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A River Lost: The Life and Death of the Columbia (Revised and Updated)
by Blaine Harden"Superbly reported and written with clarity, insight, and great skill." --Washington Post Book World After two decades, Washington Post journalist Blaine Harden returned to his small-town birthplace in the Pacific Northwest to follow the rise and fall of the West's most thoroughly conquered river. To explore the Columbia River and befriend those who collaborated in its destruction, he traveled on a monstrous freight barge sailing west from Idaho to the Grand Coulee Dam, the site of the river's harnessing for the sake of jobs, electricity, and irrigation. A River Lost is a searing personal narrative of rediscovery joined with a narrative of exploitation: of Native Americans, of endangered salmon, of nuclear waste, and of a once-wild river. Updated throughout, this edition features a new foreword and afterword.
A River Never Sleeps
by Thomas Mcguane Nick Lyons Louis Darling Roderick L. Haig-BrownFew books have captured the haunting world of music and rivers and of the sport they provide as well as A River Never Sleeps. Roderick L. Haig-Brown writes of fishing not just as a sport, but also as an art. He knows moving water and the life within it-its subtlest mysteries and perpetual delights. He is a man who knows fish lore as few people ever will, and the legends and history of a great sport.Month by month, he takes you from river to river, down at last to the saltwater and the sea: in January, searching for the steelhead in the dark, cold water; in May, fishing for bright, sea-run cutthroats; and on to the chilly days of October and the majestic run of spawning salmon. All the great joy of angling is here: the thrill of fishing during a thunderstorm, the sight of a river in freshet or a river calm and hushed, the suspense of a skillful campaign to capture some half-glimpsed trout or salmon of extraordinary size, and the excitement of playing and landing a momentous fish.A River Never Sleeps is one of the enduring classics of angling. It will provide a rich reading experience for all who love fishing or rivers.
A River Ran Wild: An Environmental History
by Lynne CherryAn environmental history of the Nashua River, from its discovery by Indians through the polluting years of the Industrial Revolution to the ambitious cleanup that revitalized it.
A River Runs Again: India's Natural World in Crisis, from the Barren Cliffs of Rajasthan to the Farmlands of Karnataka
by Meera SubramanianCrowded, hot, subject to violent swings in climate, with a government unable or unwilling to face the most vital challenges, the rich and poor increasingly living in worlds a∂ for most of the world, this picture is of a possible future. For India, it is the very real present. In this lyrical exploration of life, loss, and survival, Meera Subramanian travels in search of the ordinary people and microenterprises determined to revive India’s ravaged natural world: an engineer-turned-farmer brings organic food to Indian plates; villagers resuscitate a river run dry; cook stove designers persist on the quest for a smokeless fire; biologists bring vultures back from the brink of extinction; and in Bihar, one of India’s most impoverished states, a bold young woman teaches adolescents the fundamentals of sexual health. While investigating these five environmental challenges, Subramanian discovers the stories that renew hope for a nation with the potential to lead India and the planet into a sustainable and prosperous future.
A River Trilogy: A Fly-Fishing Life
by W. D. WetherellFor the first time together, River Trilogy combines three classic works on fly fishing by W. D. Wetherell. Contained here are some of Wetherell’s most poetic pieces, a combination of spontaneous journal entries, reflections on contemplative excursions, and outright fishing tales. Each passage is filled with moving imagery describing the beauty of the river and the natural world that surrounds it. The first book in the collection, Vermont River, is an elegy to the author’s love of fly fishing in his native Vermont. Selected by Trout magazine as one of the thirty finest works on fly fishing, Vermont River will move readers with its radiant descriptions of Wetherell’s beloved sport and region. In Upland Streams, Wetherell explores the meandering streams and crooked creeks that dot New England’s landscape, the mighty rivers that flow through the Southwest, and the crags and lochs that fill the countryside of Scotland. Conveyed with characteristic humor and introspection, Upland Streams chronicles moments of life lived close to nature in all its majesty. One River More, the final volume in the collection, begins as a traditional chronicle of trout fishing in Vermont and Montana. It quickly, however, becomes a rich exploration of some of the most essential human experiences: love of nature and love of family.
