Carpenter offers practical tips and solutions to attracting and identifying birds. He offers suggestions for the best foods for the birds you want to see, and even tells you how to deter unwanted guests to feeding stations. You'll also learn how to properly store bird food, and how to prevent window strikes.

When Julia Zarankin saw her first red-winged blackbird at the age of thirty-five, she didn’t expect that it would change her life. Recently divorced and auditioning hobbies during a stressful career transition, she stumbled on birdwatching, initially out of curiosity for the strange breed of humans who wear multi-pocketed vests, carry spotting scopes and discuss the finer points of optics with disturbing fervour. What she never could have predicted was that she would become one of them. Not only would she come to identify proudly as a birder, but birding would ultimately lead her to find love, uncover a new language and lay down her roots. Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder tells the story of finding meaning in midlife through birds. The book follows the peregrinations of a narrator who learns more from birds than she ever anticipated, as she begins to realize that she herself is a migratory species: born in the former Soviet Union, growing up in Vancouver and Toronto, studying and working in the United States and living in Paris. Coming from a Russian immigrant family of concert pianists who believed that the outdoors were for “other people,” Julia Zarankin recounts the challenges and joys of unexpectedly discovering one’s wild side and finding one’s tribe in the unlikeliest of places. Zarankin’s thoughtful and witty anecdotes illuminate the joyful experience of a new discovery and the surprising pleasure to be found while standing still on the edge of a lake at six a.m. In addition to confirmed nature enthusiasts, this book will appeal to readers of literary memoir, offering keen insight on what it takes to find one’s place in the world.

David M Whites inspiring stories see birding as a meditative practice and pathway to true connectedness.

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.

Offers tips and advice for how to improve bird watching skills, from choosing equipment and guides to where to watch and what features to look for when trying to identify a bird.

"For the nature lover with a sense of humor." —SIERRA MAGAZINE Eli Knapp takes readers from a leaky dugout canoe in Tanzania and the mating grounds of Ecuador's cock–of–the–rock to a juniper titmouse's perch at the Grand Canyon and the migration of hooded mergansers in a New York swamp, exploring life's deepest questions all along the way. In this collection of essays, Knapp intentionally flies away from the flock, reveling in insights gleaned from birds, his students, and the wide–eyed wonder his children experience. The Delightful Horror of Family Birding navigates the world in hopes that appreciation of nature will burn intensely for generations to come, not peter out in merely a flicker. Whether traveling solo or with his students or children, Knapp levels his gaze on the birds that share our skies, showing that birds can be a portal to deeper relationships, ecological understanding, and newfound joy. ELI J. KNAPP, PhD, is professor of intercultural studies and biology at Houghton College and director of the Houghton in Tanzania program. Knapp is a regular contributor to Bird Watcher's Digest, New York State Conservationist, and other publications. An avid birdwatcher, hiker, and kayaker, he lives in Fillmore, New York, with his wife and children.

Just when you thought you could take birdwatching seriously again, Ben, Cathryn, and John Sill have taken another laugh-out-loud look through their bizarro binoculars. This time even the birdwatchers themselves aren't safe. Just when you thought you could take birdwatching seriously again, Ben, Cathryn, and John Sill have taken another laugh-out-loud look through their bizarro binoculars. The world of ornithology will never be the same. This time even the birdwatchers themselves aren't safe. In Beyond Birdwatching, the Sills have turned their wicked wit on the entire world of birdwatching in a hysterical parody of your favorite birding magazine. Beyond Birdwatching offers the familiar magazine features, but with a twist. This is the perfect gift for the bird enthusiast in your life.

You don't have to travel around the world or spend a ton of money to enjoy the wonders of nature. Look Up! Birds and Other Natural Wonders Just Outside Your Window is a series of well-researched nature essays that will inspire readers to experience the outdoors in an affordable, accessible and joyful way. The essays encourage backyard and local bird watching, native plant landscaping and restoration, practical energy conservation and land conservation. They also explore how we can derive psychological benefits from these activities--how nature can help us live happier, more fulfilled and rewarding lives.

A delicately rendered memoir on motherhood, family, and the beauty of the natural world. In fall 2007, Lynn Thomson experiences a huge life shift. Her teenage son, Yeats, is just beginning high school. Yeats has always struggled against the system, against the pressure to conform. He is a poet at heart: acutely sensitive, highly intelligent, and solitary by nature. Lynn and Yeats have always been close, but after fourteen years as a stay-at-home mom Lynn is going back to work for her husband, Ben, who has just opened his own bookstore. When Lynn and Yeats take a trip to Vancouver Island, they discover a mutual love of bird watching. Lynn is the only other person Yeats has found who loves nature and watching birds. Plus, she has a car. Lynn describes in wondrous detail the many trips she and Yeats take, from the Wye Marsh and Pelee Island in Ontario, to Vancouver Island in British Columbia, to an ill-fated trip to the Galapagos Islands. The two grow closer with each bird-watching expedition. At the same time, Lynn notices that her son is beginning to pull away — and she must learn to let go. Birding with Yeats is a delicate, sensitive, and gentle reflection on the unique bond between a mother and son, and the magic that is the natural world.