Book Description
An irreverent, absorbing, and insightful tale of one man's adventures following the great 7,000-mile osprey migration across two continents
One September, after writing about ospreys on Cape Cod for years, David Gessner impulsively decided to follow the birds on their annual migration. Each fall these graceful raptors, with wingspans of up to six feet, cruise over the eastern United States, then soar over Cuba and winter in South America, returning north with the spring. In 2004, Gessner went along for the ride, traveling illegally into the mountains of Cuba and deep into Venezuela as he competed with the crew of a BBC documentary to be the first to follow the full migration, trailing the birds by car, boat, foot, and plane. He called his favorite osprey Fidel.
Soaring with Fidel is about the exhilaration of migration, but it is also a deeper meditation on the nature of human happiness. In describing the thrill of travel, the antics of these swashbuckling birds, and the cast of characters he meets (and drinks with) along the wayâincluding scientists, students, tour guides, and an online group of birdersâGessner gives us a profound lesson in the importance of following what you love.
"From the tidal marshes of Cape Cod to jungle lakes in Venezuela, David Gessner lets nothingânot language barriers, not empty pockets, not steely-eyed Cuban bureaucrats or American embargoesâstop him from following the migration of the osprey. Just reckless enough to be lucky, Gessner wins over everyone he meets. Soaring with Fidel has wings."
âScott Weidensaul, author of Living on the Wind
"Because of its robust passion and focus, Soaring with Fidel would have probably been a favorite of Teddy Roosevelt's. It's Gessner's finest book, unpredictable in the best way, and funny, too; an adventure book and much moreâa book of contact, written by a writer who quickly becomes an audible and visible presence. Soaring with Fidel demonstrates that you can 'pick up one thing and find the rest of the world hitched to it.' If you've experienced a passion that you failed to followâor that you did followâthen this is your book."
âClyde Edgerton, author of Solo
"Exhilarating, hilarious, tender, this is David Gessner at his best. Call it whatever you wantâosprey lust, wanderlust, migratory unrestâbut when Gessner decides to follow the birds he loves from Cape Cod to Cuba to Venezuela and back north, over thousands of miles of mountain, swamp, and sea, we all benefit."
âJames Campbell, author of The Final Frontiersman
"Equal doses of Jack Kerouac and Roger Tory Peterson promise to enshrine Soaring with Fidel in the pantheon of great travel writing and natural history."
âKeith L. Bildstein, author of Migrating Raptors of the World
"Gessner's account is filled with nitty-gritty details about the days and nights of an itinerant birder and beautifully detailed descriptions of ospreys in action. When actual observations were not possible, he imagined what the ospreys were doing and writes intelligentlyâ¦A grand adventure, not just for birders and nature lovers." âKirkus, review in the January 15th issue
"Soaring with Fidel is a grand and cheering journey on the wings of one of nature's most sociable predators. It's impossible to watch an osprey hovering above a crystal calm bay and not envy the great bird's freedom. Now, thanks to David Gessner, we are invited to follow."
âCarl Hiaasen, author of Nature Girl
"Gessner's travels are filled with small delights. He has a great gift for conveying reverence without sanctimony, and even at his most sardonic and self-deprecating, his sense of wonder at the osprey never falters. As he stands on a rock above Cuba's Sierra Maestra, watching ospreys rocket past, we wish we could be up there beside him, binoculars in one hand, a cold beer in the other." âOnEarth
"An engaging, lyrical guide to osprey migration, Cuba, and a common humanity. On his impulsive journey, Gessner meets other devotees of this magnificent raptor, and experiences the thrill of following what he loves."
âOrion Magazine
"Gessner seldom sets out deliberately to be funny, as Bill Bryson does, but his deadpan, self-deprecating humor ("I had vast experience in not seeing birds") makes him an ideal traveling companion and guide. Soaring With Fidel lets you hover for a while in the thermals of fine language, seeing the same old world from a fresh and invigorating altitude."
âWilmington (NC) Morning Star News
"This probing investigation of the migratory flight of the osprey embraced several unexpectedly, exciting adventures . . . I found Gessner's book a most interesting read."
âNH Union Leader
"He gives an occasional nod to Henry David Thoreau, perhaps to assure us that, yep, he's read the masters, but his styleâwell, imagine Hunter Tompson gone birding, pen in hand." âHartford Courant
David Gessner is the award-winning author of several books, including Return of the Osprey and The Prophet of Dry Hill (Beacon / 8568-5 / $19.95 hc). He is editor of the literary journal Ecotone and assistant professor of creative writing at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. Each summer, Gessner migrates north to Cape Cod.
Customer Reviews:
Ospreymania .......2007-06-27
I wish the book had gone on longer. There just wasn't as much content as I like. The subject was great. We know so little about migration. I like his style but I just wanted more storyline. I like all animal books of any kind and especially birds. We just take them for granted and now they are disappearing. I would like another follow up book with Freddy coming to America to visit us again. He was such an interesting guy and you just wanted to climb that mountain with them.
