Scott Weidensaul

An urgent good-news story about what's being done to restore the billions of lost birds we've been thoughtless and selfish enough to lose.

As populations fall and once-great migration multitudes wither away, the future of birds may seem grim. But surprisingly, around the world, bird conservation is making things better. From the hyperlocal to the hemispherically immense, The Return of the Oystercatcher explores the recovery efforts that are not only preventing declines in bird populations but are helping them to thrive. Scott Weidensaul compiles amazing stories of hope and progress in some of the most unlikely places--from the resurgence of ducks in North America to the return of ospreys nesting in Southern Britain--to provide a road map of breathtaking environmental resilience. Because birds are so diverse, so ubiquitous, and cover virtually every square mile of the Earth's surface, Weidensaul argues that by saving the birds we can also save the world. The result is an inspiring story of what's working in bird conservation, recovery, and reintroduction, and what can work for the rest of the planet.

La emocionante aventura de las aves migratorias y lo que esta revela de nuestro presente y de nuestro futuro. «Un apasionante viaje junto a estos n madas alados y las personas que los estudian. Un espect culo . The New York Times La migraci n de las aves es sin duda uno de los fen menos m s asombrosos y cautivadores que existen en la naturaleza. Hoy conocemos en detalle las proezas fisiol gicas que permiten a todo tipo de aves cruzar inmensos oc anos y continentes, sobrevolar monta as y mantenerse en vuelo ininterrumpido durante meses. Un libro tanto para especialistas como para observadores de prism ticos y patio trasero, A vista de p jaro pone al alcance de todo el misterio de las migraciones de las aves y por qu es tan importante para entender nuestro lugar en el mundo. Algunas migratorias adormecen la mitad de su cerebro en el vuelo, alternando los hemisferios, para no detenerse en el camino; un min sculo colibr es capaz de cruzar todo el golfo de M xico en un solo vuelo sin escalas; los zarapitos aprovechan las furiosas tormentas estacionales para impulsarse de Canad a Brasil, y el correlimos, del tama o de un gorri n, vuela sin parar de Canad a Venezuela --el equivalente a correr 126 maratones consecutives-- orient ndose gracias al campo magn tico de la Tierra mediante una forma de entrelazamiento cu ntico que sorprender a al propio Einstein. Las ltimas d cadas de investigaciones cient ficas han dado lugar a una revoluci n en nuestra comprensi n de las pautas migratorias. Scott Weidensaul, finalista del Premio Pulitzer, transmite con pasi n todos estos descubrimientos y curiosidades. En un mundo amenazado por los efectos del cambio clim tico, el relato de estos milagros ecol gicos proporciona una gu a inestimable hacia un futuro m s sostenible. Este libro es un emocionante homenaje a los millones de aves que, pese a los numerosos obst culos, siguen dirigi ndose con esperanza hacia el lejano horizonte. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION New York Times Bestseller Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize A Library Journal Best Science and Technology Book of the Year An exhilarating exploration of the science and wonder of global bird migration. In the past two decades, our understanding of the navigational and physiological feats that enable birds to cross immense oceans, fly above the highest mountains, or remain in unbroken flight for months at a stretch has exploded. What we've learned of these key migrations―how billions of birds circumnavigate the globe, flying tens of thousands of miles between hemispheres on an annual basis―is nothing short of extraordinary. Bird migration entails almost unfathomable endurance, like a sparrow-sized sandpiper that will fly nonstop from Canada to Venezuela―the equivalent of running 126 consecutive marathons without food, water, or rest―avoiding dehydration by "drinking" moisture from its own muscles and organs, while orienting itself using the earth's magnetic field through a form of quantum entanglement that made Einstein queasy. Crossing the Pacific Ocean in nine days of nonstop flight, as some birds do, leaves little time for sleep, but migrants can put half their brains to sleep for a few seconds at a time, alternating sides―and their reaction time actually improves. These and other revelations convey both the wonder of bird migration and its global sweep, from the mudflats of the Yellow Sea in China to the remote mountains of northeastern India to the dusty hills of southern Cyprus. This breathtaking work of nature writing from Pulitzer Prize finalist Scott Weidensaul also introduces readers to those scientists, researchers, and bird lovers trying to preserve global migratory patterns in the face of climate change and other environmental challenges. Drawing on his own extensive fieldwork, in A World on the Wing Weidensaul unveils with dazzling prose the miracle of nature taking place over our heads.

