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Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding

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Like one of the other reviewers, I also found this book an entertaining and informative read. It's a book written for a popular audience, so all kinds of readers should find something in this book.

While there are a few facts that Weidensaul could have attended to a bit more closely (Florence Merriam first published her first field guide, Birds Through an Opera Glass, in 1889, not 1899, for instance) ... the chapter discussing David Allen Sibley's guides is outstanding. Weidensaul interviewed Sibley for the book and, as a result, is able to tell the story of how Sibley's field guides came into being, were designed in the ways that they were, and function as texts.

I'm surprised Weidensaul does not attend more to American women writers such as Neltje Blanchan, Mabel Osgood Wright, and Olive Thorne Miller. These authors all published books about birds in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and to have included them in this story would have, I think, made Weidensaul's history of birding appear to have been less of a story about "great men."

With all of that said, Weidensaul's book is very compelling, personal, and full of facts. He ends making a very strong call for bird preservation in the book, claiming that birders could learn a lot from hunters (among which he counts himself a member). Birders in general have become so concerned with identifying birds that we've forgotten to spend as much or more effort preserving birds, Weidensaul claims. Without the birds, Weidensaul reminds us, we'd have nothing to look at and listen to.

As a mostly casual birder- my life list is less than 300 - who still finds watching birds fascinating, I like to occasionally read about the science and sport of birding. Some of Roger Tory Peterson's non-field guide books come to mind. However these were not so much histories as collections of essays. I know of only one or two other writers who have tackled this subject and Scott Weidensaul has now surpassed them all with "Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding."

This book is a treat for anyone interested in birds, birding or ornithology. In 314 pages of text and 40 plus more pages of Acknowledgements, Notes and Bibliography, Weidensaul covers the period from pre-Colombian Native American myths and the early work of such naturalists as Mark Catesby and John Bartram to Kenn Kaufman and David Sibley, and the modern field guide. Of course Roger Tory Peterson, Frank Chapman, Cleveland Bent and Ludlow Griscom get their due, as do the many women (who seldom did get credit in publications on the subject), such as Harriet Lawrence Hemenway, Florence Merriam Bailey and Rosalie Edge, among others.

Bird study has come a long way and despite the occasional bore described by Weidensaul, who tallies what the group has found without actually even bothering to look, many birders are genuinely involved in scientific work and/or important conservation efforts.

There is a great thrill in watching birds, or in any other pursuit of natural history (butterfly watching, botanizing, etc.), that many miss in their pursuit of success or (in many cases) of just daily bread. We are lucky in the United States to have both a beautiful land and a high biotic diversity. It is up to us to both conserve and enjoy it. Reading this book would be a good start!

I've written less than ten book reviews for Amazon and this is the second in which I include "history" in the title. I can't really explain this other than that perhaps I've gotten more interested in history as I get older.

In any case I've chosen it very deliberately to convey my reactions to this great book. As I've read it I've felt that I've started to understand the history, and community, of which I, as a birder/bird-watcher, am part. This is a great gift to readers who are perhaps avid birders but have little sense of the long history of American birdwatching. Though it's not that difficult today to join a birding trip somewhere or other and thus become part of the birding community, this book helps to convey the rich and varied history that is American birding. It's somewhat like discovering that though you thought you were the only person who cared about Solitary Vireos, and that this was just due to your idiosyncratic nature, there is actually a club that began 50 years ago devoted strictly to them. You are actually a part of a very large community.

The other particularly salient point I think is the groundedness and passion of the book. As with any subject once you get somewhat knowledgeable and especially if you have some talent with words it's not that difficult to write a book that seems to cover the subject and yet leaves the reader feeling somewhat dissatisfied. In other words a perhaps entertaining but in the end superficial book. Sometimes that's just what you want. But there are other times, as with a good hearty home-cooked meal after a month on the road eating fast-food, that you really appreciate something that is a bit more substantial. This book is that meal.

I can't convey how rewarding it's been to read this book. As the author goes through the history of American birding you feel that he has really thought about what he is writing. This becomes especially true at the end where he questions the prevalence of counting/listing in contemporary birding and the need for a more holistic approach to it. But it's not a preachy environmental work. It's more that of a thoughtful and engaged birder thinking about where American birding and birds have been and where they are heading. Without more concern for birds on the part of birders and others there will be far fewer birds to check off one's list. But again this isn't a preachy environmental polemic. It's more a heartfelt consideration of what it means to be a birder, particularly an American birder.