This osprey season has been as sad and interesting as any I have ever experienced and I hope David had better luck in North Carolina. Osprey nests all over seemed to fail this year. Please travel some more and continue to write and I will read. Loyal fan, B. Kelley
Is Gessner the Indiana Jones of Birding?.......2007-05-13
Gessner ratchets up the action with this true-life adventure. He demonstrates that a very skilled writer on a shoestring budget is able to blend ornithology, international adventure, beer, smokes and derring-do into a terrific book that teaches the reader to devour life while pursuing knowledge. The combination is odd, but I found this page-turner exciting and informative. Both people and ospreys come under Gessner's neb as he breaks a few U.S. State Department rules about travel to Cuba to see for himself where thousands of Ospreys (and other birds) migrate. His interest focuses on a particular bird he follows from Cape Cod to Cuba's La Gran Piedra. Achieving this, he risks life and limb to travel to Venezuela where kidnappings and murders are not quite as numerous as the ospreys he so adores, and borrows money to consummate his passionate quests. I reluctantly set this book aside to run an errand that took me across the Megler Bridge over the Columbia River through an estuary near Astoria, Oregon. As if on cue, an Osprey plunged into a mud flat and arose with a small flounder less than 50 yards from the highway. Had I not been reading this book, I would have missed the event, but Gessner's memorable descriptions of Osprey behavior are enriching my life. I now see ospreys all the time. Gessner's books have given me my wings, my vision is sharpened and I think I may be turning into an osprey magnet, I really think so.
Book Description
A comprehensive and authoritative guide to the fascinating mysteries of bird migration.
Every year, billions of birds leave their North American breeding grounds for winter quarters farther south. That so many birds migrate so many miles, through life-threatening conditions, and to the same place each year, is simply stunning.
The editor of this important and lavishly illustrated new book has selected a cross-section of both the most typical and the most interesting migrants. Colorful maps, photographs, calendars and fact files, with easy-to-read symbols and abbreviations, present an accurate and up-to-date profile of each species.
The introduction provides comprehensive background on migration and its great mystery: how do the birds know where to go? The latest scientific discoveries are explained here.
The bulk of the book is the directory, which chronicles the routes of more than 500 species, including:
- North American birds of prey
- Hummingbirds, grosbeaks and starlings
- Eurasian shorebirds, storks and cranes
- Winter visitors from the Far North, such as swans, geese and finches
- African, South American and Australasian migrants
- Migratory sea birds, such as penguins, albatrosses and terns.
The results of new satellite tracking methods are covered, as are current environmental threats and conservation initiatives. The book closes with a comprehensive catalog of migrating species from all continents.
Customer Reviews:
Great Book, very interesting to find out more about birds...........2007-05-14
Very good graphs, illustrations and explanations about bird migration. Worth the money.
How to accept a changing season and move on to warmer places.......2007-04-28
Very good book that explains how iceages on earth aids the evolution of birds, how birds follow SUN in daytime, Stars in the night time, if it is cloudy and are flying on Sea how they can use earth magnetic field to find thier way. This book explains where birds breed in the spring-summer times and migrate to warmer places in fall-winter. As the morning SUN warms up the ground, the air heats up. The birds use this rising hot air help them in soaring to new heights.
This book engineers bird migration, explains how migration evolved, how birds decide the time of travel, how they use the natural phenomina like thermal soaring, how the wing shape and size are related to its flight - like sea birds have long, thin wings, geese have heavy wings etc.
Then this book talks about specifics like how swans migrate, Geese migrate, Albatross migrate and you can find specifics about sea, land, north american, eurasian birds.
Average customer rating:
- Amazing and couragous
- Aviation, Vertical, Horizontal and More.
- Author Needs to Dig Deeper
- The Black Swan
|
The Black Swan: Memory, Midlife, and Migration
Anne Batterson
Manufacturer: Scribner
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ASIN: 0743215532 |
Amazon.com's Best of 2001
It's hard to believe this thoughtful memoir is Anne Batterson's first book, so elegantly does she weave a chronicle of her five-week trip across America to observe migratory birds with recollections of the key people and moments in her life. Batterson was 56 when she took off from Connecticut on the journey she knew was quixotic, designed to stem her rising panic at her beloved second husband's talk of leaving his post as an Episcopalian minister. "Retirement, he would try out over the dinner table," she writes. "More time. Enough time... What I heard was: Hurry. Hurry. There's no time." Though she had behind her decades of adventure as a skydiver, pilot, and mountain trekker, Batterson still felt a keen need for risk-taking and solitude. With the blessings of her understanding spouse, David, she packed up her VW bus camper and took off. The present-tense narrative of her travels has a marvelous immediacy, from the lyrical (yet often slyly funny) descriptions of birdwatching, to emotional accounts of visits, to friends suffering their own midlife crises. Her past comes vibrantly to life in bravura passages capturing the thrill of skydiving (especially a terrifying jump in the middle of a lightning storm) and the pain of her failed first marriage to a flight instructor "who taught me how to loop the loop. Boy did he ever." She comes home to David and the knowledge that her wanderlust makes her who she is. The book closes with Batterson admitting, "I've always wanted to go above the Arctic Circle," as David laughs and she kisses the palm of his hand, murmuring, "God, I'm lucky." Readers will feel just as lucky to have shared the experiences related here with such tenderness and hard-won wisdom. --Wendy Smith
Book Description
Set against a spontaneous cross-country road trip following the migrating birds, this passionate, lyrical memoir is one woman's reflections on midlife, her important personal relationships, her kaleidoscopic past, and her uncertain future.
