[obol] Help IDing book of birding anecdotes

Grant Canterbury grantandstacy at hotmail.com
Thu Mar 13 09:46:55 PDT 2008



Can anyone help me identify this book, which I read in the late 1970's, have never seen since, and for which I have subsequently forgotten title and author? It is a collection of birding anecdotes somewhat along the lines of Kenn Kaufman's Kingbird Highway. The author and his wife become interested in birding and travel across the country chasing various rarities. It opens with a scene at a nesting colony out on Attu or the Pribilofs where they encounter several life-birds (auklets etc.) in rapid succession, putting them both over 700 on their life lists. I think there were scenes at Cape May and Hawk Ridge, a very questionable sighting of a possible ivory-billed woodpecker before they had had much identification experience, and a description of the woodland in their neighborhood where they first became familiar with their local birds (he jokes that the entrance arch over the trail should have been inscribed "abandon all hope ye who enter here"). This book made a big impression on me at the time, as I was just becoming interested in birds and it was my first introduction to the term "birding" and the concept that it could be approached as something like a sport. I keep thinking I will run across it again in a used bookstore somewhere, but so far have not - but I'm certain that there are folks out on OBOL who will recognize it immediately. Anyone know the title or author?
 
- Grant Canterbury
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