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Author : Mark Obmascik
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 290 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2011-09-27
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781451648607
Follows the 1998 Big Year competition between Sandy Komito, Al Levantin, and Greg Miller, during which the three rivals risked their lives to set a new North American birding record.
Author : Mark Obmascik
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2008-06-23
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9781439107454
Every year on January 1, a quirky crowd of adventurers storms out across North America for a spectacularly competitive event called a Big Year -- a grand, grueling, expensive, and occasionally vicious, "extreme" 365-day marathon of birdwatching. For three men in particular, 1998 would be a whirlwind, a winner-takes-nothing battle for a new North American birding record. In frenetic pilgrimages for once-in-a-lifetime rarities that can make or break their lead, the birders race each other from Del Rio, Texas, in search of the rufous-capped warbler, to Gibsons, British Columbia, on a quest for Xantus's hummingbird, to Cape May, New Jersey, seeking the offshore great skua. Bouncing from coast to coast on their potholed road to glory, they brave broiling deserts, roiling oceans, bug-infested swamps, a charge by a disgruntled mountain lion, and some of the lumpiest motel mattresses known to man. The unprecedented year of beat-the-clock adventures ultimately leads one man to a new record -- one so gigantic that it is unlikely ever to be bested...finding and identifying an extraordinary 745 different species by official year-end count. Prize-winning journalist Mark Obmascik creates a rollicking, dazzling narrative of the 275,000-mile odyssey of these three obsessives as they fight to the finish to claim the title in the greatest -- or maybe the worst -- birding contest of all time. With an engaging, unflappably wry humor, Obmascik memorializes their wild and crazy exploits and, along the way, interweaves an entertaining smattering of science about birds and their own strange behavior with a brief history of other bird-men and -women; turns out even Audubon pushed himself beyond the brink when he was chasing and painting the birds of America. A captivating tour of human and avian nature, passion and paranoia, honor and deceit, fear and loathing, The Big Year shows the lengths to which people will go to pursue their dreams, to conquer and categorize -- no matter how low the stakes. This is a lark of a read for anyone with birds on the brain -- or not.
Author : Noah Strycker
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Page : 354 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2017-10-10
Category : Travel
ISBN : 9780544558151
The story of how the associate editor of Birding magazine set himself a lofty goal: to become the first person to see half the world’s birds in one year. In 2015, for 365 days, with a backpack, binoculars, and a series of one-way tickets, Noah Strycker 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 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, he 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. “Birding Without Borders is light-hearted and filled with stories of exotic birds, risky adventures, and colorful birding companions.”—New York Times Book Review “Highly recommended for anyone interested in travel, natural history, and adventure.”—Library Journal “Even readers who wouldn’t know a marvellous spatuletail from a southern ground hornbill will be awed by Strycker’s achievement and appreciate the passion with which he pursues his interest.”—Publishers Weekly
Author : Kenn Kaufman
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Page : 394 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2000
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9780618062355
At 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.
Author : Richard Wayne MacDonald
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 474 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2020-12-08
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 0578820099
Join field biologist Richard MacDonald on a year-long journey to document the birds of Acadia National Park and Downeast Maine. As you read this book, you'll feel as though you are sitting in Richard's living room as he shares his adventures in an easy-to-read story-telling style. With each bird, he relates finding the species while weaving in fun facts and stories from his 40+ years of study, birding, and travel from Newfoundland to Antarctica. Richard relates his introduction to birds through banding ducks as a ten-year-old. The year is bookended with Black-capped Chickadees on a New Year's Day Schoodic Christmas Bird Count and at the end with Boreal Chickadees. You will go out on research vessels into the Gulf of Maine to look for seabirds, hike the mountains of Acadia to observe Snowy Owls, take a night-time bicycle ride into Great Pond Mountain Wildlands to look for the rare Chuck-will's-widow, and view shorebirds from the cockpit of a sea kayak. Through it all, you feel as though you are right there with him. Although the book is about birds, it is not just for birders. Anyone with an interest in nature should read this book.