A Rock Is Lively
by Dianna Hutts Aston Sylvia Long<p>From the award-winning creators of An Egg Is Quiet, A Seed Is Sleepy, and A Butterfly Is Patient comes a gorgeous and informative introduction to the fascinating world of rocks. From dazzling blue lapis lazuli to volcanic snowflake obsidian, an incredible variety of rocks are showcased in all their splendor. Poetic in voice and elegant in design, this book introduces an array of facts, making it equally perfect for classroom sharing and family reading. <p>This is a fixed-format ebook, which preserves the design and layout of the original print book.</p>
A Roof!
by Stephanie Ellen SyA dazzling picture book debut about a young girl in the Philippines who returns a neighbor&’s roof after a typhoon with the help of her community.Typhoons are a regular part of Maya&’s life in the Philippines, but after this storm, she finds something unusual in her backyard—a roof! There&’s an address written on it, and Maya is determined to return it to its family. She&’ll need help to make her way through the damage left behind by the typhoon. As she sets out with her tatay, Maya collaborates with a farmer and his carabao, a couple of fishers and their boat, a sapatero, a labandera, a kusinera, and more of her neighbors. Together, they sail around knotted tree roots, hauling, heaving, pushing, and dragging the roof until they find its family—and begin to rebuild their community.Told by Stephanie Ellen Sy in a cumulative structure that begs to be read aloud, and paired with Daniel Tingcungco&’s lush and cinematic illustrations, A Roof! is a story about community care that celebrates the Filipino spirit of bayanihan.
A Rough Ride to the Future
by James LovelockThe great scientific visionary of our age presents a radical vision of humanity’s future as the thinking brain of our Earth-system.A Rough Ride to the Future introduces two new Lovelockian ideas. The first is that three hundred years ago, when Thomas Newcomen invented the steam engine, he was unknowingly beginning what James Lovelock calls “accelerated evolution.” That is a process that is bringing about change on our planet roughly a million times faster than Darwinian evolution. The second idea is that as part of this process, humanity has the capacity to become the intelligent part of Gaia, the self-regulating earth system whose discovery Lovelock first announced nearly fifty years ago. A Rough Ride to theFuture is also an intellectual autobiography, in which Lovelock reflects on his life as a lone scientist and asks—eloquently—whether his career trajectory is possible in an age of increased bureaucratization. We are now changing the atmosphere again, and Lovelock argues that there is little that can be done about this. But instead of feeling guilty, we should recognize what is happening, prepare for change, and ensure that we survive as a species so we can contribute to—perhaps even guide—the next evolution of Gaia. The road will be rough, but if we are smart enough, life will continue on earth in some form far into the future.Praise for A Rought Ride to the Future“Arresting and disturbing . . . Lovelock writes wonderfully well. With the authority of age, his voice is that of an elder statesman . . . The result is mellifluous and fluent.” —Nature “Though the subject matter could scarcely be more discouraging, Lovelock’s fluent prose and vast range of knowledge make it a surprisingly easy read. . . . His writing has enormous warmth and vitality.” —Financial Times “The most important book for me this year . . . Lovelock is the most prescient of scientists. . . . He has given us a handbook for human survival.” —John Gray, The Guardian“Not simply another look at Mother Nature’s uncertain future, but a revealing glimpse at the life of an outspoken and accomplished man of ideas.” —Publishers Weekly
A Rum Affair: A True Story of Botanical Fraud
by Karl SabbaghA true story of a Scottish isle, an eminent professor, a lie, and an amateur botanist who saw the truth, by the author of Antisemitism Wars. In the 1940s, the eminent British botanist John Heslop Harrison proposed a controversial theory: that vegetation on the islands off the west coast of Scotland had survived the last Ice Age. His premise flew in the face of what most botanists believed—that no plants had survived the 10,000-year period of extreme cold. But Heslop Harrison had proof: the plants and grasses found on the isle of Rum. Harrison didn&’t anticipate, however, an amateur botanist called John Raven, who boldly questioned whether these grasses were truly indigenous to the area, or whether they had been transported there. This is the story of what happened when a tenacious amateur set out to find out the truth, and how he uncovered a most extraordinary fraud.Praise for A Rum Affair&“A breezy ride . . . informative and amusing.&” —Washington Post Book World&“An exciting scientific detective story.&” —Times Literary Supplement
A Safe Haven
by Rowena SummersA pirate offers a twenty-one-year-old widow a chance for romance, adventure, and freedom in this touching saga of love and passion.Sussex, 1763: As young widow Sarah Huxley celebrates her twenty-first birthday at the family seat of her uncle, Lord Endor, the festivities are interrupted by an uninvited guest: the notorious pirate Black Robbie, along with his crew. By the time Robbie has collected his spoils from the partygoers, it is clear to Sarah that he is no common cutthroat, and she is irresistibly drawn towards him, just as he is towards her. So when Sarah discovers that her uncle has arranged a second marriage for her, she finds in Robbie an unlikely savior, as he helps her escape. But as ghosts from their past threaten to encircle them both, they must endure their troubles to earn the safe haven they so desperately seek. A must read for fans of Katie Flynn, Rosie Goodwin, and Lyn Andrews.