To fifty-six-year-old Anne Batterson, a woman whose life has been filled with adventure -- as a commercial pilot, an international skydiving champion, a trekking guide in Nepal -- her husband's decision to retire felt like a death sentence. Yearning for some way to reconcile herself to the future that was rapidly unfolding before her, she packed up her VW camper and hit the road with maps, bird guides, and little else except the desire to follow the fall migration and the bone-deep hunch that birds had something important to teach her.
In this beautifully written narrative of that extraordinary trip, Batterson writes movingly not only about her experiences with the birds but also about the people she loves, has lost, and connects with along the way. Events from the present trigger vivid stories from the past. In the chapter "The Journey Within the Journey," a long, lonely night in a deserted campground in Virginia conjures up the ghosts of a desperate solo road trip she made when she was twenty-one. A towering cumulus cloud in Illinois brings back a breathtaking free fall into a similar cloud in "My Time as a Bird." An encounter with a great blue heron summons a compelling account of her mother's last afternoon in the world. "Bears in the Woods" describes a run-in with two Deliverance-type men in West Virginia, which brings back the murder of a dear friend in the woods of Connecticut.
By the end of the journey, the ghosts of the past, like the author herself, have become part of a more fluid, more spiritual reality -- wild and spare and elegant and timeless -- one that is always out there, "quickening on the far side of reality."
A unique mix of memoir and nature writing, The Black Swan is a charming story of a woman's odyssey.
Download Description
For fifty-six-year-old Anne Batterson, a woman whose life has been filled with adventure -- as a pilot, a trekking guide in Nepal, an international skydiving champion, a wife and mother -- retirement was a depressing acknowledgement of advancing years. Though her life and marriage were still fulfilling, Anne yearned for some way of reconciling herself to the future. So she packed up her VW camper and hit the road with maps, bird guides, and little else in the way of a plan except to follow migrating birds. The Black Swan is a narrative of that extraordinary trip. In addition to beautifully describing bird migration across the United States, Batterson writes movingly about her children, her husband, her parents, and her own remarkable achievements. And it is through this spiritual journey, combined with the arduous but rewarding physical journey across the country, that Anne Batterson finds self-awareness and ultimately, peace. A unique mix of memoir and nature writing, The Black Swan is a lovely story of a woman's coming of age.
Customer Reviews:
Amazing and couragous.......2003-01-23
I met Anne at a CT Authors and Publishers meeting where she was the guest speaker. She kept us enthralled with her tales and adventures in her journey to be published after she had written this book. The journey never stops. I found it very inspiring to see someone have both the courage and support to take off on a cross country journey and then write about it. My ownself, I have fictionalized my experiences in "Forever Retro Blues." I am in awe of anyone who can put themselves out there like Anne did. It's a spiritual quest in addition to the physical one of finding herself in mid-life. Well done, Anne, well done.
Aviation, Vertical, Horizontal and More........2002-11-29
As an international skydiving champion, Anne Batterson was someone I admired when I began jumping in 1962. She went on to become a flight instructor and charter pilot. She understands flight and is fascinated by all who fly.
Batterson describes her following of a fall bird migration with flashbacks to her earlier adventures. I loved reading about her skydiving in the early days.
She relates the need to be alone from time to time.
A good writer with a large and varied vocabulary, she crafts a good read.
As an author, publisher and skydiver, I found this book fascinating and fun to read.
Dan Poynter, ParaPublishing.com
Author Needs to Dig Deeper.......2002-03-14
This book chronicles Anne Batterson's solo road trip at the age of 56 to confront midlife while following the fall bird migration. Overall the book is well written but just never seems to go anywhere. There are moments of soul baring but for the most part this reader found the book superficial. With so many adventures to her credit entailing more risk than most of us dare, it is sad that this author didn't risk sharing more of herself.
The Black Swan.......2001-08-16
A beautiful, subtle, completely absorbing story that will stir the reader's own internal wild bird. It was such a privilege to share Ms. Batterson's journey. Hard to believe this is her first book and can't wait to read more from her.
