Of a Feather

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"In Of a Feather, Scott Weidensaul skillfully traces the colorful history of American birding. Travel with the frontier ornithologists who collected eggs between border skirmishes; meet the society matrons who organized the first effective conservation movement; discover the luminaries with checkered pasts, such as convicted blackmailer Alexander Wilson and the endlessly self-mythologizing John James Audubon; and chart the progress of an awkward schoolteacher Roger Tory Peterson as he creates A Field Guide to the Birds, prompting the explosive growth of modern birding. Spirited and compulsively readable, Of a Feather celebrates the passions and achievements of birders, from the continent's fledgling ornithologists to the millions of Americans who have transformed a once eccentric occupation into one of our most beloved pursuits."--Page 4 of cover