Stephen W. Kress

A guide treasured by landscapers, birders, gardeners, and naturalists, The Audubon Guide to Attracting Birds will help readers enhance their landscapes to meet the needs of wild birds. Expanding on proven methods and offering numerous resources new to this third edition, Stephen W. Kress provides time-tested ways to improve bird habitats across North America. This edition offers practical techniques for increasing the numbers and variety of birds that reside within the continent's grasslands, shrublands, forests, and wetlands. Readers will discover ways to help birds on properties large and small by providing food, shelter, and nesting sites within backyards, community parks, schoolyards, and even rooftop gardens. The book also provides lists of bird-attracting native plants for North America, as well as tips for safely providing water, nesting structures, and bird feeders. The author's decades of experience and knowledge of conservation trends makes The Audubon Guide to Attracting Birds the perfect book for anyone looking to make even the smallest patch of land a safe and welcoming place for people and birds alike.

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.

The inspiring story of a young ornithologist who reintroduced puffins where none had been seen for a century Project Puffin is the inspiring story of how a beloved seabird was restored to long-abandoned nesting colonies off the Maine coast. As a young ornithology instructor at the Hog Island Audubon Camp, Dr. Stephen W. Kress learned that puffins had nested on nearby islands until extirpated by hunters in the late 1800s. To right this environmental wrong, he resolved to bring puffins back to one such island—Eastern Egg Rock. Yet bringing the plan to reality meant convincing skeptics, finding resources, and inventing restoration methods at a time when many believed in “letting nature take its course.” Today, Project Puffin has restored more than 1,000 puffin pairs to three Maine islands. But even more exciting, techniques developed during the project have helped to restore rare and endangered seabirds worldwide. Further, reestablished puffins now serve as a window into the effects of global warming. The success of Dr. Kress’s project offers hope that people can restore lost wildlife populations and the habitats that support them. The need for such inspiration has never been greater.

The inspiring story of a young ornithologist who reintroduced puffins where none had been seen for a century Project Puffin is the inspiring story of how a beloved seabird was restored to long-abandoned nesting colonies off the Maine coast. As a young ornithology instructor at the Hog Island Audubon Camp, Dr. Stephen W. Kress learned that puffins had nested on nearby islands until extirpated by hunters in the late 1800s. To right this environmental wrong, he resolved to bring puffins back to one such island—Eastern Egg Rock. Yet bringing the plan to reality meant convincing skeptics, finding resources, and inventing restoration methods at a time when many believed in “letting nature take its course.” Today, Project Puffin has restored more than 1,000 puffin pairs to three Maine islands. But even more exciting, techniques developed during the project have helped to restore rare and endangered seabirds worldwide. Further, reestablished puffins now serve as a window into the effects of global warming. The success of Dr. Kress’s project offers hope that people can restore lost wildlife populations and the habitats that support them. The need for such inspiration has never been greater.

This remarkable book chronicles the efforts of biologist Steven Kress to rejuvenate a once-flourishing puffin colony on Egg Rock, an island off the Maine coast, with puffin chicks from Newfoundland. With their large, colorful beaks, their upright posture, and their big, dark eyes, it's easy to see why puffins are popular all over the world. But for the past hundred years, puffins along the coast of Maine have been threatened with local extinction. Biologist Stephen Kress decided to try to bring puffins back to Maine with an experiment that had never been attempted before. Stunning color photographs on every page capture each step of this wildlife success story. As you learn about The Puffin Project, you'll also learn all about puffins how they are so wonderfully adapted to their ocean environment, how they catch fish, socialize, nest in burrows, and raise their young.