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Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere With Migratory Birds
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Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere With Migratory Birds
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by Scott Weidensaul
Sales Rank : 204233
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Paperback: 432 pages
Publisher: North Point Press; 1st Pbk. Ed edition April 15, 2000
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0865475911
ISBN-13: 978-0865475915
Product Dimensions:
8.1 x 5.4 x 1.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
Product Review
Did you know that neither temperature nor hunger sparks bird migration? That many species migrate at night? That some birds migrate more than 5,000 miles in a single, uninterrupted flight? "We are such stodgy, rooted creatures," observes the author of this fascinating book. "To think of crossing thousands of miles under our own power is as incomprehensible as jumping the moon. Yet even the tiniest of birds perform such miracles."
For anyone curious about the lives of migratory birds (and, incidentally, those of bird-obsessed humans), this book is a great nest of information. The author has traveled all over the world banding and observing birds and talking to the experts--amateur birders and ornithologists who have made many of the important discoveries about bird biology. From Alaska to Lake Erie to the limestone forests of Jamaica, Weidensaul reaches not only for the scientific particulars but for the universal stories and humanizing, descriptive turns of phrase that keep this book from bogging down in statistics and jargon. By book's end the reader is unable to resist the heart of this compelling story, a plea for the conservation of habitat to keep these miraculous creatures on--or at least circling--the earth. --Maria Dolan
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Scientific American
"At whatever moment you read these words, day or night, there are birds aloft in the skies of the Western Hemisphere, migrating." Thus Weidensaul begins his compelling tale, adding shortly afterward what must be a widely shared thought: "That such delicate creatures undertake these epic journeys defies belief." With helpful supporting maps, he describes the migrating habits of many bird species and considers the intriguing question of how they do it. At the end, he focuses on a single bird--a redstart that he hears and sees singing while he sits alongside a stream in the mountains of northern Pennsylvania. "What I cannot see, no matter how closely I look, is what drives this small creature, barely heavier than air, to make the journeys that it must make Its secrets are locked in that tiny packet of brain and muscle and instinct, a few feet away but separated from me by an immense, uncrossable distance. It knows, and I do not."
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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