Customer Reviews

Sightings: Extraordinary Encounters with Ordinary Birds

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
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According to Sam Keen, the author of this fine little book, birders are, "unusually susceptible to the emotion of awe." Perhaps that is why I like it so much. It is a little book about a large subject. The book is a search for wisdom. Mr. Keen has collected many moments from his life when birds opened for him vistas into metaphysical realities. Occasional sightings of birds opened what he calls the sacred to his view. Indigo Buntings, Cardinals, Turkey Vultures, Wild Turkeys, Mourning Doves, Owls and Wood Thrushes are just a few of the birds which have carried him-- and will carry his readers --to moments of joy.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is just as much philosophical as it is about birds. I enjoyed it so much I bought another copy to give to one of my good friends who is enjoying birdwatching for the first time. We also discuss life, religion, nature, politics, etc., and this book offers its thoughts on many subjects through the author's encounters with birds. Birdwatching is a catalyst for ruminating, daydreaming, and wonder.
Additionally, (and not just an afterthought) the illustrations in the book are absolutely beautiful and delightful.

Just a very special little book to have by a favorite chair or to tuck in a bag when waiting somewhere. As a world birder, mountainer, philosopher and someone constantly IN nature, this was an added treat to my collection of "reflection" books--no pedagogy here, just appreciation!!

Here is a book to disappoint the bird lover on your gift list. For one thing, it isn't really about birds. When Keen looks at birds, he doesn't see the birds themselves. They are simply jumping-off points for snippets of autobiography (some of which carry the whiff of fiction or at least elaboration), bits of philosophical maundering, or curmudgeonly editorials. In a chapter on the Indigo Bunting we hear about his youthful rebellion against Christianity, but not much about the Indigo Bunting. In chapters on Mourning Doves and Turkey Vultures we're treated to not-especially-original reflections on death, but don't hear much about the birds themselves because once they've started him yarning away, they've served their purpose. He doesn't actually seem to know much about birds, and with one or two exceptions what facts he does offer us come, not from his own observation, but from a single book: T. Gilbert Pearson's 1940 compendium Birds of America. Examples? In one chapter he mentions "interesting sparrows like the Black-throated, the Golden-crowned, or the Lake Sparrow." Alas, there isn't any such bird as the Lake Sparrow. (Perhaps he means Lark Sparrow?) In another chapter he describes "a magnificent Franklin's Gull, proud in its defiant stance." What this tells me is that Keen has never seen a Franklin's Gull. Lovely they are indeed, but magnificent? Defiant? Not so much. A chapter on the minds of birds is quite interesting in places, and another on the Wild Turkeys that live near his home actually comes across as carefully observed. But then he winds up the book with a chapter on birdwatchers, what they're like and the significance of what they do, and it's painfully obvious that, as in most of this book, the subject has value to him only as a way of illustrating his existing beliefs and prejudices (here's Keen on seeing a hen Hooded Merganser: "As I continue to study her, I lose all self-consciousness and become my admiring perception of the other. In receiving the gift of her presence, I feel a strange sense of being honored by an alien but wonderful being ... My instinct is to bow down and pay homage, clasp my hands in the ancient gesture of greeting and prayer. Namaste. Namaste. Namaste"). If you've never read a real naturalist or, for that matter, a real writer, and you don't know much more about the world than an average 15-year-old, you might find this book worthwhile.

Don't expect a book of ornithological trivia. This book dabbles a little into the specifics of each bird (each chapter is about a different bird) but is mainly a set of stories about the author's life and how birds effected it. Nice colored drawings and the stories are short and mostly sweet.

Birder recipient immediately dived into it and it kept him occupied while everything else swirled around him---a good sign.

Sam Keen brings together a thought-provoking, funny and inspiring group of personal experiences centered around birds and creatively written. The watercolors by Mary Woodin that illustrate the book are particularly lifelike and charming.

From the brief introduction on the cover, I was expecting a different experience. A nature sighting is sacred, and can be compared to a religious experience, but not devoid of religion. The author is agnostic and I got the feeling that he was minimizing and discounting Christ in his nature sightings. I am NOT a holy roller, but as a practicing Christian and nature lover, I was turned off because I felt the message had more to do with the author's beliefs than the nature sightings.