Author : Lynn E. Barber
Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
Page : 302 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2011-03-17
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9781603442619
One woman . . . one year . . . 723 species of birds. . . In 2008, Lynn Barber's passion for birding led her to drive, fly, sail, walk, stalk, and sit in search of birds in twenty-five states and three provinces. Traveling more than 175,000 miles, she set a twenty-first century record at the time, second to only one other person in history. Over 272 days, Barber observed 723 species of birds in North America north of Mexico, recording a remarkable 333 new species in January but, with the dwindling returns typical to Big Year birding, only eight in December, a month that found her crisscrossing the continent from Texas to Newfoundland, from Washington to Ontario. In the months between, she felt every extreme of climate, well-being, and emotion. But, whether finally spotting an elusive Blue Bunting or seeing three species of eiders in a single day, she was also challenged, inspired, and rewarded by nearly every experience. Barber's journal from her American Birding Association-sanctioned Big Year covers the highlights of her treks to forests, canyons, mountain ranges, deserts, oceans, lakes, and numerous spots in between. Written in the informal style of a diary, it captures the detail, humor, challenges, and fun of a good adventure travelogue and also conveys the remarkable diversity of North American birds and habitat. For actual or would-be “travel birders,” Lynn Barber’s Extreme Birder provides a fascinating, binoculars-eye view of one of the best-loved pastimes of nature lovers everywhere. "Lynn Barber challenges a traditionally male-dominated pursuit--the birding big year--and is successful beyond her wildest dreams. She is an inspiration for all who love adventure, nature, and birds."--Lynn Hassler, author, Birds of the American Southwest
Author : Sean Dooley
Publisher : Allen & Unwin
Page : 335 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2005-10-01
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781741159165
One man's quest to realise a boyhood dream and break a national record. Sean Dooley seems like a well adjusted, functioning member of society but beneath the respectable veneer he harbours a dark secret. He is a hard-core birdwatcher (aka twitcher'). Sean takes a year off to try to break the Australian twitching record - he has to see more than 700 birds in twelve months. Travelling the length and breadth of Australia, he stops at nothing in search of this birdwatching Holy Grail, blowing his inheritance, his career prospects and any chance he has of finding a girlfriend. Part confessional, part travelogue, this is a true story about obsession. It's about seeking the meaning of life, trying to work out what normal' is, and searching for the elusive Grey Falcon (the bird, not the car). Sean's story of how he followed his childhood dream of becoming a national champion is both inspiring and ridiculous. Could this be the most pathetic great achievement in Australian history?
Author : Neil Hayward
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 416 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2016-06-07
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9781632865809
Early in 2013 Neil Hayward was at a crossroads. He didn't want to open a bakery or whatever else executives do when they quit a lucrative but unfulfilling job. He didn't want to think about his failed relationship with “the one” or his potential for ruining a new relationship with “the next one.” And he almost certainly didn't want to think about turning forty. And so instead he went birding. Birding was a lifelong passion. It was only among the birds that Neil found a calm that had eluded him in the confusing world of humans. But this time he also found competition. His growing list of species reluctantly catapulted him into a Big Year--a race to find the most birds in one year. His peregrinations across twenty-eight states and six provinces in search of exotic species took him to a hoarfrost-covered forest in Massachusetts to find a Fieldfare; to Lake Havasu, Arizona, to see a rare Nutting's Flycatcher; and to Vancouver for the Red-flanked Bluetail. Neil's Big Year was as unplanned as it was accidental: It was the perfect distraction to life. Neil shocked the birding world by finding 749 species of bird and breaking the long-standing Big Year record. He also surprised himself: During his time among the hummingbirds, tanagers, and boobies, he found a renewed sense of confidence and hope about the world and his place in it.