A Safe and Sustainable World: The Promise Of Ecological Design
by Nancy Jack ToddIn the late sixties, as the world awoke to a need for Earth Day, a pioneering group founded a small non-profit research and education organization they called the New Alchemy Institute. Their aim was to explore the ways a safer and more sustainable world could be created. In the ensuing years, along with scientists, agriculturists, and a host of enthusiastic amateurs and friends, they set out to discover new ways that basic human needs--in the form of food, shelter, and energy--could be met. A Safe and Sustainable World is the story of that journey, as it was and as it continues to be.The dynamics and the resilience of the living world were the Institute's model and inspiration for their research. Central to their efforts then and now is, along with science, a spiritual quest for a more harmonious human role in our planet's future. The results of this work have now entered mainstream science through the emerging discipline of ecological design.Nancy Jack Todd relates a fascinating journey from lofty ideals through the hard realities encountered in learning how to actually grow food, harness the energy of the sun and wind, and design green architecture. She also introduces us to some of the heroes and mentors who played a vital role in those efforts, from Buckminster Fuller to Margaret Mead.Successfully proving through the Institute's designs and investigations that basic land sustainability is achievable, John Todd and the author founded a second non-profit research group, Ocean Arks International. A Safe and Sustainable World demonstrates what has, can, and must be done to integrate human ingenuity and four billion years of evolutionary intelligence into healthy, decentralized, local dreams.
A Salad Only the Devil Would Eat: The Joys of Ugly Nature
by Charles HoodIn these wry and explosively funny essays, nature obsessive Charles Hood reveals his abiding affection for the overlooked and undervalued parts of the natural world. Like a Bill Bryson of the Mojave exurbs, Hood takes us on a joyride through the obscure, finding wilderness in Hollywood palms, the airports of Alaska, and the empty lots of Palmdale. In a zinger-filled whirl of literary and artistic allusions, he celebrates Audubon’s droopy condor, the world-changing history of a cactus parasite, and the weird art of natural history dioramas. This debut collection of creative nonfiction from a widely published poet, photographer, and wildlife guide unveils the wonderment of nature’s underbelly with poetic vision and singular wit.
A Salty Piece of Land
by Jimmy BuffettWander to "where the song of the ocean / Meets the salty piece of land" with Tully Mars, washed up from Margaritaville and in the mood for monkeyshines, in a shimmering Caribbean epic by the late king of tropical rock, Jimmy Buffett. It's not on any chart, but the tropical island of Cayo Loco is the perfect place to run away from all your problems. Waking from a ganja buzz on the beach in Tulum, Tully can't believe his eyes when a 142-foot schooner emerges out of the ocean mist. At its helm is Cleopatra Highbourne, the eccentric 101-year-old sea captain who will take him to a lighthouse on a salty piece of land that will change his life forever. From a lovely sunset sail in Punta Margarita to a wild spring-break foam party in San Pedro, Tully encounters an assortment of treasure hunters, rock stars, sailors, seaplane pilots, pirates, and even a ghost or two.
A Sanctuary of Trees: Beechnuts, Birdsongs, Baseball Bats, and Benedictions
by Gene LogsdonAs author Gene Logsdon puts it, "We are all tree huggers." But not just for sentimental or even environmental reasons. Humans have always depended on trees for our food, shelter, livelihood, and safety. In many ways, despite the Grimm's fairy-tale version of the dark, menacing forest, most people still hold a deep cultural love of woodland settings, and feel right at home in the woods.In this latest book, A Sanctuary of Trees, Logsdon offers a loving tribute to the woods, tracing the roots of his own home groves in Ohio back to the Native Americans and revealing his own history and experiences living in many locations, each of which was different, yet inextricably linked with trees and the natural world. Whether as an adolescent studying at a seminary or as a journalist living just outside Philadelphia's city limits, Gene has always lived and worked close to the woods, and his curiosity and keen sense of observation have taught him valuable lessons about a wide variety of trees: their distinct characteristics and the multiple benefits and uses they have.In addition to imparting many fascinating practical details of woods wisdom, A Sanctuary of Trees is infused with a philosophy and descriptive lyricism that is born from the author's passionate and lifelong relationship with nature: "There is a point at which the tree shudders before it begins its descent. Then slowly it tips, picks up speed, often with a kind of wailing death cry from rending wood fibers, and hits the ground with a whump that literally shakes the earth underfoot. The air, in the aftermath, seems to shimmy and shiver, as if saturated with static electricity. Then follows an eerie silence, the absolute end to a very long life."Fitting squarely into the long and proud tradition of American nature writing, A Sanctuary of Trees also reflects Gene Logsdon's unique personality and perspective, which have marked him over the course of his two dozen previous books as the authentic voice of rural life and traditions.
