Across North America, tens of thousands of people gather every spring and fall at more than one thousand known hawk migration sites--from New Jersey's Cape May to California's Golden Gate. Yet, as many discover, a standard field guide, with its emphasis on plumage, is often of little help in identifying those raptors soaring, gliding, or flapping far, far away.Hawks from Every Angle takes hawk identification to new heights. It offers a fresh approach that literally looks at the birds from every angle, compares and contrasts deceptively similar species, and provides the pictures (and words) needed for identification in the field. Jerry Liguori pinpoints innovative, field-tested identification traits for each species from the various angles that they are seen.Featuring 339 striking color photos on 68 color plates and 32 black & white photos, Hawks from Every Angle is unique in presenting a host of meticulously crafted pictures for each of the 19 species it covers in detail--the species most common to migration sites throughout the United States and Canada. All aspects of raptor identification are discussed, including plumage, shape, and flight style traits.For all birders who follow hawk migration and have found themselves wondering if the raptor in the sky matches the one in the guide, Hawks from Every Angle--distilling an expert's years of experience for the first time into a comprehensive array of truly useful photos and other pointers for each species--is quite simply a must.Key Features? The essential new approach to identifying hawks in flight Innovative, accurate, and field-tested identification traits for each species 339 color photos on 68 color plates, 32 black & white photos Compares and contrasts species easily confused with one another, and provides the pictures (and words) needed for identification in the field Covers in detail 19 species common to migration sites throughout the North America Discusses light conditions, how molt can alter the shape of a bird, aberrant plumages, and migration seasons and sites User-friendly format

    Birds of prey have an aura that few other creatures have. In the acclaimed Hawks in Flight, Pete Dunne showed what birds of prey look like. In The Wind Masters, he shows what it is like to be a bird of prey. He takes us inside the lives and minds of all thirty-four species of diurnal raptors found in North America -- hawks, falcons, eagles, vultures, the osprey, and the harrier -- and shows us how each bird sees the world, hunts its prey, finds and courts its mate, rears its young, grows up, grows old, and dies. Vividly written, and beautifully illustrated by David Sibley, The Wind Masters is a brilliant work of narrative natural history in the tradition of Peter Matthiessen's The Wind Birds and Barry Lopez's Of Wolves and Men.

    There is the record-holding husband and wife who cross continents to "twitch" (spot rare birds); the disgraced "stringer" who takes desperate measures to falsify a spotting of the coveted black lark, leading hundreds on a fruitless search; and a group of friends who go birding in America only to be plagued by car trouble, drunk drivers, robbery, and an encounter with the border police.Birders is also an inspiring and heartwarming account of the author's lifelong love for his hobby, and the way it transforms him -- from his fetishistic love affair with his notebook and "bins" (binoculars) to his deep mourning for a friend who went missing when he followed the call of an elusive pheasant in the Himalayan mountains. Informative, touching, and astoundingly funny, here is the layman's invitation to share in an unlikely obsession.

    But do you always recognize what you see and hear? With this book, you'll get started. Birding for the Curious is a beginner course in birding for every nature and animal lover out there. With it, you'll learn what birding is all about, what birders do and how you can become one. You'll also learn how to:- Find more birds- Identify the birds you see- Attract more birds to your yard and feedersBirding for the Curious is the perfect gift for the nature-lover in your life, or an excellent introduction to birding for you. It won't be long before you can easily recognize and name the common birds in your area. With this book, you will enjoy nature at a whole new level.

    He has observed more than six thousand species during travels that have taken him to every continent. He founded the largest company in the world specializing in birding tours and one of the most respected ones in ecotourism. Emanuel has received some of birding’s highest honors, including the Roger Tory Peterson Award from the American Birding Association and the Arthur A. Allen Award from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. He also started the first birding camps for young people, which he considers one of his greatest achievements.In One More Warbler, Emanuel recalls a lifetime of birding adventures—from his childhood sighting of a male Cardinal that ignited his passion for birds to a once-in-a-lifetime journey to Asia to observe all eight species of cranes of that continent. He tells fascinating stories of meeting his mentors who taught him about birds, nature, and conservation, and later, his close circle of friends—Ted Parker, Peter Matthiessen, George Plimpton, Roger Tory Peterson, and others—who he frequently birded and traveled with around the world. Emanuel writes about the sighting of an Eskimo Curlew, thought to be extinct, on Galveston Island; setting an all-time national record during the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count; attempting to see the Imperial Woodpecker in northwestern Mexico; and birding on the far-flung island of Attu on the Aleutian chain. Over the years, Emanuel became a dedicated mentor himself, teaching hundreds of young people the joys and enrichment of birding. “Birds changed my life,” says Emanuel, and his stories make clear how a deep connection to the natural world can change everyone’s life.