Author : Brian Raftery
Publisher : Simon & Schuster
Page : 416 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2020-03-31
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781501175398
From a veteran culture writer and modern movie expert, a celebration and analysis of the movies of 1999—“a terrifically fun snapshot of American film culture on the brink of the Millennium….An absolute must for any movie-lover or pop-culture nut” (Gillian Flynn). In 1999, Hollywood as we know it exploded: Fight Club. The Matrix. Office Space. Election. The Blair Witch Project. The Sixth Sense. Being John Malkovich. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. American Beauty. The Virgin Suicides. Boys Don’t Cry. The Best Man. Three Kings. Magnolia. Those are just some of the landmark titles released in a dizzying movie year, one in which a group of daring filmmakers and performers pushed cinema to new limits—and took audiences along for the ride. Freed from the restraints of budget, technology, or even taste, they produced a slew of classics that took on every topic imaginable, from sex to violence to the end of the world. The result was a highly unruly, deeply influential set of films that would not only change filmmaking, but also give us our first glimpse of the coming twenty-first century. It was a watershed moment that also produced The Sopranos; Apple’s AirPort; Wi-Fi; and Netflix’s unlimited DVD rentals. “A spirited celebration of the year’s movies” (Kirkus Reviews), Best. Movie. Year. Ever. is the story of not just how these movies were made, but how they re-made our own vision of the world. It features more than 130 new and exclusive interviews with such directors and actors as Reese Witherspoon, Edward Norton, Steven Soderbergh, Sofia Coppola, David Fincher, Nia Long, Matthew Broderick, Taye Diggs, M. Night Shyamalan, David O. Russell, James Van Der Beek, Kirsten Dunst, the Blair Witch kids, the Office Space dudes, the guy who played Jar-Jar Binks, and dozens more. It’s “the complete portrait of what it was like to spend a year inside a movie theater at the best possible moment in time” (Chuck Klosterman).
Author : Drew Monkman,Jacob Rodenburg
Publisher : New Society Publisher
Page : 386 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2016-06-17
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9781550925968
“A wealth of ideas for adults to engage children and themselves in the wonders of the natural world with suggested activities for all seasons.”―Robert Bateman, artist and author of Life Sketches: A Memoir The Big Book of Nature Activities is a comprehensive guide for parents and educators to help youth of all ages explore, appreciate, and connect with the natural world. This rich, fully illustrated compendium is packed with crafts, stories, information, and inspiration to make outdoor learning fun! The Big Book of Nature Activities features: · Nature-based skills and activities such as species identification, photography, journaling, and the judicious use of digital technology · Ideas, games, and activities grounded in what’s happening in nature each season · Core concepts that promote environmental literacy, such as climate change and the mechanisms and wonder of evolution, explained using a child-friendly, engaging approach · Lists of key species and happenings to observe throughout the year across most of North America
Author : Robert Michael Pyle
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Page : 659 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2010-09-27
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9780547527857
An account of a cross-country adventure chasing butterflies: “Armchair travelers who love a good yarn will find Pyle’s exuberance catching.” —Seattle Times Part road-trip tale, part travelogue of lost and found landscapes, all good-natured natural history, Mariposa Road tracks Bob Pyle’s journey across the United States as he races against the calendar in his search for as many of the eight hundred American butterflies as he can find. Like Pyle’s classic Chasing Monarchs, Mariposa Road recounts his adventures, high and low, in tracking down butterflies in his own low-tech, individual way. Accompanied by Marsha, his cottonwood-limb butterfly net; Powdermilk, his 1982 Honda Civic with 345,000 miles on the odometer; and the small Leitz binoculars he has carried for more than thirty years, Bob ventured out in a series of remarkable trips from his Northwest home. From the California coastline in company with overwintering monarchs to the Far Northern tundra in pursuit of mysterious sulphurs and arctics; from the zebras and daggerwings of the Everglades to the leafwings, bluewings, and border rarities of the lower Rio Grande; from Graceland to ranchland and Kauai to Key West, these intimate encounters with the land, its people, and its fading fauna are wholly original. At turns whimsical, witty, informative, and inspirational, Mariposa Road is an extraordinary journey of discovery that leads the reader ever farther into butterfly country and deeper into the heart of the naturalist. “What Roger Tory Peterson was for birds, Bob Pyle is for butterflies . . . From the dusty heat of Texas and the tropical lushness of Hawaii to the legendary outhouse of the Midnight Sun in the Alaskan Arctic, Pyle is a traveling companion who never grows dull.” —Scott Weidensaul, author of Of a Feather
Author : Olivia Gentile
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2009-07-01
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781608191468
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.
