Kingbird Highway

by Kaufman, Kenn

• ISBN13: 9780618709403
• ISBN10: 0618709401
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-04-11
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Summary

Now revered as one of North America's top birders, Kenn Kaufman hit the road at age sixteen and spent a year crisscrossing the country to see as many birds as he could, in a birding competition known as a "big year." In what has become a classic among birders, this memoir chronicles the subculture of birding in the 1970s and a young man's search for his place in the world. In a new afterword, Kaufman looks at the evolution of bird-listing since his own big year.

Author Biography

Kenn Kaufman is the originator of the Kaufman Field Guide series, which includes books on birds, butterflies, mammals, and insects. He has also written Lives of North American Birds, Kingbird Highway, and the Peterson Field Guide to Advanced Birding.

Table of Contents

Editor's Note: Capitalizing of Birds' Names	ix
Preface	xi
Not Quite the West	1	(8)
Finding the Road	9	(6)
A Record for the Breaking	15	(9)
The Tucson Five	24	(9)
California Influence	33	(12)
Just Like Christmas	45	(8)
There's a Birder on the Road	53	(10)
Time of a Rival	63	(15)
Strategy and Hard Weather	78	(16)
To the Promised Landfill	94	(11)
Truckers' March	105	(14)
Shadow of Alaska, Shades of England	119	(17)
Dry Tortugas	136	(15)
The Fall of a Sparrow	151	(11)
Legions in the Sky	162	(12)
A Day as Big as Texas	174	(16)
Springtime Fades Away	190	(13)
The Kenmare Convention	203	(14)
A Thousand Miles of Gravel	217	(11)
The Edge of the World	228	(19)
Full Summer	247	(9)
Birdman's Holiday	256	(14)
Spots Before the Eyes	270	(11)
Exhausting the Possibilities	281	(13)
Border Patrol	294	(7)
Close to the End	301	(12)
Afterword	313	(4)
Appendix: Notes on List Totals	317	(2)
Acknowledgments	319