Book Description
The companion to the Oscar -nominated film, Winged Migration is the definitive visual account of its subject: the extraordinary flights of migrating birds around the world. Migration is an enigma. Who knows why the cuckoo, born in Europe, flies alone to the far forests of Africa, home of its ancestors? Or how the Arctic tern can fly over ten thousand miles on its astonishing journey from pole to pole? Winged Migration follows single birds and whole squadrons on their restless flights seeking answers to such riddles. The result is a tour de force that is testament to the patience of a globe-trotting team of filmmakers and ornithologists. With its informative text, Winged Migration offers both the general reader and the dedicated bird watcher a bird's-eye view of five continents and a grand, yet intimate, portrait of the secret life of birds.
Customer Reviews:
Winged Migration - the Book.......2007-01-10
Rarely disappointed in Amazon - but this item was shipped from a book distributor. I paid full price for this book, but the item received was moderately damaged.... It might have been satisfactory if I were purchasing it for myself, but I bought it as a gift, and was embarassed because it looked like it was "damaged goods", and indeed, it was! Repeated phone calls, Voice Messages, and emails to the distributor went absolutely ignored!
Winged Migration by Perrin.......2004-06-09
This book is perfect for a school project. It contains full color
pictures of birds in the natural environment. There are pictures
of the Guacharos of the Andes, the Snowy Owl and many other
denominations on every continent including Antartica. The
presentations are larger than life depictions of nature.
Birds are shown in the migratory state; wherein, it is not
unusual to travel beyond 10,000 miles to a final destination.
The volume is well worth the price charged. This would make a great gift for the student in your house. The pictures are
on par with the National Geographic Magazine presentations
of birds in their natural habitat.
Winged Migration -- the book.......2003-12-01
My interest for this book was sparked by my having seen the video of the same name. The book, however, goes beyond the video in that it identifies specifically "the players" -gives descriptions of them, their migratory patterns, their habits and habitats, as well as explaining by example the filming of the movie. If you have not seen the video, it will open a whole new world of bird migration to you. The migrations will become, to the reader, so important, majestic, and exciting in and of themselves. The premise, very simply, is that birds migrate to survive. The book will take the reader beyond his own responsibilities of commuting to work every day; it will reaffirm for the naturalists the necessity of living each day within an already pre-established harmony ; it will move any reader to higher levels of tolerance and compassion as, with its reading, one feels with absolute and great starkness how we all fit together on this planet. The book is truly an uplifting masterpiece. And it is magnificently photographed and presented. As long as birds are migrating, this book will be timelessly and repeatedly appreciated for its, as well, as the birds', utter beauty.
Book Description
This is a reverent environmental story of a wood thrush’s first year and his arduous first migration--across thousands of miles--from his nesting ground in the Belt Woods in Maryland to his winter home in Costa Rica, and back again. During his journey Flute encounters many perils, including natural predators and devastating habitat loss. “Cherry has a gift for sharing her knowledge through engaging fictional stories.”--Booklist
Customer Reviews:
Learned Behavior vs. Instinct.......2006-03-21
As a fifth grade science teacher in Texas, one of our objectives is for students to understand the difference between learned and inherited behaviors. Flute's Journey accomplishes this goal beautifully. From the beautiful illustrations to the lyrical text, the students are drawn in to the life of a woodthrush. As I read the book to them, they were to write down in one column the learned traits they saw/heard, and the inherited traits in another. They were enthralled with the story, and were amazed at how many examples there were in this one book of each type of behavior. Even though this book is listed for the lower primary grades, I highly recommend it for any science class studying learned and instinctual behaviors.
Inside information from author Lynne Cherry.......1999-12-17
When I began writing Flute's Journey, I was going to put Flute in the woods at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center where I was then artist-in-residence. However, an ornithologist friend said, "put Flute in the Belt Woods!" "What's the Belt woods?" I asked. She told me it was a forest that had been owned by Seton Belt and he had willed it to a church if they agreed to never cut the trees or sell the land. But after he died, the church had the will overturned and put the land up for sale to a developer for $9 million. It's a long story, but many children wrote letters to the bishop of the church asking that they respect Seton Belt's wishes and save the land. And, I'm convinced, that it was their letters that saved Flute's home, the Belt woods. Their letters, like the following one, came from the heart: "Seton Belt trusted you. How can you go against him?" Our campaign to save the woods was covered by CBS Morning News with Charles Osgood and they mentioned Flute's Journey and the children's letters. They asked me what kids could do. I said, "they can write to the church." And so many more letters were sent. Now Belt Woods is preserved forever. Children helped to save Flute's home and children, in many ways, can make a difference in the world. Lynne Cherry
This book is soooo good!.......1998-07-26
It tells how hard the life of birds can be. I especially liked how it told about the cowbird who came and took one egg away because that tells the way cowbirds are. I liked how the children gaves names to the woodthrushes.
Every child and even most adults should read this book.......1998-06-15
This is a beautiful book! It provides ecological information that a child can understand. It has a strong message and is entertaining as well as educational. It has beatiful watercolor paintings and a compelling storyline. Enjoyable for parents and children.
