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Kingbird Highway : The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder by Kenn Kaufman (2006, Trade Paperback)
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- Buy It NowKingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder
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About this product
Product Identifiers
PublisherHarperCollins
ISBN-100618709401
ISBN-139780618709403
eBay Product ID (ePID)50577018
Product Key Features
Number of Pages336 Pages
LanguageEnglish
Publication NameKingbird Highway : the Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder
Publication Year2006
SubjectGeneral, Birdwatching Guides, Animals / Birds
TypeNot Available
AuthorKenn Kaufman
Subject AreaNature, Reference
FormatTrade Paperback
Dimensions
Item Height0.9 in
Item Weight11.3 Oz
Item Length8.3 in
Item Width5.4 in
Additional Product Features
LCCN2006-282730
Dewey Edition22
ReviewsAs ornithologist Kenn Kaufman recounts in his lively memoir Kingbird Highway , he's managed to do what other birders only dream of doing: take a year and chase winged creatures from one end of the country to another. The year in question was 1973, when Kaufman was 19 years old, and a few dollars and an outstretched thumb could go a long way. Armed with binoculars, notebook, and the blessing of birder patron saint Roger Tory Peterson, Kaufman set out to capture the record for most species spotted in a single year. He came close, closing with 666 species sighted from Alaska to Florida and back again. More important, he racked up a lifetime's worth of adventures on the road. These stories form the heart of his book, a narrative in which spotted redshanks, white-eared hummingbirds, marbled murrelets, and black-capped gnatcatchers are among the chief supporting players., Kaufman set out on his first solo birding trip when he was 16 years old, on a Greyhound bus, starting in Wichita, Kansas, and ending up in a California jail, for it was illegal for minors to be in that state without adult supervision. So began his quest to set a record: spotting the most North American bird species in a one-year period. Kaufman did just that in 1973, sighting what was then a record 229 species on a grueling hitchhiking trip that took him from Puget Sound to the Florida Keys and the Dry Tortugas in the Gulf of Mexico. Other birding trips followed, from North Dakota to Alaska, from Alaska to Maine, from Maine to Mazatlan in Mexico, and from Arizona to New Jersey. On those arduous trips, too, the author hitchhiked, stopping to work at odd jobs to earn a few dollars. His book is a fascinating memoir of an obsession with birds.
IllustratedYes
Dewey Decimal598.072/3473
Intended AudienceTrade
SynopsisAt 16, Kaufman dropped out of high school and started hitching across America in an effort to see the most birds in a year. "Kingbird Highway" is a unique coming-of-age story, combining a lyrical celebration of nature with wild adventures and some unbelievable characters., At sixteen, Kenn Kaufman dropped out of the high school where he was student council president and hit the road, hitching back and forth across America, from Alaska to Florida, Maine to Mexico. Maybe not all that unusual a thing to do in the seventies, but what Kenn was searching for was a little different: not sex, drugs, God, or even self, but birds. A report of a rare bird would send him hitching nonstop from Pacific to Atlantic and back again. When he was broke he would pick fruit or do odd jobs to earn the fifty dollars or so that would last him for weeks. His goal was to set a record - most North American species seen in a year - but along the way he began to realize that at this breakneck pace he was only looking, not seeing. What had been a game became a quest for a deeper understanding of the natural world. Kingbird Highway is a unique coming-of-age story, combining a lyrical celebration of nature with wild, and sometimes dangerous, adventures, starring a colorful cast of characters., One of America's leading birders recounts his trek across the country at the age of sixteen in search of birds, his efforts to set a record for the most North American species seen in a year, and how he gained a deeper understanding of the natural world, in a new edition of the classic nature study. Reprint.
LC Classification NumberQL682.K38 2006
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