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.

"An arresting glimpse into one of America's quirkiest subcultures."

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.

Kenn Kaufman is a legend among birders. At sixteen he hitchhiked back and forth across North America, traveling eighty thousand miles in a year, simply to see as many birds as he could; he came back to tell the story in KINGBIRD HIGHWAY. A field editor for AUDUBON and a regular contributor to every major birding magazine, he is the youngest person ever to receive the Ludlow Griscom Award, the highest honor of the American Birding Association. His natural history pursuits have taken him to all seven continents, but he has made a special study of North American birds. His books include LIVES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS, the PETERSON FIELD GUIDE TO ADVANCED BIRDING, and the FOCUS GUIDE TO BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA. He resides in Tucson, Arizona.

Table of Contents:

Preface

Chapter 1 Not Quite the West

Chapter 2 Finding the Road

Chapter 3 A Record for the Breaking

Chapter 4 The Tucson Five

Chapter 5 California Influence

Chapter 6 Just Like Christmas

Chapter 7 There's a Birder on the Road

Chapter 8 Time of a Rival

Chapter 9 Strategy and Hard Weather

Chapter 10 To the Promised Landfill

Chapter 11 Trucker's March

Chapter 12 Shadow of Alaska, Shades of England

Chapter 13 Dry Tortugas

Chapter 14 The Fall of a Sparrow

Chapter 15 Legions in the Sky

Chapter 16 A Day As Big As Texas, Part 1

Chapter 16 A Day As Big As Texas, Part 2

Chapter 17 Springtime Fades Away

Chapter 18 The Kenmare Convention

Chapter 19 A Thousand Miles of Gravel

Chapter 20 The Edge of the World

Chapter 21 Full Summer

Chapter 22 Birdman's Holiday

Chapter 23 Spots Before the Eyes

Chapter 24 Exhausting the Possibilities

Chapter 25 Border Patrol (in entirety)

Chapter 26 Close to the End (in entirety)