Average customer rating:
- High Flying Science Discovery
- Pretty Birds
|
How Do Birds Find Their Way? (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2)
Roma Gans
Manufacturer: HarperTrophy
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ASIN: 006445150X |
Book Description
Many birds travel thousands of miles each year, migrating between summer and winter homes. Just how they find their way back and forth, sometimes returning to the exact same nesting grounds each year, has puzzled ornithologists for years. Roma Gans details the many theories scientists have proposed to explain the mysteries of migration.
Customer Reviews:
High Flying Science Discovery.......2007-09-03
Children are naturally curious about nature. This book, among many of the Let's Read and Find Out Science books, is a wonderful book that helps children learn more about the world around them.
As with most of the books in this series, it opens with a story-line to which kids can easily relate, like watching birds go from tree to tree. Beautiful illustrations which also label the birds will assist children in beginning to identify birds.
Children are introduced to vocabulary such as:
1. migrating
2. Ornithologist
Children will learn about a widely held past theory about why birds seemed to "disappear" in the winter. They will discover a few leading theories as to how birds currently "find their way," including directional navigation (North, East, West, South) and the possible use of the Earth's magnetic field.
There is a wonderful chart at the end of the book which illustrates the various heights at which birds and aircraft fly.
This book is sure to delight, and educate.
Pretty Birds.......2003-03-22
This is a good book because the birds are pretty. I liked the arctic terns in the book.
Amazon.com
Did you know that neither temperature nor hunger sparks bird migration? That many species migrate at night? That some birds migrate more than 5,000 miles in a single, uninterrupted flight? "We are such stodgy, rooted creatures," observes the author of this fascinating book. "To think of crossing thousands of miles under our own power is as incomprehensible as jumping the moon. Yet even the tiniest of birds perform such miracles."
For anyone curious about the lives of migratory birds (and, incidentally, those of bird-obsessed humans), this book is a great nest of information. The author has traveled all over the world banding and observing birds and talking to the experts--amateur birders and ornithologists who have made many of the important discoveries about bird biology. From Alaska to Lake Erie to the limestone forests of Jamaica, Weidensaul reaches not only for the scientific particulars but for the universal stories and humanizing, descriptive turns of phrase that keep this book from bogging down in statistics and jargon. By book's end the reader is unable to resist the heart of this compelling story, a plea for the conservation of habitat to keep these miraculous creatures on--or at least circling--the earth. --Maria Dolan
Book Description
Bird migration is the world's only true unifying natural phenomenon, stitching the continents together in a way that even the great weather systems fail to do. Scott Weidensaul follows awesome kettles of hawks over the Mexican coastal plains, bar-tailed godwits that hitchhike on gale winds 7,000 miles nonstop across the Pacific from Alaska to New Zealand, and myriad songbirds whose numbers have dwindled so dramatically in recent decades. Migration paths form an elaborate global web that shows serious signs of fraying, and Weidensaul delves into the tragedies of habitat degradation and deforestation with an urgency that brings to life the vast problems these miraculous migrants now face. Living on the Wind is a magisterial work of nature writing.
Customer Reviews:
Outstanding and thoroughly enjoyable popular science work on birds .......2007-06-16
_Living on the Wind_ by Scott Weidensaul is a very ambitious book, one in which the author tried to convey both the science and the drama of bird migration in the Western Hemisphere, traveling for six years from Alaska to Argentina and speaking to experts as well as viewing close up an amazing variety of birds from the Arctic tundra to Central American rain forests.
The book is divided into three sections. "Southbound" focused on the fall migration as well as topics on migration in general.
Weidensaul stressed that one shouldn't view migration as moving away from something unpleasant, such as the cold, but rather as moving towards something beneficial, mainly an area where food is plentiful. Viewing migration as a simply north-south issue clearly shows a North American bias; birds in southern South America fly north to their wintering grounds, tropical birds fly relatively short distances but on migrations nonetheless in response to among other things the ripening of fruits or the blossoming of flowers, and many ocean birds undergo complex and intricate perambulations of entire oceans on an annual basis (the greater shearwater breeds in the South Atlantic but covers a 13,000 mile route every nine months, a route that includes going up past South America to Canada, then over to Europe in autumn, and then returning down the coast of Africa). Not all North American birds winter in the Americas; the bristle-thighed curlew nests in western Alaska but winters as much as 5,000 miles away in such Pacific islands as Tahiti, while the bar-tailed godwit winters 6,800 miles away from its Alaskan home in New Zealand (flying nonstop for up to five days).
The reader learns some birds are "complete migrants" (they entirely vacate their breeding grounds at the end of nesting season) and some are "partial migrants" (a portion of the population remains year-round). Most birds other than hawks migrate at night, partially to avoid predators (like hawks), to free up daytime hours for finding food, because the atmosphere is less turbulent at night, and because the chillier and damper night air can help cool overheated migrating birds and work to stem moisture loss. Thanks to human activity, many birds winter farther north than they once did, whether due to backyard birdfeeders in the case of finches or specially maintained refuges for waterfowl; this phenomenon is known as "shortstopping."
