A book with 200 full-color photos and a series of anecdotes shows how bird enthusiasts showcase their love of birds in and around their homes. By the author of Living With Dogs.

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 age twelve, in Queens, New York, when he first spotted a Brown Thrasher, and jotted the sighting in a notebook. Several decades, one failed marriage, and two sons later, he set out to see every bird on earth, becoming a member of a subculture of competitive bird watchers worldwide all pursuing the same goal. Over twenty-five years, he collected over seven thousand species, becoming one of about ten people ever to do so. To See Every Bird on Earth explores the thrill of this chase, a crusade at the expense of all else—for the sake of making a check in a notebook. A riveting glimpse into a fascinating subculture, the book traces the love, loss, and reconnection between a father and son, and explains why birds are so critical to the human search for our place in the world. “Marvelous. I loved just about everything about this book.”—Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman “A lovingly told story . . . helps you understand what moves humans to seek escape in seemingly strange other worlds.”—Stefan Fatsis, author of Word Freak “Everyone has his or her addiction, and birdwatching is the drug of choice for the father of author Dan Koeppel, who writes affectionately but honestly about his father’s obsession.”—Audubon Magazine (editor’s choice) “As a glimpse into human behavior and family relationships, To See Every Bird on Earth is a rarity: a book about birding that nonbirders will find just as rewarding.”—Chicago Tribune

Illustrated with 30-40 photographs and artwork and a map, this book helps you discover where the birds are whether in Mexico and southern Europe or in the distant, mythic Galapagos, Korea, and Antarctica.

Tells the story of a child's first birding expedition on a golden autumn day.

Teaches about the habitat, behaviors, appearance, and songs of seventy-five Eastern and Central North American birds, and includes basic birdwatching guidelines and audio samples.

This book isn't just for birders. It's also for the huge audience of people who hike, maybe have bird feeders, and generally enjoy nature. With this book, the naturalist will discover an incredible and rewarding new adventure in the beautiful world of birds. The book is packed with easy and fun activities and information about birds, how to find them and their part in the nature around us. The information in this book will not only help you identify and learn more about birds, but you'll have a blast doing it. Nate Swick, member of the American Birding Association, has compiled chapters upon chapters of interesting, unique and informative birding knowledge, followed by activities that use the skills you learned. So not only will you learn things like what kind of birds you're looking at around the neighborhood, how to decipher different bird calls, and how to bring the birds to your backyard, but you'll complete fun activities like creating a list of the most popular birds in your area, creating a sound map of bird calls, and making a feeder for your backyard.

It’s estimated that 50 to 60 million Americans count birding among their hobbies. Some hang feeders in their backyards and accumulate yard lists; others participate in annual “Christmas Counts”; a select few travel to the ends of the earth in an effort to see every bird in the world. With Fifty Places to Go Birding Before You Die, Chris Santella takes the best-selling “Fifty Places” recipe and applies it to this most popular pastime. Santella presents some of the greatest bird-watching venues in the United States and abroad through interviews with prominent birders, from tour leaders and conservationists to ornithologists and academics. Interviewees include ornithologist Kenn Kaufman; David Allen Sibley, author and illustrator of The Sibley Guide to Birds; Rose Ann Rowlett, the “mother of modern birding”; John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology; and Steve McCormick, president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy. The places vary from the urban (New York City’s Central Park) to the mystical (the cloud forests of Triunfo in Chiapas, Mexico) to the extremely remote (the sub-Arctic islands of New Zealand). The book includes 40 gorgeous photographs that capture the vibrancy of our feathered friends, and the beautiful places they call home.

The essential companion to any birder's field guide Birdwatching is for everyone. No other outdoor pursuit yields so much knowledge of nature’s ways with so little effort—if one knows what to look for. Birding for Beginners opens the world of birding to the novice in this complete guide to getting the most out of birding. This updated edition includes a new chapter on birding online and features detailed chapters on equipment, identification techniques, birding “by ear,” where to view birds, field guides, optics, and other essentials to get the beginner quickly into the field to identify birds. Especially valuable are chapters on bird behaviors such as feeding, flight, courting and breeding, nesting, and migration—informing the beginner not only about what kind of bird is on the other end of the binoculars, but what it is up to as well.

After her four kids were nearly grown and she was about to turn 50, Phoebe Snetsinger was told she had less than a year to live. Snetsinger, a St. Louis housewife and avid backyard birder, decided to spend that year traveling the world in search of birds. As it turned out, her doctors were wrong, but Phoebe's passion had been ignited and she spent the next eighteen years crisscrossing the globe recklessly staking out her quarry. En route she contracted malaria in Zambia, nearly fell to her death in Zaire, and was kidnapped and gang raped on the outskirts of Port Moresby. Yet none of this curbed her enthusiasm. By the time she died in a bus accident while birding in Madagascar in 1999, Phoebe was world renowned and had seen more species-8,500 of the roughly 10,000-than anyone in history. A fascinating portrait of a hobbiest whose obsession contributed to both her success and her demise, Life List brings Phoebe Snetsinger and the wild world of amatuer ornithology to vivid life.