Birders Tales of a Tribe

by Cocker, Mark

• ISBN13: 9780802139962
• ISBN10: 0802139965
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-02-27
• Publisher: Grove Press

Summary

For thirty years, Mark Cocker has been a member of a community of obsessional people who sacrifice most of their spare time, a good deal of money, sometimes their chances of a partner or family, even occasionally their lives, to watch birds. Birders is a captivating invitation to join the tribe, introducing its rules, equipment, and its marvelously eccentric characters, whose adventures span from searching for a Theresa's snowfinch in the Afghan desert to trespassing for the blackwinged pranticole on an off-limits sewage farm. Above all, Birders is the touching story of one man's passion for what is -- more than just his hobby -- his love. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Mark Cocker is the author of an acclaimed biography of Britain's most colorful ornithologist, Richard Meinertzhagen (shortlisted for the Angel Literary Award), as well as Loneliness and Time and Rivers of Blood, Rivers of Gold

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. ix
Satyr Tragopan	p. 1
The Archaeopteryx	p. 5
The Two-legged Kind	p. 8
The Feathered Kind	p. 15
Bins and Scope	p. 26
The Cave Wall	p. 34
Roger Tory Peterson's Oystercatcher	p. 45
Where Are You Going, Mate?	p. 57
A Godwit's Inscrutable Eye	p. 74
The Loop	p. 92
The Loop, II	p. 103
545 and 514	p. 117
Songs of Praise	p. 132
The Yanomami Hunters	p. 145
String	p. 155
The Place that Launched a Thousand Trips	p. 173
US Cops and Mexican Bandits	p. 184
Satyr Tragopan, II--the End	p. 196
Back on Full Bonus	p. 214
Useful Information, Addresses and Organisations	p. 220
Index	p. 226
Table of Contents provided by Rittenhouse. All Rights Reserved.