Synopses & Reviews
This comprehensive work covering all the owls of North America, including Mexico and the Caribbean, is the newest addition to the trusted Peterson Reference Guide series. Owls are perhaps the most intriguing of all birds andmdash; instantly recognizable and endlessly fascinating. Whether viewed as symbols of wisdom or bad omens, these unusual birds have had a hold on human imagination for millennia.and#160;and#160;Heard more often than seen, many owls are best identified by vocalizations; this is the only owl guide to include access to a collection of recordings. It is also the only North American owl book to include the Caribbean, covering 39 species of owls, including many little-known tropical species.and#160;and#160;With detailed information about identification, calls, habitat, nesting, and behavior, this Reference Guide has the most up-to-date information about natural history, biology, ecology, migration, and conservation status. It is heavily illustrated with hundreds of color photos, and includes the most accurate color range maps ever presented, showing breeding, wintering, and migration routes.and#160;and#160;This is a definitive work, useful for serious birders and ornithologists but accessible for the non-exempt.
Review
and#8220;With a novelist's flair, he conveys the experiences of ordinary people pitted against powerful and unpredictable nature. . . Mr. Weidensaul invites readers to imagine the bloody ground beneath modern America's apparently tame landscape.and#8221;
and#8212;The Wall Street Journal
and#8220;Exhaustively researched and entertainingly written. . . Credit Weidensaul with proving once again that history does not have to be dull in order to be comprehensive. It would be difficult to find a work of either fact or fiction more filled with excitement and suspense than The First Frontier.and#8221;
and#8212;The Seattle Times
and#8220;With a novelist's flair, he conveys the experiences of ordinary people pitted against powerful and unpredictable nature. . . Mr. Weidensaul invites readers to imagine the bloody ground beneath modern America's apparently tame landscape.and#8221;
and#8212;The Wall Street Journal
Review
Praise for Living on the Windand#160;"[Weidensaul] has combined scientific sureness and literary style to produce a book that deserves to become a classic of natural history."--Herbert Kupferberg, Paradeand#160;"What Rachel Carson did for the sea-opening the public's eyes to the fragile richness of whole ecosystems-Scott Weidensaul has now done for bird migration."--Caroline Fraser, Outsideand#160;
Review
PRAISE FOR OF A FEATHERand#160;"At once gossipy and scholarly, Of aand#160;Feather recounts rivalries, controversies, bad behavior and other key episodes in the making of modern birding. Lively and illuminating, it has surprises, too."and#151;The Washington Post Book World and#160;"Weidensaul is a charming guide . . . You don't have to be a birder to enjoy this look at one of today's fastest-growing (and increasingly competitive) hobbies."and#151;The Arizona Republicand#160;
Synopsis
From an acclaimed Pulitzer Prize finalist, a sweeping history of the largely forgotten time when the eastern seaboard marked the tense frontier between great colonial empires and countless native tribes
Once, the East was frontier—the boundary between complex native cultures and the first colonizing Europeans. How they each adopted and adapted the ways and manners of the other, while contesting for control of what all considered to be their land, shaped both societies in profound and lasting ways.
The First Frontier traces two and a half centuries of history through poignant, mostly unheralded personal stories—like that of a Harvard-educated Indian caught up in seventeenth-century warfare, a mixed-blood interpreter trying to straddle his white and native heritage, and a Puritan woman wielding a scalping knife. It is the first book in years to tell the far-reaching story of the eastern frontier, combining vivid storytelling with the latest research to bring to life modern America’s tumultuous, uncertain beginnings.
Synopsis
An exploration some of the most turbulent, fascinating years in American history: the 16th century into the mid-18th century in eastern North America.
Synopsis
Frontier: the word carries the inevitable scent of the West. But before Custer or Lewis and Clark, before the first Conestoga wagons rumbled across the Plains, it was the East that marked the frontierand#8212;the boundary between complex Native cultures and the first colonizing Europeans.