As I said I can't recommend it enough.

As an afterthought I have to say that it seems to me that it is a tremendous time to be a birder and to be a birder who reads. The Sibley guides, Pete Dunne's Essential Field Guide Companion, The Shorebird Guide, among others, are helping to create a golden age of birding books.

Birdwatching, now usually called "birding", is no longer funny. You may remember Miss Jane Hathaway in "The Beverly Hillbillies", for instance, but the stock character of the bumbling, bespectacled, binocular-wearing birdwatcher no longer fits. Birdwatchers are no longer silly. Miss Hathaway is one example cited by Scott Weidensaul in his delightful _Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding_ (Harcourt). Not only are birders sensible people, they have a sensitive interest in the environment, an attitude that is both fashionable and justified, and also they are too numerous to be considered a eccentric fringe. Depending on the definition (and some definitions include anyone who puts birdseed in the backyard to watch the subsequent feasting), there are something around fifty million birders in America. Even if you can't define a particular number, there are statistics that show, by rolls of official birding organizations, sales of bird identification books, or participation in bird counts, that birding is booming, possibly the fastest-growing outdoor hobby in the country. Weidensaul has written books about birds before, and he is a federally licensed bird bander, and he loves his subject, an affection he easily conveys to the reader. Everyone, even the city dweller, pays some attention to the ubiquitous feathered creatures, so it is not hard, really, to accept that birding is increasingly popular, and Weidensaul's history tells how this came to be.

Audubon's colossal project and resultant elephant folio didn't do much for birdwatchers, even when the book was reduced in size. Weidensaul provides a history of field guides to birds, winding up with profiles of Roger Tory Peterson, who revolutionized the way the books were organized, and of his successors, David Sibley and Kenn Kaufman. The first popular field guide to birds came out in 1889, from Florence Merriam, a 26-year-old woman who muscled her way into a male-dominated field. She loved nature as much as her brother did, and was the first female member of the American Ornithological Union. She felt that nature study was an antidote to "that most abhorred and abhorrable occupation of plain sewing, with housekeeping and bookkeeping." Her _Birds through an Opera Glass_ (they didn't call them binoculars back then) was a relaxed guide on how to identify living birds in the field. This does not sound revolutionary, but it was. We take for granted that birdwatchers are going to be doing their identification of birds they see flitting around, but in the nineteenth century, the way to identify a bird was to shoot it so that all the details of its body could be consulted. The brilliant Elliott Coues railed against the "opera glass fiends" because, as Weidensaul says, he "remained firm in his belief that the path to ornithological wisdom issued from the muzzle of a shotgun." Coues's own _Key to North American Birds_ of 1872 was a guide to identifying bird carcasses. Collecting and identifying birds by shooting them did not do the birds any good; as ivory-billed woodpeckers became more rare, for instance, they became more prized for even academic collections, let alone private ones.

The amateur watchers, though, had the moral and (though the word was not in play at the time) ecological high ground over the academics. There was hostility between the groups in the nineteenth century, but Weidensaul shows that the split between them was not really significant. Ornithology, he reports, "remains one of the branches of science most enriched by the work of dedicated amateurs, and it's hard to find a full-time ornithologist who isn't also a recreational birder." The latter characteristic he finds remarkable. "I don't know many structural engineers who devote their free time to visiting highway overpasses for fun, but there is something about birds that makes even those whose nine-to-five jobs are ornithological pick up their binoculars as soon as the workday is finished." The split in the birding community is no longer between watchers versus shooters, but between those who value watching the birds for its intellectual, scientific, and conservational aspects versus those who check off birds in formal or informal competition to see who can see the most. Competitive birding was derided as "ornithogolfing" by a museum ornithologist, but again, Weidensaul plays down the split between the two groups, though he is not a competitor. He values the sort of listing that is done in, say, the Christmas Bird Count every year by which "citizen scientists" can provide population data. He worries that most birders, perhaps the competitive birders especially, are not sufficiently devoted to the conservation of the birds they watch or to the conservation of the land that supports the birds. Nonetheless, he sees signs that the attention to how birds live and what they can tell us about changes in the land and sea is increasing and he is hopeful. His brightly written and amusing book calls attention to a hobby that is not only growing in numbers of participants, but is also growing in scientific importance.