The author spent a good deal of time discussing how birds find their way on migrations. A fascinating discussion, migration involves a genetic program, a time of migratory restlessness when the daylight diminishes to a certain point and the urge to fly in a certain direction sets in, coupled in some species with a innate time-distance or time-and-direction (or vector navigation) program, a set of genetic instructions that instruct the bird to fly a certain direction for a specific length of time, change heading, and then precede on another for a preset period of time. Those directions are determined mainly by celestial and magnetic orientation but research has shown that infrasound (extremely low-frequency waves of the sort generated by ocean surf, which can travel for thousands of miles) may play a role as well.
Modifying this program though are a "hierarchy of orientation clues," which serve to refine a bird's navigation on subsequent flights, often enabling a bird to find specific breeding and wintering grounds with stunning accuracy. Clues such as learning geographic landmarks, olfactory, infrasound, and local magnetic clues help the migrating bird.
The second section, "Hiatus," focused on birds and their wintering grounds, from stay-at-home year-round resident birds alongside frozen Hudson Bay to birds of steamy rainforests and the Argentine pampas. Many birds like warblers and tanagers really are tropical birds to begin with; an oriole might spend four months in its temperate breeding range but seven months in the tropics, while some Canadian warblers spend less than three months there. Some birds migrate only as far south as southern Canada or the northern U.S. to winter. Others, such as the northern finches, follow an erratic and very unpredictable pattern of migration known as an irruption, a pattern tied to seed production in their normal range that in bad years may send birds as far south as the Gulf Coast.
The author discussed research on how faithful birds are to their wintering sites, debates over whether or not they are benefited by disturbed habitat, how flexible they are on their wintering grounds with regards to food and habitat, and how some species have completely different diets and habits on their wintering grounds (in some species the males and females will winter in different areas).
Threats to wintering birds were well discussed, covering such topics as the use of pesticides in Latin American countries (tens of thousands of Swainson's hawks have died from pesticides in Argentina), habitat destruction, changes in coffee-growing practices (shade-grown coffee plantations still have a great deal of habitat for birds but sun-coffee or technified farms are "biological deserts"), and disease (wetland destruction has forced waterfowl and shorebirds into overloaded federal and state refuges, what one researcher called "bird ghettos").
The third section, "Northbound," tracked the surge of migrants through the American Southwest, Great Plains, and the Gulf Coast. Topics of discussion often center on threats to migrating birds, including loss of hardwood forests along the Gulf Coast, a vital source of nutrients for migrating birds (increasingly usurped by industrialized pine plantations and beach homes), the loss of native grassland (a trend that is "nearly apocalyptic;" Iowa only has one-tenth of one percent left, while Minnesota has one percent left) which has caused grassland birds to decline faster, longer, and over a wider area than any other type, and the tremendous threats to breeding woodland birds due to forest fragmentation, opening up formerly deep woods to predators such as cats and also cowbirds, which are rapidly expanding their ranges and numbers and are a huge threat to eastern birds with no experience with brood parasites.
A keeper for birders.......2007-04-16
The detail and fluidity of this book amazes me. The author's passion for his love of birds shines through on every page. It's a work of love.
I didn't begin to "bird" until my days in New Jersey (2000-2004) when I'd drive to the beautiful Jersey Shore and watch water fowl and migratory eagles, falcons and osprey nest along the banks of the braggish waters. I've been fascinated by raptors ever since, and the chapter "River of Hawks" had me longing for more.
The author traveled all over North and South America, mixing in some travelogue with his more scientific paragraphs. His descriptions of Patagonia, AZ (p. 59) and Monterey, CA (p. 93) were right on target even for the non-birder.
The time he spent researching, traveling, meeting with locals is astounding. He traveled to Mexico, Argentinia, Alaska, Canada, Jamaica and various places within the United States to watch the birds himself.
The book ends on a melancholy note, citing the need to preserve and conserve what natural habitat we have left in the world, not just for our feathered friends, but for fish and humans. No work on nature would be complete without a passage of hope that natural nesting areas and a habitat free of toxins will prevail.
This book is a must-read. Like a few other reviewers have stated, my only recommendation would be perhaps a picture, even a black-white picture, of the many birds mentioned in this book.
Vivid and poetic language.......2004-11-10
The information on bird migration is absolutely engrossing. However, the language Weidensaul uses is even more enjoyable. I kept the computer dictionary next to me while reading the book to check the beautiful language used to describe bird behavior and their habitats. This book is inspiring and thought provoking even for non-birders like me (I am likely classified as a computer geek).
A Wonderful BookI.......2003-04-30
If you enjoy nature reading you will love this book. I am not a birder, but nevertheless found this book to be an eloquent and fascinating read. Weidensaul introduces and explores a world that occurs around us every day but that few of us know anything about. He writes extremely well. Overall, a wonderful book.
