Armchair Birding

Armchair Birding: The House of Owls, by Tony Angell ~Anne Kilgannon It seems I can’t get enough of owls; they have me enthralled by their variety and mystery. This wonderfully illustrated book by Tony Angell filled with his close-up portraits of owl faces, owls in high perches, owls flying, catching prey, courting, quarreling with jays and other nuisances, and just “being owls” has delighted me and...

Armchair Birding: The Wise Hours:  A Journey Into The Wild and Secret World of Owls, by Miriam Darlington ~ Anne Kilgannon One of the most magical moments is awakening in the night to the sound—sometimes tantalizingly near but mostly distantly faint, from no discernible direction at all—to an owl hooting into the darkness. Calling to a mate or just expressing—what? I have never seen an owl in...

Armchair Birding: 100 Flying Birds: Photographing the Mechanics of Flight, by Peter Cavanagh ~ Anne Kilgannon This is a BIG book in so many ways: its large and commodious size displays stunningly beautiful photographs, yes, of one hundred birds in flight, some with wingspans that might grace a small airplane. Cavanagh doesn’t neglect smaller birds though: the collection of hummingbirds in close-up...

Armchair Birding: The Quickening: Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth, by Elizabeth Rush ~ Anne Kilgannon What do you think about when Antarctica is the subject? Nowadays we read a lot about sea level rise and the role of melting glaciers that nudge at our imperiled shorelines and stir up processions of hurricanes that tear up the once-safe-but-no-more landscapes of home. Antarctica used...

Armchair Birding: Birding to Change the World: A Memoir, by Trish O’Kane ~ Anne Kilgannon Don’t let the title overwhelm you; Trish means the part of the world where you are currently planting your feet, the trees near you that are home to the birds you can see and hear every day, and possibly the river or wetland that flows and pools just over there. And your human neighbors, the ones who bring you...

Armchair Birding: Gulls Simplified: A Comparative Approach to Identification By Pete Dunn and Kevin T. Karlson ~Anne Kilgannon The familiar ordinariness of gulls blinds us—like sparrows and robins and crows—even for beginner birders: we think we know gulls. Gulls are “generic,” but—like sparrows, that is just the surface. We see gulls, for heaven’s sake, at landfills, scrapping and screeching over…...

Armchair Birding: The Backyard Bird Chronicles, by Amy Tan ~ Anne Kilgannon Amy Tan—yes, that Amy Tan, the author of The Joy Luck Club, The Bonesetter’s Daughter, The Kitchen God’s Wife, and several other great reads—works from her dining room table, but it’s a wonder she gets anything down on paper. Her table faces several large windows and just outside is a bird’s paradise of delectable feeding stations...

Armchair Birding: Other Minds: The Octopus, The Sea, and The Deep Origins of Consciousness, by Peter Godfrey-Smith ~ Anne Kilgannon The calling, singing, chattering, and chirping of the birds around me is fascinating! What are they saying… what are they thinking about that leads to so much commentary? Some appear to be spieling a quiet monologue on the quality of the pickings in my garden, while others...

Armchair Birding: The American Dipper, or Water Ouzel ~ Anne Kilgannon While it’s true that I depend on reading about birds as much as observing them in the field, those habits are often twined: seeing a new bird will send me to my bookshelf for reference and, in turn, reading sharpens my search for birds outside. Adding the Merlin app has opened a whole other dimension to my efforts to discover birds...

Armchair Birding: North With the Spring, by Edwin Way Teale ~ Anne Kilgannon Edwin Teale and his wife and collaborator Nellie had been planning this long journey of exploration and discovery—17,000 miles beginning from the tip of Florida and heading north in a zigzag trek to the Canadian border—for many years before pointing their car south from their home in Connecticut to launch this adventure Valentine’s...