Here is the older, wilder, darker history of a time when the land between the Atlantic and the Appalachians was contested groundand#8212;when radically different societies adopted and adapted the ways of the other, while struggling for control of what all considered to be their land.
The First Frontier traces two and a half centuries of history through poignant, mostly unheralded personal storiesand#8212;like that of a Harvard-educated Indian caught up in seventeenth-century civil warfare, a mixed-blood interpreter trying to straddle his white and Native heritage, and a Puritan woman wielding a scalping knife whose bloody deeds still resonate uneasily today. It is the first book in years to paint a sweeping picture of the Eastern frontier, combining vivid storytelling with the latest research to bring to life modern Americaand#8217;s tumultuous, uncertain beginnings.
Synopsis
Advance praise for
The First Frontier "Excitement abounds in Scott Weidensaul’s detailed history of the first clashes between European settlers and Native Americans on the East Coast. By turns bloody and gruesome, poignant and haunting, The First Frontier reminds us that neither side in this 'disturbing, in-between world' was wholly in the right." — Nancy Marie Brown, author of The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman
“In this charming and fascinating chronicle . . . Weidensaul’s delightful storytelling brings to life the terrors and hopes of the earliest days of America.” — Publisher’s Weekly
“In this comprehensive chronicle . . . Weidensaul weaves together an impressive number of true stories. . . . any reader who picks it up will get a very real picture of what it was like to live and die in the New World.” — Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
This comprehensive work covering all the owls of North America, including Mexico and the Caribbean, is the newest addition to the trusted Peterson Reference Guide series.
Synopsis
From the moment Europeans arrived in North America, they were awestruck by a continent awash with birdsand#8212;great flocks of wild pigeons, prairies teeming with grouse, woodlands alive with brilliantly colored songbirds. Of a Feather traces the colorful origins of American birding: the frontier ornithologists who collected eggs between border skirmishes; the society matrons who organized the first effective conservation movement; and the luminaries with checkered pasts, such as Alexander Wilson (a convicted blackmailer) and the endlessly self-mythologizing John James Audubon. Scott Weidensaul also recounts the explosive growth of modern birding that began when an awkward schoolteacher named Roger Tory Peterson published A Field Guide to the Birds in 1934. Today birding counts iPod-wearing teens and obsessive "listers" among its tens of millions of participants, making what was once an eccentric hobby into something so completely mainstream itand#8217;s now (almost) cool. This compulsively readable popular history will surely find a roost on every birderand#8217;s shelf.
Synopsis
Arriving in the New World, Europeans were awestruck by a continent awash with birds. Today tens of millions of Americans birders have made a once eccentric hobby into something so mainstream itand#8217;s (almost) cool.
Scott Weidensaul traces the colorful evolution of American birding: from the frontier ornithologists who collected eggs between border skirmishes to the society matrons who organized the first effective conservation movement; from the luminaries with checkered pasts, such as convicted blackmailer Alexander Wilson and the endlessly self-mythologizing John James Audubon, to the awkward schoolteacher Roger Tory Peterson, whose A Field Guide to the Birds prompted the explosive growth of modern birding. Spirited and compulsively readable, Of a Feather celebrates the passions and achievements of birders throughout Americcan history.and#160;
About the Author
Author and naturalist Scott Weidensaul, who grew up in the heart of the old Eastern frontier, has written more than two dozen books, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere with Migratory Birds.
Table of Contents
Contents1and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; and#147;Birds . . . more beautiful than in Europeand#8221;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; 1
2and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; and#147;Except three or four, I do not know themand#8221;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; 41
3and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Pushing Westand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; 79
4and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Shotgun Ornithologyand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; 107
5and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Angry Ladiesand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; 145
6and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Becoming a Nounand#160;and#160;and#160; 187
7and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Death to Miss Hathawayand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; 227
8and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Beyond the Listand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; 273
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Acknowledgmentsand#160; 315
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Notes and Bibliographyand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; 317
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Indexand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; 339