Tales of migration that read like a Crichton novel..........2001-06-06
This is absolutely one of the best non-fiction books I have ever read. Not only backyard birding enthusiasts, but anyone who has ever had even a passing interest in birds will love this book. Scott writes about birds in an understanding yet scientific manner that lends itself to wonderful readability while providing vast amounts of information. Beginning in Alaska, moving down the hemisphere to the pampas of Argentina, and back again, he takes the reader on a amazing journey that literally follows the paths taken by millions of birds each year. He combines personal field experiences with well assembled accounts of scientific research and ornithological history to paint a vivid picture of the swirling patterns of avian movement across the globe. If you have ever looked twice at a bird passing overhead, I highly reccomend picking up this valuable addition to any naturalist's library.
Book Description
Using specially devised computer-generated maps, plus full-color photos and illustrations that together represent birds in nature and in close-up detail, the atlas first explains the basics of bird migration and then traces the journeys of more than a hundred species, including detailed information and an illustration of each.
Book Description
Many raptors, the hawks, eagles, and falcons of the world, migrate over long distances, often in impressively large numbers. Many avoid crossing wide expanses of water and follow "flyways" to optimize soaring potential. Atmospheric conditions and landscape features, including waterways and mountain ranges, funnel these birds into predictable bottlenecks through which thousands of daytime birds of prey may pass in a short time. Birders and ornithologists also congregate at these locations to observe the river of raptors passing overhead (as did hunters in the United States in the past and in some countries even today). Keith L. Bildstein has studied migrating raptors on four continents and directs the conservation science program at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, Pennsylvania, the world's first refuge for migratory birds of prey. In this book, he details the stories and successes of twelve of the world's most important raptor-viewing spots, among them Cape May Point, New Jersey; Veracruz, Mexico; Kéköldi, Costa Rica; the Strait of Gibralter, Spain; and Elat, Israel. During peak migration, when the weather is right, the skies at these sites, as at Hawk Mountain, can fill with thousands of birds in a single field of view.
Bildstein, whose knowledge of the phenomenon of raptor migration is comprehensive, provides an accessible account of the history, ecology, geography, science, and conservation aspects surrounding the migration of approximately two hundred species of raptors between their summer breeding sites and their wintering grounds. He summarizes current knowledge about how the birds' bodies handle the demands of long-distance migration and how they know where to go. Migrating Raptors of the World also includes the ecological and conservation stories of several intriguing raptor migrants, including the Turkey Vulture, Osprey, Bald Eagle, Western Honey Buzzard, Northern Harrier, Grey-faced Buzzard, Steppe Buzzard, and Amur Falcon.
Customer Reviews:
Comprehensive writing on raptor migration.......2007-08-01
One of the criticisms of science is that scientists are 'preaching to the choir', that is, there is difficulty in passing scientific findings outside of the scientific community and into the general public where important on-the-ground decisions are made. In this book, Keith demonstrates the ability to take the vast body of scientific literature, as it pertains to raptors, and organize it in a way which allows the reader to feel at ease with the subject matter. A true eloquence is evident considering it was all done without the need to 'dumb down' the science which remains the foundation of the book. Each chapter, heavily cited, will be entertaining and educational to anyone interested in raptors and their conservation.
Migrating Raptors of the World.......2007-01-09
In his role as Sarkis Acopian Director of Conservation Science at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, Keith Bildstein has arguably studied raptors on a more global scale than any person alive, both in person and in the literature. He has put this experience to good effect in this excellent synthesis of the research on raptor migration ecology around the world. The inclusion of information from the tropics, Asia, Australia, Africa, and South America make this book a big advancement over its predecessors. Bildstein's concise and precise text uses words economically to explain scientific phenomena and details of raptor biology clearly in a way that is accessible to amateur ornithologists and conservationists, while still being of interest and value to professionals. The references alone form a valuable body of work for anyone doing research in the field. And the migration life histories of eight species are unique and interesting, showing how individual species apply the general ecological principles of migration ecology in varying ways. Every hawkwatcher and raptor researcher will definitely want to add this to their libraries; birders and naturalists of all interests will be enriched in their understanding of the natural world by this book; and ecologists and conservationists of all stripes should own this work since it is about some of the sentinel species of earth's environment. I give it my highest recommendation and it would make a great Christmas gift for any of the above.
Good read.......2006-10-31
To me, one of the most boring topics to read about is bird migration. This topic puts me to sleep, it is that boring. This book, however, is interesting. The information is presented in a very easy manner to understand and it makes the topic of migration interesting. This book sites particular species as they migrate and provides theories and other information about the reasons for migration. Very good and informative.
Customer Reviews:
A winner for all levels of birders.......2007-08-10
This beautifully written book will appeal to all levels of birders, from novices to experts. It is a great introduction to the lives of songbirds (and would make a wonderful gift for someone you hope to interest in birds), and it also includes some historical background and news of the latest research that dedicated birders will find interesting. That's a difficult balance to achieve, but Chu has done it magnificently. Especially useful (for all levels of birders) is the copious concrete information about things we can do to improve the lives of songbirds and projects in which we can help. My Christmas shopping got a lot easier when I read this book.