When Emily Dickinson died in 1886, her sister learned of a cache of unknown poems which she was determined to see published. In time the task fell to Mabel Loomis Todd, a socialite in town who just so happened to be having a long-term affair with the sisters' brother, Austin. It is because of Mabel Loomis Todd that we know Emily Dickinson today. While Dickinson scholars have parsed her contributions to Emily's portfolio of poems and letters, Mabel Todd's involvement in the nascent practice of preservation of natural places has gone largely unreported. It was in 1908 when she signed papers for an undeveloped tract of an island in Muscongus Bay, Maine, where her family summered as rusticators for many years. Then through the foresight of her daughter Millicent Todd Bingham and the leadership of the National Audubon Society's John Baker, the island first hosted the Audubon Nature Camp for Adult Leaders in 1936.Over the decades, the summer endeavor has evolved into the historic Hog Island Audubon Camp, a worldwide landmark center of nature education and birding. How all that came about it is the stuff of Nature's People.

* NPR FAVORITE BOOK OF 2022 With poetic language and lush oil paintings, children will cheer on the tiny but mighty yellow warbler as she makes her perilous migration journey from the tropics of Central America to the Canadian tundra.* WINNER OF JOHN BURROUGHS ASSOCIATION RIVERBY AWARD FOR YOUNG READERSThe warbler is helped along the way by three different children and families: a Nicaraguan family whose traditional shade coffee farm sustains migrant birds, an African-American family that creates a garden in their backyard on the gulf coast to provide food for her, and a family from The Luts l K' Dene First Nation in Canada who have preserved landfor all animals."With its engaging story and richly detailed illustrations of one yellow warbler's epic spring migration, this book is sure to inspire and inform readers of all ages." --David Sibley, author of The Sibley Guide to Birds, What it Means to be a Bird, and many others.

In the past two decades, our understanding of the navigational and physiological feats that enable birds to cross immense oceans, fly above the highest mountains, or remain in unbroken flight for months at a stretch has exploded. What we've learned of these key migrations--how billions of birds circumnavigate the globe, flying tens of thousands of miles between hemispheres on an annual basis--is nothing short of extraordinary.Bird migration entails almost unfathomable endurance, like a sparrow-sized sandpiper that will fly nonstop from Canada to Venezuela--the equivalent of running 126 consecutive marathons without food, water, or rest--avoiding dehydration by "drinking" moisture from its own muscles and organs, while orienting itself using the earth's magnetic field through a form of quantum entanglement that made Einstein queasy. Crossing the Pacific Ocean in nine days of nonstop flight, as some birds do, leaves little time for sleep, but migrants can put half their brains to sleep for a few seconds at a time, alternating sides--and their reaction time actually improves.These and other revelations convey both the wonder of bird migration and its global sweep, from the mudflats of the Yellow Sea in China to the remote mountains of northeastern India to the dusty hills of southern Cyprus. This breathtaking work of nature writing from Pulitzer Prize finalist Scott Weidensaul also introduces readers to those scientists, researchers, and bird lovers trying to preserve global migratory patterns in the face of climate change and other environmental challenges.Drawing on his own extensive fieldwork, in A World on the Wing Weidensaul unveils with dazzling prose the miracle of nature taking place over our heads.

In the past two decades, our understanding of the navigational and physiological feats that enable birds to cross immense oceans, fly above the highest mountains, or remain in unbroken flight for months at a stretch has exploded. What we've learned of these key migrations--how billions of birds circumnavigate the globe, flying tens of thousands of miles between hemispheres on an annual basis--is nothing short of extraordinary.Bird migration entails almost unfathomable endurance, like a sparrow-sized sandpiper that will fly nonstop from Canada to Venezuela--the equivalent of running 126 consecutive marathons without food, water, or rest--avoiding dehydration by "drinking" moisture from its own muscles and organs, while orienting itself using the earth's magnetic field through a form of quantum entanglement that made Einstein queasy. Crossing the Pacific Ocean in nine days of nonstop flight, as some birds do, leaves little time for sleep, but migrants can put half their brains to sleep for a few seconds at a time, alternating sides--and their reaction time actually improves.These and other revelations convey both the wonder of bird migration and its global sweep, from the mudflats of the Yellow Sea in China to the remote mountains of northeastern India to the dusty hills of southern Cyprus. This breathtaking work of nature writing from Pulitzer Prize finalist Scott Weidensaul also introduces readers to those scientists, researchers, and bird lovers trying to preserve global migratory patterns in the face of climate change and other environmental challenges.Drawing on his own extensive fieldwork, in A World on the Wing Weidensaul unveils with dazzling prose the miracle of nature taking place over our heads.