A Sand Book
by Ariana Reines"Mind-blowing." —Kim Gordon A Sand Book is a poetry collection in nine parts, a travel guide that migrates from wildfires to hurricanes, tweety bird to the president, lust to aridity, desertification to prophecy, and mother to daughter. It explores the negative space of what is happening to language and to consciousness in our strange and desperate times. From Hurricane Sandy to the murder of Sandra Bland to the massacre at Sandy Hook, from the sand in the gizzards of birds to the desertified mountains of Haiti, from Attar's Conference of the Birds to Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls to Twitter, a sand book is about change and quantification, the relationship between catastrophe and cultural transmission. It moves among houses of worship and grocery stores, flitters between geological upheaval and the weird weather of the Internet. In her long-awaited follow-up to Mercury, Reines has written her most ambitious work to date, but also her most visceral and satisfying.
A Sea Dog's Tale: The True Story of a Small Dog on a Big Ocean
by Peter MuilenburgA family with wanderlust, a sailboat to carry them across oceans, and an 11-pound dog to watch over them... These are the elements of this delightful memoir of adventurous living. Young newlyweds Peter and Dorothy Muilenburg found their way from New Hampshire to the Virgin Islands. He had been a civil rights Freedom Fighter, jailed in Mississippi while protesting racial injustice. In St. John, she founded the Pine Peace School. They both taught. On an East End beach, he built a sailboat strong enough to take them anywhere, and they put to sea with their two young sons. But their crew was not yet complete. Santos, a schipperke, came to them as a tiny puppy and sailed with them all his life--75,000 deep-sea miles--four times across the Atlantic, crisscrossing the Caribbean, coasting the U.S. eastern seaboard, exploring the Med, ranging up African rivers. A lightning rod for trouble, he survived a kidnapping, hurricanes, raging surf, being lost overboard at sea, and was twice given up for dead. And he watched over his family with fierce and abiding devotion. If you want to see the world--really see it--go by sailboat. And if you want to absorb the world through every pore, take a venturesome dog as your guide. The bright spirit named Santos became a legend to millions of readers through the pages of SAIL and Reader's Digest magazines. Now Peter Muilenburg--a wise and observant chronicler with a true wanderer's desire to engage the world on authentic terms--has written this captivating story of familial love and adventure, unforgettable people and places, and an amazing schipperke who has sailed right into the sea dog hall of fame.
A Sea Full of Turtles: The Search for Optimism in an Epoch of Extinction
by Bill StreeverAn inspired and impassioned story of adventure that explores the richness of marine life and charts a path of resilience and hope. Everyone alive today is witnessing a mass extinction event caused by the more than eight billion humans who share this planet. At times, it seems there is little hope. Climate change, resource exploitation, agrochemicals, overfishing, plastics, dead zones in our oceans, drought and desertification, conversion of habitat to housing, farming, and industrial infrastructure—the list of impacts and insults goes on and on. We are, it seems, on an unalterable path that will continue to decimate biodiversity. A feeling of hopeless, while not unwarranted, is part of the problem. Without hope, without some belief in the possibility of positive outcomes, the fight for nature is over. Why even try if the battle is already lost? While staring the problems squarely in the face, A Sea Full of Turtles offers hope for those who care about our living world. Delivered as a travel narrative set in Mexico&’s Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez), at one level the book focuses on dramatically underfunded but highly successful efforts to protect sea turtles. But the book goes beyond Mexico and beyond sea turtles to look at how some humans have changed their relationship with nature—and how that change can one day end the extinction crisis. Enchanting, galvanizing, and brimming with joy and wonder, A Sea Full of Turtles will inspire immediate action to face the great challenges that lie ahead. Pessimism is the lazy way out. Optimism, it turns out, is both a reasonable and an essential attitude for us all as we fight for the beautiful diversity of life on our Earth.