A Great Invitation to Birding.......2007-08-07
Birds are so all around us, it is not surprising that we might take them for granted, especially the songbirds that can be found in any backyard or feeder. Almost half the 10,000 species of birds on Earth are songbirds, the jays, larks, swallows, wrens, warblers, and others which have complex voiceboxes. They may be commonplace, but that does not mean that we know all there is about them. Many of them have complicated migration routes and behaviors that ornithologists have only in the past decades come to understand. The migratory songbirds of the Americas are covered in _Songbird Journeys: Four Seasons in the Lives of Migratory Birds_ (Walker Books) by Miyoko Chu. Ornithologists say that most of the birds of North America evolved over many millennia in the tropics and gradually pushed their boundaries northwards. Some came and stayed, and others developed the pattern of coming north in the warmer months to take advantage of the food supply and to bring forth the next generation before returning to warmer climes for the winter. There are literally billions of birds involved in this passage, but capacity to track them has been technologically available only in recent years, and Chu, an ornithologist at the renowned Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, brings readers up to date with scientific news about a remarkable research frontier.
As fascinated as humans have always been by birds, there were limits of perception in tracking the migrants. Chu gives a brief history of how hard it was to track these birds that do most of their travel at night before they could be seen on radar. Of course, tracking with radar required correlation with ground observations, and observers have a lot of work during the weeks that birds stream in to regions like our Gulf Coast. Chu describes the procedures for coastal Louisiana, where "mist nets" of a mesh so fine the birds cannot see them are set up to trap them. Among the surprising ways of tracking birds is though analyzing their blood for specific elemental isotopes; geographic areas differ in the levels of such isotopes, so a bird staying in a particular region picks up particular isotopes, which can be analyzed to see where the bird has been. A surprising new way to watch birds at night is to listen for their nocturnal calls. Determined (and sleep-deprived) observers eventually pinned down which calls went with which birds, allowing a technological breakthrough in nighttime birdwatching. Borrowing computer software used to pick out whale songs from other undersea noises, observers can point microphones at the sky and allow computers to monitor just what is passing overhead. And anyone who wants to can take part: thirty bucks will buy you a rooftop microphone to feed the sounds into a home computer, for the downloadable software to analyze.
This illustrates one of the most attractive parts of Songbird Journeys. Throughout the book are not just reports of what we already know, but invitations to get involved in helping to know more. Chu's delightful book follows the inescapable modern tradition of justified fretting over what will happen to its subjects; global warming, communications towers, illegal caging, pesticides, deforestation (at either end of the journey), acid rain, and more have made life hard (or impossible) for some migratory species. The book is, however, pleasantly optimistic in asserting that more information will find better answers, and suggesting that any reader might participate. There are not only instructions on how and when to visit the areas of research listed here, but also exhortations to consider setting up birdhouses and recording how they are used, taking part in a one day Christmas bird count (it's not on Christmas, but on a specific day chosen between 14 December and 5 January) to identify species of birds within specific regions, or simply to enter readings in The Great Backyard Bird Count, with no travel requirements. Chu shows repeatedly how small bits of information, summed with other small bits, have made a difference in our understanding of how birds live. This would be a lovely book especially for young people who are interested in how natural science is done and want to do some.
Great for beginning birders.......2007-06-06
I read this book as part of my exercises to complete my activities for the book "Forty Excuses to Get Together with the Girls," specifically "Excuse #10: Because I Want to Know that Bird's Name." (This is a chapter that has step-by-step instructions on how to start watching birds. The book has 39 other chapters devoted to other areas of interest.) I am a beginning birder and so much of the information was new and fascinating to me and it really helped put my local expeditions in a much larger perspective. I found myself picking it up every once in awhile for a birding "fix."
Bird Migration.......2007-03-15
This book provides a comprehensive and exciting desctiption of the amazing achievements of migrating birds in covering incredibly long distances without stopping to get to their summer or winter homelands. It is a well-written document, pleasurable and informative to read, and I recommend it to every potential, new, and experienced bird watcher.
Gives you a lot to think about.......2007-01-11
Very informative but written in a documentary style so don't think you'll be sitting down for a leisurely read. This is heavy stuff if you love songbirds. Fifty percent of all songbirds die each year, most during migration - the rest through habitat loss, predators, etc. That's the heavy stuff; but you'll learn so much about their songs, survival techniques, and so on. Extremely interesting but not an easy read.
Books:
- Sports Illustrated Year of the Gators Commemorative Issue, Spring 2007
- Taggerung (Redwall, Book 14)
- Tails of Devotion: A Look at the Bond Between People and Their Pets
- The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow
- The Adept 2: The Lodge of the Lynx (Adept)
- The Art of Horsemanship
- The Cat's Meow: Purr-fect Quilts for Cat Lovers, 10th Anniversary Special Edition
- The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes (Sandpiper Books)
- The Edison Trait: Saving the Spirit of Your Free-Thinking Child in a Conforming World
- The Forever Dog
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