Stories by: Kenn Kaufman, Clay Sutton, Marie Winn, Ann Zwinger, Paul A. Johnsgard, Kim Todd, John Nichols, Judith A. Toups, Mark S. Garland, Paul Kerlinger, Julie Zickefoose, Lawrence Kilham, Curtis Badger, Nikki Weinstein, James Gorman, Michael Harwood, Mary DurantThe waterways of New York-New Jersey, the Chesapeake Bay Tunnel-Bridge, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the French Quarter of New Orleans—all unlikely spots for birdwatching. For the careful observer, however, these urban locations and others like them can be settings for memorable birding experiences. In this unique book, some of the country's best-known birders observe birds in places where thriving bird life comes as a surprise. Funny, informative, and thought-provoking, the true stories collected here demonstrate the amazing adaptability of birds, which sometimes seem to thrive in almost any setting humans create: city parks, busy marinas, cemeteries, sewage lagoons. They also illustrate the vulnerability of the natural world in an increasingly man-made environment, and show how the excitement of birdwatching can exist in the most unexpected places.
Author
Kenn Kaufman (born 1954) is an American author, artist, naturalist, and conservationist, known for his work on several popular field guides of birds and butterflies in North America. Born in South Bend, Indiana, Kaufman started birding from the age of six. When he was nine, his family moved to Wichita, Kansas, where his fascination with birds intensified. At age sixteen, inspired by birding pioneers such as Roger Tory Peterson, he dropped out of high school and began hitchhiking around North America in pursuit of birds. Three years later, in 1973, he set the record for the most North American bird species seen in one year (671) while participating in a Big Year, a year-long birding competition. However, this record included regions like Baja California that are no longer ornithologically considered part of North America and has since been surpassed.His cross-country birding journey, covering some eighty thousand miles, was eventually recorded in a memoir, Kingbird Highway. Subsequently, he focused his work on creating and expanding upon birding field guides. In 1992, he was given the Ludlow Griscom Award by the American Birding Association. Kaufman also received the ABA Roger Tory Peterson Award in 2008 for a "lifetime of achievements in promoting the cause of birding." Kaufman resides in Oak Harbor, Ohio with his wife Kimberly. Today Kenn writes for Birds and Blooms, Bird Watcher's Digest, and works/volunteers at the Black Swamp Bird Observatory. Kaufman maintains a weblog where he reports bird sightings in the northwest region of Ohio and makes predictions about the spring bird migration.