A Sea Monster's Tale: In Search of the Basking Shark (Wild Nature Press)
by Colin SpeedieThere are few marine creatures as spectacular as the Basking Shark. At up to 11 metres in length and seven tonnes in weight, this colossal, plankton-feeding fish is one of the largest in the world, second only to the whale shark. Historically, Basking Sharks were a familiar sight in the northern hemisphere – off the coasts of Norway, Scotland, Ireland, Canada and the USA, for example. In an 18th Century world without electricity, they became the focus of active hunting for their huge livers containing large amounts of valuable oil, primarily used in lamps.Catch numbers were small enough to leave populations largely intact, but during the 20th Century a new breed of hunter joined the fray, some driven as much by a need for adventure as for financial gain. With improved equipment and experience, they exploited the shark on an industrial scale that drastically reduced numbers, leading to localised near-extinction in some areas.From the 1970’s onward a new generation took to the seas, this time with conservation in mind to identify where the shark might still be found in the waters around the British Isles, employing new technologies to solve long-standing mysteries about the behaviour of this elusive creature. Using the best of both old and new research techniques, the case was built to justify the species becoming one of the most protected sharks in the oceans.Today, the Basking Shark is a much-loved cornerstone of our natural heritage. There are positive signs that the population has stabilised and may even be slowly recovering from the damage of the past, proving that timely conservation measures can be effective. Join us on a journey amidst wild seas, places, people and conservation history in the battle to protect this iconic creature – a true sea monster’s tale.
A Sea Within a Sea: Secrets of the Sargasso
by Ruth HellerThis 32-page hardcover book is fully illustrated in Heller's signature style -- elaborate details, bright colors, and bold pictures. The Sargasso Sea is a natural mystery. It is a warm "sea within a sea" in the midst of the cold Northern Atlantic Ocean where whirlpool-like currents have been said to becalm ships forever. Underneath huge tangles of seaweed are Men-O-War, jellyfish, turtles, fish, and eels. Each spread elaborately describes and depicts a characteristic of this complex and exciting watery habitat.
A Sea in Flames: The Deepwater Horizon Oil Blowout
by Carl SafinaCarl Safina has been hailed as one of the top 100 conservations of the 20th century (Audubon Magazine) andA Sea in Flamesis his blistering account of the months-long manmade disaster that tormented a region and mesmerized the nation. Traveling across the Gulf to make sense of an ever-changing story and its often-nonsensical twists, Safina expertly deconstructs the series of calamitous misjudgments that caused theDeepwater Horizonblowout, zeroes in on BP’s misstatements, evasions, and denials, reassesses his own reaction to the government’s crisis handling, and reviews the consequences of the leak-and what he considers the real problems, which the press largely overlooked. Safina takes us deep inside the faulty thinking that caused the lethal explosion. We join him on aerial surveys across an oil-coated sea. We confront pelicans and other wildlife whose blue universe fades to black. Safina skewers the excuses and the silly jargon-like “junk shot” and “top kill”-that made the tragedy feel like a comedy of horrors-and highlighted Big Oil’s appalling lack of preparedness for an event that was inevitable. Based on extensive research and interviews with fishermen, coastal residents, biologists, and government officials,A Sea In Flameshas some surprising answers on whether it was “Obama’s Katrina,” whether the Coast Guard was as inept in its response as BP was misleading, and whether this worst unintended release of oil in history was really America’s worst ecological disaster. Impassioned, moving, and even sharply funny,A Sea in Flamesis ultimately an indictment of America’s main addiction. Safina writes: “In the end, this is a chronicle of a summer of pain-and hope. Hope that the full potential of this catastrophe would not materialize, hope that the harm done would heal faster than feared, and hope that even if we didn’t suffer the absolutely worst-we’d still learn the big lesson here. We may have gotten two out of three. That’s not good enough. Because: there’ll be a next time. ” From the Hardcover edition.
A Sea of Glass: Searching for the Blaschkas' Fragile Legacy in an Ocean at Risk (Organisms and Environments #13)
by Drew HarvellIt started with a glass octopus. Dusty, broken, and all but forgotten, it caught Drew Harvell's eye. Fashioned in intricate detail by the father-son glassmaking team of Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, the octopus belonged to a menagerie of unusual marine creatures that had been packed away for decades in a storage unit. More than 150 years earlier, the Blaschkas had been captivated by marine invertebrates and spun their likenesses into glass, documenting the life of oceans untouched by climate change and human impacts. Inspired by the Blaschkas' uncanny replicas, Harvell set out in search of their living counterparts. In A Sea of Glass, she recounts this journey of a lifetime, taking readers along as she dives beneath the ocean's surface to a rarely seen world, revealing the surprising and unusual biology of some of the most ancient animals on the tree of life. On the way, we glimpse a century of change in our ocean ecosystems and learn which of the living matches for the Blaschkas' creations are, indeed, as fragile as glass. Drew Harvell and the Blaschka menagerie are the subjects of the documentary Fragile Legacy, which won the Best Short Film award at the 2015 Blue Ocean Film Festival & Conservation Summit. Learn more about the film and check out the trailer here. See the Blaschka collection in person at the Corning Museum of Glass beginning in May 2016. Click here for more information.
