Fifty Places to Go Birding Before You Die: Birding Experts Share The World's Greatest Destinations

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 224 pages
• Published by: Stewart, Tabori and Chang November 1, 2007
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1584796294
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1584796299
• Book Dimensions: 8.1 x 7.2 x 1.2 inches
• Weighs: 1.9 pounds

Product Description
It’s estimated that 50 to sixty million Americans count birding among their hobbies. Some hang feeders in their backyards and accumulate yard lists; others participate in annual “Christmas Counts”; a select few travel to the ends of the earth in an effort to see every bird in the world. With Fifty Places to Go Birding Before You Die, Chris Santella takes the best-selling “Fifty Places” recipe and applies it to this most popular pastime.

Santella presents some of the greatest bird-watching venues in the United States and abroad through interviews with prominent birders, from tour leaders and conservationists to ornithologists and academics. Interviewees include ornithologist Kenn Kaufman; David Allen Sibley, author and illustrator of The Sibley Guide to Birds; Rose Ann Rowlett, the “mother of modern birding”; John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology; and Steve McCormick, president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy.

The places vary from the urban ( New York City’s Central Park) to the mystical (the cloud forests of Triunfo in Chiapas, Mexico) to the extremely remote (the sub-Arctic islands of New Zealand). The book includes forty gorgeous photographs that capture the vibrancy of our feathered friends, and the gorgeous places they call home.

About The Author
CHRIS SANTELLA is a freelance writer and marketing consultant whose work has appeared in the New York Times among other publications. He is also the author of Stewart, Tabori and Chang’s Fifty Places to Fly Fish Before You Die, Fifty Places to Play Golf Before You Die, Fifty Places to Sail Before You Die, and Fifty Favorite Fly-Fishing Tales. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Reader Reviews
I must admit that I was initially skeptical of this book. The author admits that he is not a birder, and there are inherent issues with these sort of lists. Even though the author is not an avid birder himself, he is not a complete stranger to the hobby. He was aware that he was not qualified to select the sites himself, so he solicited input from birders and ornithologists. Many of these are professional birders, tour leaders, authors, etc, such as David Sibley and Kenn Kaufman. Each of the 50 places in this book was nominated by someone different. The second issue is harder to avoid. No list is going to please everyone, and your favorite birding spot may not have made this list. So I'm willing to cut it a lot of slack in this regard. Still, 24 out of the 50 sites are found in the United States. A more concerted effort should have been made to better balance the site selection geographically. But once you get past these two issues, the book was a pleasure to read. The author does a very good job on the site accounts, and also quotes liberally from the site's selector. The direct quotes are often personal experiences and stories that the recommender has from this place. Most of these are fantastic reading and highly entertaining. Hard core world travelers won't get much out of this book. But all other birders will be exposed to many different wonderful places, some of which you may have never even heard of before. Since Amazon doesn't have a Look Inside feature on this book, here is the complete list of 50 places: United States Alaska: Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Alaska: Gambell Arizona: Southeast Arizona Arkansas: Big Woods California: Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary California: Point Reyes National Seashore California: Sacramento Valley Florida: St. Mark's National Wildlife Refuge Hawaii: Kauai Maine: Scarborough Marsh Massachusetts: Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge New Jersey: Cape May New Mexico: Bosque del Apache New York: Central Park New York: Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge North Carolina/Tennessee: Great Smoky Mountains National Park North Dakota: Prairie Potholes Ohio: Lake Erie Oregon: Malheur National Wildlife Refuge Pennsylvania: Hawk Mountain Refuge Texas: High Island to Galveston Texas: Lower Rio Grande Valley Wisconsin: Necedah National Wildlife Refuge Wyoming: Yellowstone National Park North America Greenland: Thule Mexico, Central America, and Caribbean Belize: The Ruins Costa Rica: San Gerardo de Dota Guatemala: The Highlands Jamaica: Blue Mountains and Beyond Mexico: El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve Trinidad and Tobago: Caroni Lagoon South America Brazil/Peru: Amazonia Ecuador: Podocarpus National Park Ecuador: Tandayapa-Mindo United Kingdom: South Georgia Island Venezuela: The Llanos Europe England: Cley Next the Sea Hungary: Hortobagy National Park Iceland: Jokulsargljufur National Park Spain: Tarifa Asia Kingdom of Bhutan Borneo: Danum Valley India: the Andamans Papua New Guinea: Tari Valley Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan: The Silk Road Africa Madagascar: Masoala Peninsula Tanzania: Serengeti National Park Australia/New Zealand Australia: Bruny Island Australia: Capertee Valley New Zealand: Sub-Antarctic Islands Comment | | (Report this)