Of a Feather: a Brief History of American Birding |
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Author:
| Weidensaul, Scott |
ISBN: | 978-1-299-90041-7 |
Publication Date: | Jan 2008 |
Publisher: | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Trade & Reference Publishers
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Book Format: | Ebook |
List Price: | USD $15.00 |
Book Description:
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From the moment Europeans arrived in North America, they were awestruck by a continent awash with birds great flocks of wild pigeons, prairies teeming with grouse, woodlands alive with brilliantly colored songbirds. Of a Feather traces the colorful origins of American birding: the frontier ornithologists who collected eggs between border skirmishes; the society matrons who organized the first effective conservation movement; and the luminaries with checkered pasts, such as Alexander...
More DescriptionFrom the moment Europeans arrived in North America, they were awestruck by a continent awash with birds great flocks of wild pigeons, prairies teeming with grouse, woodlands alive with brilliantly colored songbirds. Of a Feather traces the colorful origins of American birding: the frontier ornithologists who collected eggs between border skirmishes; the society matrons who organized the first effective conservation movement; and the luminaries with checkered pasts, such as Alexander Wilson (a convicted blackmailer) and the endlessly self-mythologizing John James Audubon. Scott Weidensaul also recounts the explosive growth of modern birding that began when an awkward schoolteacher named Roger Tory Peterson published A Field Guide to the Birds in 1934. Today birding counts iPod-wearing teens and obsessive "listers" among its tens of millions of participants, making what was once an eccentric hobby into something so completely mainstream it s now (almost) cool. This compulsively readable popular history will surely find a roost on every birder s shelf."