Part natural history, part poetry, Mountains of the Heart is full of hidden gems and less traveled parts of the Appalachian Mountains Stretching almost unbroken from Alabama to Belle Isle, Newfoundland, the Appalachians are one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world. In Mountains of the Heart, renowned author and avid naturalist Scott Weidensaul shows how geology, ecology, climate, evolution, and 500 million years of history have shaped one of the continent's greatest landscapes into an ecosystem of unmatched beauty. This edition celebrates the book's 20th anniversary of publication and includes a new foreword from the author.

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 frontier--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 ground--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 stories--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 America's tumultuous, uncertain beginnings.

In 1953, birding guru Roger Tory Peterson and noted British naturalist James Fisher set out on what became a legendary journey-a one hundred day trek over 30,000 miles around North America. They traveled from Newfoundland to Florida, deep into the heart of Mexico, through the Southwest, the Pacific Northwest, and into Alaska's Pribilof Islands. Two years later, Wild America, their classic account of the trip, was published. On the eve of that book's fiftieth anniversary, naturalist Scott Weidensaul retraces Peterson and Fisher's steps to tell the story of wild America today. How has the continent's natural landscape changed over the past fifty years? How have the wildlife, the rivers, and the rugged, untouched terrain fared? The journey takes Weidensaul to the coastal communities of Newfoundland, where he examines the devastating impact of the Atlantic cod fishery's collapse on the ecosystem; to Florida, where he charts the virtual extinction of the great wading bird colonies that Peterson and Fisher once documented; to the Mexican tropics of Xilitla, which have become a growing center of ecotourism since Fisher and Peterson's exposition. And perhaps most surprising of all, Weidensaul finds that much of what Peterson and Fisher discovered remains untouched by the industrial developments of the last fifty years. Poised to become a classic in its own right, Return to Wild America is a sweeping survey of the natural soul of North America today.

Ned Smith created hundreds of paintings and drawings for the Pennsylvania Game Commission, including those that illustrated his popular "Game News" column "Gone for the Day". His work also has appeared in "Sports Afield", "National Wildlife", "Field & Stream", and other publications. The Ned Smith Center for Nature and Art in Millersburg is now home to much of his original artwork. The long association between Ned Smith and the "Pennsylvania Game News", which spanned some 35 years, resulted in a treasure trove of beloved and breathtaking wildlife art. Collected here for the first time are full-size reproductions of every "Game News" cover Smith ever created - 121 in all, including both the 25th and 50th anniversary issues. Prized by collectors, remembered fondly by generations of sportsmen and women, each cover captures the magic of being outdoors in Pennsylvania, winter, spring, summer, and fall. It includes a behind-the-scenes look at Ned Smith at work written by Scott Weidensaul.

Renowned wildlife artist Ned Smith painted hundreds of covers and illustrations for the Pennsylvania Game News and created the magazine's beloved 'Gone for the Day' column. Now for the first time, his wildlife paintings, pen-and-ink drawings, and field sketches are collected and presented in a handsome full-colour format; many have never before been published. From big-game mammals and predators to songbirds, raptors, and freshwater fish, the animals depicted by Smith are stunningly lifelike and appear in settings and situations created by someone who knows the outdoors. This collection includes Old Orchard Buck, Deep Wooks Drummer, A Little Bit Cautious, Waiting for Dusk, and much more. The art appears here accompanied by journal entries and sketches, as well as background information that describes how Smith worked and what he tried to accomplish with his art.

"A thoughtful examination of the machinery of extinction . . . By turns harrowing and elegiac, thrilling and informative." --Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times Three or four times an hour, eighty or more times a day, a unique species of plant or animal vanishes forever. And yet, every so often one of these lost species resurfaces. "Having adventures most of us can only dream about" (The Times-Picayune), Scott Weidensaul pursues stories of loss and recovery, of endurance against the odds, and of surprising resurrections.