Author : David Lindo
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 241 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2015-06-18
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781472918581
Born and raised in London, David Lindo's passionate interest in the natural world, especially birds, began at an early age. His thriving curiosity opened a door for him into an unexplored world of urban birding. Years later he decided to champion the delights of birding in cities and reinvented himself as the Urban Birder. Using this illustrious alias David Lindo has brought urban birding back into the public consciousness, promoting its virtues at every opportunity and writing about it in the birding press. He urges people to look up when walking around in cities, or to stop and close your eyes in a busy street just to listen to the birds that may be singing. In his second book, David visits some of the world's most unnatural environments, revealing the astonishingly diverse range of wildlife that can be found when you take the time to look. Much more than a compendium of birding sites, each tale follows the Urban Birder in his enthralling pursuit of city birding. Accompanied by dedicated local conservationists and renowned birders, David gives a deeper insight into the true nature of each city. Featuring 70 locations to explore, Tales from Concrete Jungles is the perfect book to dip in to when on the move, or to hide away with on a rainy afternoon. Join David in his celebration of nature, pick up travel inspiration, and immerse yourself in his captivating quest for urban birding.
Author : Cole Wild,Nicholas Komar
Publisher : Outskirts Press
Page : 150 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2011-04-01
Category : Bird watchers
ISBN : 1432771035
Wild Birding Colorado The Big Year of 2010 provides the thrilling account of Cole Wilds amazing feat of establishing the record for most Colorado bird species seen in one year, a Colorado BIG YEAR. The text is a treasure trove of birding tips for where and when to find some of the states most elusive species, such as Boreal Owl and Black Swift. One chapter recounts the discovery near Denver of a Ross's Gull, which attracted thousands of birders from around the country. Photos of some of the rarer finds and the complete checklist are included (color photoschecklists by month MARK OBMASCIK, Author of The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession
Author : Joel Greenberg
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 302 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2014-01-30
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9781620405352
The epic story of why passenger pigeons became extinct and what that says about our current relationship with the natural world. When Europeans arrived in North America, 25 to 40 percent of the continent's birds were passenger pigeons, traveling in flocks so massive as to block out the sun for hours or even days. The downbeats of their wings would chill the air beneath and create a thundering roar that would drown out all other sound. John James Audubon, impressed by their speed and agility, said a lone passenger pigeon streaking through the forest “passes like a thought.” How prophetic-for although a billion pigeons crossed the skies 80 miles from Toronto in May of 1860, little more than fifty years later passenger pigeons were extinct. The last of the species, Martha, died in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo on September 1, 1914. As naturalist Joel Greenberg relates in gripping detail, the pigeons' propensity to nest, roost, and fly together in vast numbers made them vulnerable to unremitting market and recreational hunting. The spread of railroads and telegraph lines created national demand that allowed the birds to be pursued relentlessly. Passenger pigeons inspired awe in the likes of Audubon, Henry David Thoreau, James Fenimore Cooper, and others, but no serious effort was made to protect the species until it was too late. Greenberg's beautifully written story of the passenger pigeon paints a vivid picture of the passenger pigeon's place in literature, art, and the hearts and minds of those who witnessed this epic bird, while providing a cautionary tale of what happens when species and natural resources are not harvested sustainably.