A Seaman's Book of Sea Stories
by Desmond FfordeAn attraction that can't be ignored. A spoilt little rich girl. A rough ex-soldier. When Callie Frobisher and Paul Mason are stranded after their plane crashes, the mismatched couple are forced into battling each other and their feelings... Callie has it all - rich parents, a private education, and a great job, whilst Paul is harbouring a dark and destructive secret.The trauma of the crash and the harsh media spotlight proves to be challenging for them both. Can their attraction survive when they return to reality?
A Season of Flowers (Tilbury House Nature Book #0)
by Michael GarlandMichael Garland (Daddy Played the Blues) displays his impressive illustration range with the stylized, country-quilt, digital collage illustrations of A Season of Flowers. Snowdrops and crocuses yield to tulips and hyacinths, then dogwood blossoms, iris, lupine, daisies, morning glories, daylilies, geraniums, peonies, sunflowers, roses, and chrysanthemums as spring passes to summer, then autumn. At last the garden slumbers into winter under a blanket of snow, preparing next year’s procession of blooms. Like actors crossing a stage, flowers narrate the passing seasons in the first person, each one briefly proclaiming its unique and vital role in the natural world. Backmatter descriptions complete this child’s introduction to a garden year, in which the passage of time is vividly realized. Fountas & Pinnell Level L
A Season on the Trail
by Lynn SetzerA compilation of stories from thru-hikers, a unique group of people who every year brave a 2,100 mile trail through every type of weather, every type of circumstance. Gathered from trail registers, postcards, and personal interviews, these voices come alive and evoke the true spirit of the Appalachian Trail, from the lows of ten consecutive days of rain and cold, to the highs of beautiful sunsets and camaraderie.Each spring, a group of people attempt a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. Setzer follows these determined hikers from Georgia to Maine. In this new edition, hikers reveal five years later how their experiences on the Trail changed their lives.'Originally, I was attracted to the AT for the adventure of walking the whole thing at once... Even as I finished, I did not understand those who chose to repeat the walk. But the next spring I found I wanted to go. And I understood that you never walk the same trail twice... I learned that I walk to fill my heart with wonder, to feed my soul.' - Merlin 'I know I'll be out there again. I don't know when and I don't know with whom. But I know, once more I'll live the nomadic life I loved on the Appalachian Trail.' - Trail GimpWhether documenting their journey or contemplating its impact on their lives, the voices in A Season on the Appalachian Trail will entrance you with their honesty and humanity.
A Season on the Wind: Inside the World of Spring Migration
by Kenn KaufmanA close study of one season along Lake Erie that reveals the amazing science and magic of spring bird migration, and the perils of human encroachment. “Kenn Kaufman knows his birds and their miraculous journeys—and he feels them deeply, too. An enlightening, thought-provoking, and poignant read.” —Jennifer Ackerman, author of The Genius of BirdsEvery spring, billions of birds sweep north, driven by ancient instincts to return to their breeding grounds. This vast parade often goes unnoticed, except in a few places where these small travelers concentrate in large numbers. One such place is along Lake Erie in northwestern Ohio. There, the peak of spring migration is so spectacular that it attracts bird watchers from around the globe, culminating in one of the world’s biggest birding festivals. Millions of winged migrants pass through the region, some traveling thousands of miles, performing epic feats of endurance and navigating with stunning accuracy. Now climate change threatens to disrupt patterns of migration and the delicate balance between birds, seasons, and habitats. But wind farms—popular as green energy sources—can be disastrous for birds if built in the wrong places. This is a fascinating and urgent study of the complex issues that affect bird migration.“Kaufman soars above his Ohio home place and artfully shares the world of birds and the miraculous feats of migration that persist amidst constant conservation struggles and hard-won successes.” —J. Drew Lanham, author of The Home Place“A Season on the Wind will transform the way we see birds and the season of spring!” —Melissa Groo, wildlife photographer and conservationist