At age sixteen, Kenn Kaufman left home to travel the world in search of birds. Now a grown man and a renowned ornithologist, he has come back to visit his ailing mother and explain to her what drove his obsession with bird life. His explanation forms a series of interlocking tales from the frontier where the world of birds intersects with the world of the humans who pursue them. The stories range over settings from Alaska to Africa, from trackless jungles to parking lots. They delve into subjects from first dates to last rites, from imagination and desire to sleep deprivation, from poignant encounters with eternal mysteries to comical brushes with biker gangs and secret agents. But as the stories unfold, the ornithologist comes to realize that he can still learn from his mother some things about life and even about the meaning of birds. Flights Against the Sunset brings together nineteen essays, mostly adapted from Kaufman's long-running column in Bird Watcher’s Digest. They weave an original story that examines how we communicate about our passions with those who do not share the same interests and how to celebrate the world of infinite possibilities and wonder.
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.