Author Scott Weidensaul has traveled the world tracking and writing about birds and has already written several notable nature books about them, but OF A FEATHER: A BRIEF HISTORY OF AMERICAN BIRDING is much more than just another ornithological study of a passionate hobby. It's a survey of the history of American birding, from early European arrival in North America to its modern popularity among general birdwatchers. From ornithological scientists who early on collected eggs on the frontier to some of the first conservation movements and those who participated them - including a range of unlikely characters - OF A FEATHER is a pick recommended not just for public lending libraries but for any high school to college level collection including ornithological references; especially at the introductory level.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Weidensaul traces the evolution of birding in America from the time the Europeans arrived to the early 21st century. Along the way one meets several characters both schooled and self-taught in ornithology. One reads about our own changing attitudes towards birding which ranges from collecting eggs, to displaying stuffed birds, to watching them, to now checking names off a list.

Weidensaul implicitly refers to birding as a leisure activity. It would follow then that birding would be linked to the amount of leisure time available and other competing activities As field guides are an important part of birding, our literacy levels and communication technology (books, laptops, iPods, wireless internet access, etc.) would also affect the development of birding. Other areas of technology would also influence birding. The most obvious is the metamorphism of opera glasses to binoculars, and now advanced night vision technology. The development of the camera also gave us an alternative to the shotgun for displaying our "trophies." Hiking shoes, outdoor clothing, bug repellant, and other technological strides helped shape birding into its present form.

Additionally, our attitudes towards nature (as masters or stewards) in general, specifically towards other species, and especially towards feathered bipeds, would direct our vision of birding. For a book that professes to provide a discussion on the history of American birding, I was expecting more analysis and interpretation on factors that affect birding, and less narration.

In the last chapter Weidensaul laments that birding has become a competitive "spot, tick and run" activity. He writes that besides ticking a list, our approach to birding should be "something more holistic [300]." While one may agree with this ideal, the reality (as Weidensaul describes it) is different. He concludes that: "Now bird study is poised to enter what could be a fresh and, I hope, golden age [313]." It is difficult to understand how he could have reached this conclusion - especially in light of the preceding narrative.

The author builds a case for directing more of our efforts towards preservation and reminds us that without birds, birders have nothing to look at and listen to.

Armchair Interviews says: The writing is compelling, personal, and full of facts.

I am so lucky to have run across this wonderful book. I have a number of interests; no, actually passions in life and this single volume encompasses three of them; birding, history and good nature writing. Of the well over one hundred and fifty books I go through each year, this by far has been one of the most enjoyable, productive and informative reads I have had for, well I must say, a long, long time.

Scott Weidensaul, the author of this delight is one of the most skilled and passionate (for his subject) of the many writers in this genre I have ever read. His story telling abilities that are finely entwined with a vast reserve of pure knowledge of his subject matter enable him to bring us not only a surprisingly scholarly work, but a work that infuses you with his passion and has you marveling at the simply readable of his work. He has the ability via his written word to pass along to the reader his enthusiasm for nature, birding, natural history; indeed, life in general. Like a good football coach, who at half time has you chomping at the bit to go out and hit someone and play your heart out, Scott causes you to want to grab your bird books, glasses and the junk you usually carry on your trips, dash out the front door and hit the woods, lakes, streams, mountains, desert or where every you might ply and practice your hobby or, in some cases, your obsession and keep going back for more.

This work gives an account of the history of birding from the early days, days before even the God of Birders John James Audubon. From the earliest wondering naturalists to the leaders in the field of today, the author covers them all. Now keep in mind and read the full title of this work carefully! Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding is indeed just that. For the most part, there have been (lucky for us) many wonderful biographies written of these earlier naturalists and birders. This little work cannot hope to match a 300 plus page biography on Audubon for details, nor does it try. We have here a brief, survey type of look at these great men and women and the events that surrounded their lives. It does however, create in you the curiosity to go, seek out and read these many wonderful biographies which are available.

The author has not only covered individuals who have had an impact in the field of ornithology, but has discussed the various field guides; who developed them and how and why they did so, at great length. Drawing, painting, photography, optical and the method of written documentation are all addressed and placed in a coherent manner which allows the reader to get the most from each chapter and page. I was particularly delighted with the discussion on the various field guides that have developed down through the years (yes, I fear to report that books are another of my passions). I gained much knowledge in this area from reading this work. The author also discusses, at length, the motivation behind this activity, and the sometimes overt competitiveness and nature of the hobby. It was interesting to read of the overall evolution of this pass time and why it continues to be one of the, if not the, fastest growing hobby in the world.

