was overcome by a great feeling of peace: I was doing exactly what I was meant to do today. Any day could be a special day, and you just had to get outside, and see what the birds were doing... Birding is what I came here for; this is how I spend this day and my days and my life. -- from Kingbird Highway : the Story of a Natural Obsession that got a Little Out of Hand, by Kenn Kaufman
Obmascik, Mark. The Big Year : a Tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession (New York : Free Press, 2004).
Mark Obmascik shares the competition of three birders during the 1998 North American Big Year. As the author discovers, their obsession is contagious.
I wondered if there was an unlikelier group of competitors than these three Big Year men -- Sandy Komito, Greg Miller, Al Levantin. Sure, they all had the same wonderful, boyish sense of enthusiasm. But I couldn't imagine what else a New Jersey industrial contractor, a nuclear power worker, and a corporate chief executive could hold in common.If you had a year of your life to do anything you wanted, and you could do only that thing for a year, what would you do? These three guys all chose to chase birds. Something deep in their backgrounds must have made them susceptible to an ornithological takeover. -- from The Big Year : a Tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession, by Mark Obmascik
Website
The American Birding Association
http://www.americanbirding.org/
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