    Since that time he has answered thousands of questions about birds, both at his store and while walking down the aisles of the supermarket. The questions have ranged from inquiries about individual species ("Are flamingos really real?") to what and when to feed birds ("Should I bring in my feeders for the summer?") to the down-and-dirty specifics of backyard birding ("Why are the birds dropping poop in my pool?"). Answering the questions has been easy; keeping a straight face has been hard.Why Don't Woodpeckers Get Headaches? is the solution for the beginning birder who already has a book that explains the slight variation between Common Ground-Doves and Ruddy Ground-Doves but who is really much more interested in why birds sing at 4:30 A.M. instead of 7:00 A.M., or whether it's okay to feed bread to birds, or how birds rediscover your feeders so quickly when you've just filled them after a long vacation. Or, for that matter, whether flamingos are really real.

    From the windswept flats of the Texas barrier islands to the Artic and then south again into the Caribbean, On the Wing provides a hilariously picaresque and bumpy flight.

    When one of his release sites was raided by a golden eagle, he managed to save a peregrine chick, and decided to make an improbable two-thousand-mile trip with the surviving young falcon, Dolly. From the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico, following the autumnal migration of waterfowl, O'Brien taught her to hunt as a wild falcon would, in the hopes of releasing her into the natural world. The Rites of Autumn is the riveting account of their incredible journey. (51/2 X 81/4, 208 pages, map)

    In 2015, Noah Strycker set himself a lofty goal: to become the first person to see half the world’s birds in one year. For 365 days, with a backpack, binoculars, and a series of one-way tickets, he traveled across forty-one countries and all seven continents, eventually spotting 6,042 species—by far the biggest birding year on record.This is no travelogue or glorified checklist. Noah ventures deep into a world of blood-sucking leeches, chronic sleep deprivation, airline snafus, breakdowns, mudslides, floods, war zones, ecologic devastation, conservation triumphs, common and iconic species, and scores of passionate bird lovers around the globe. By pursuing the freest creatures on the planet, Noah gains a unique perspective on the world they share with us—and offers a hopeful message that even as many birds face an uncertain future, more people than ever are working to protect them.

    There they began a strenuous and thrilling hundred-day field trip around the edge of the continent. Part travelogue, part epic natural adventure, their richly illustrated record is "the superlatively good product of ideal circumstances" (Chicago Sunday Tribune).

    Now scientists have documented mass migrations over the Gulf of Mexico, identified the voices of migrants in the night sky, and showed how songbirds navigate using stars, polarized light, and magnetic fields. Miyoko Chu explores the intricacies underlying the ebb and flow of migration, the cycle of seasons, and the interconnectedness between distant places. Songbird Journeys pays homage to the wonder and beauty of songbirds while revealing the remarkable lives of migratory birds and the scientific quest to answer age-old questions about where songbirds go, how they get there, and what they do in the far-flung places they inhabit throughout the year.

    Each autumn they migrate south, to Delaware, California and the Gulf of Mexico. In the spring they fly north again. William Fiennes decided to go with them and to write about his travels.

    Unwitting humans create a zone of disturbance that scatters the wildlife. Respectful humans who heed the birds acquire an awareness that radically changes the dynamic. We are welcome in their habitat. The birds don't fly away. The larger animals don't race off. No longer hapless intruders, we now find, see, and engage the deer, the fox, the red-shouldered hawk—even the elusive, whispering wren.Deep bird language is an ancient discipline, perfected by Native peoples the world over. Finally, science is catching up. This groundbreaking book unites the indigenous knowledge, the latest research, and the author's own experience of four decades in the field to lead us toward a deeper connection to the animals and, in the end, a deeper connection to ourselves.

    In Sightings, a collection of essays, bird watching forms the basis for observations spiritual and soulful, witty and wise. He describes his childhood ramblings in the silence of the Tennessee wilderness as feeling distinctly more spiritualthan the hard pews of his grandmother's church. Later in life, the presumed extinction and subsequent rediscovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker prompts a meditation on the nature of the sacred. Blessed with moments of beauty and the insight to recognize them as such, Keen translates the marvels of nature into the language of heart and soul.

     What drives a man to travel to sixty countries and spend a fortune to count birds? And what if that man is your father? Richard Koeppel's obsession began at the age of eleven, in Queens, New York, when he first spotted a Brown Thrasher and promptly jotted the sighting in a notebook. Several decades, one failed marriage, and two sons later, he added an astonishing 517 birds to that list on a single trip to Kenya. Soon after, he ended the last romantic relationship he would ever have, scaled down his medical practice, and decided to see every bird on earth, becoming a "Big Lister," a member of a subculture of competitive bird-watchers worldwide, all pursuing the same goal. Over twenty-five years, he collected more than 7,000 species (of a known 9,600), becoming one of about ten people ever to do so. "To See Every Bird on Earth" explores the thrill of this chase, the all-absorbing crusade at the expense of all else, and travel, to places both dangerous and dull, for the sake of making a check mark in a notebook. It's also the story of obsession-answering the questions why list? and why birds?-and how it defines us. A riveting glimpse into a fascinating subculture, To See Every Bird on Earth traces the love, loss, and reconnection between a father and a son, and explains why birds are so critical to the human search for our place in the world.