This book is very well written and very well researched. It is simply a wonder to read. If you have the slightest interest in birding or natural history, then you are depriving yourself of an excellent read if you don't give this one a go. It adds even more and better spice to an already great dish you love.

On the other hand, if you have no interest in the subject, read it anyway, as it will give you some insight to some aspects to the behavior of certain fellow humans. The next time you see an old man crouching on a rock out in the lake with a spotting scope, huddled against a 30 mph wind in sub freezing weather, you will know why I am there. The next time you spot an old man, half naked, with a grey beard staggering though a swamp, binoculars hung around his neck, clutching a bird book in one hand and madly swatting gnats and misquotes with the other while mumbling obscure rantings and strange names, you will know why I am there.

Don Blankenship
The Ozarks

A book for birders which will give a sense of the tradition now taken up by millions, but as Scott points out, probably with less skill than expensive equipment. Besides references to people with whom I have birded, I particularly liked his portrayal of the transition from shotgun ornithology to bird watching and the tension between the professionals and amateurs. The role of women in outlawing the massive slaughter of birds for their feathers or the pot has a lesson in it which I would love to see repeated. It is clear that learning to relate to nature can be stimulated through an interest in birds. The lives of people like Farley Mowat Born Naked: The Early Adventures of the Author of Never Cry Wolf and Bernd Heinrich The Snoring Bird: My Family's Journey Through a Century of Biology were deeply influenced by childhood experiences of tracking birds to their nests. One wonders whether the new watchers with thousand dollar binoculars and two thousand dollar scopes so intimately connect to their subjects. A sociological examination of what nature means to the minions of bird watching would be revealing. It is interesting that Scott feels Ken Kaufman's contributions to birding and other natural subjects are underappreciated.
This is a worthwhile book for birders and those interested in the history of American natural history. Charlie Fisher author of Dismantling Discontent: Buddha's Way Through Darwin's World.

I received "Of A Feather" as a Christmas gift in 2008. No other natural history writer has had as much effect on me as Weidensaul. His books are introductory in nature, but not so much so that you feel you are being spoon-fed information, and advanced enough that you are guaranteed to learn something or gain a new persepctive on our natural world without losing youself in erudite text. I dub him a "Citizen Naturalist" if I may put a tag on him. His "Mountains of the Heart" is the best, most comprehensive, and most accessable overview of the natural history of the Appalachian Mountains, and has had a profound impact on my understanding of the community I live in. All of his books, "Of A Feather" included, are a delight to read.

I had the opportuntiy to meet Scott at a lecture in 2005 near my home in the Pennsylvania Appalachians where he was kind enough to sign a few of my books. He also gave an outstanding lecture on his travels across America when he was writing the excellent "Return to Wild America."

With "Of A Feather" you are reading about the history of American birding by a contemporary expert on the topic. I love and devote time to birding myself (I have a modest life list), but more than anything, I have a deep appreciation and respect for these remarkable creatures. Just watching them in their natural environment, whether in my backyard or on hikes, brings me closer to the natural world and renews my committment to protect their habitats. While recounting the lives and careers of those who pioneered the study and understanding of birds, Scott draws us to the very notion I describe above - birding should be more about respect, appreciation, and enjoyment of these creatures, and a neverending responsibility to them and the future of our natural world rather than a competition to "see" as many birds as you can.

Scott Weidensaul, a natural born naturalist if there ever was one, has written a book that provides both the factual history of birding and the philosophical changes that have occurred in the field. FIrst, he explains the historical interest in birds as food sources and how this evolved into sport, and a fanatical period of decorations for women's hats. He describes early American naturalists, such as William Bartram, and the quest for a nomenclature to be shared by collectors and observers in all regions of the country.

Weidensaul reminds us that early ornithologists relied upon specimens for identification purposes, but soon there was an outcry to limit the carnage and become more observational. Field guides evolved [great descriptions here] and soon the bird "life list" was an obsession of many birders. WWII surplus binoculars provided additional impetus because identification became easier.

Weidensaul emphasizes our responsibility for being sure the birding experience is available for future generations by protecting nesting and food source habitats for birds. He writes eloquently and with an obvious love for the natural world. Who wouldn't want to take a nature walk with this man?