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Featuring some of America's greatest writers and poets, this landmark anthology is both a celebration of the birds around and above us and a field guide to the American soul.

Americans have always been fascinated by birds and from the beginning American writers have captured this keen interest in a variety of genres: poems, journal entries, memoirs, short stories, essays, and travel accounts. Now, editors Terry Tempest Williams and Andrew Rubenfeld bring together the very best of this writing on America's birds, in an astonshing collection that encompasses the Aleutian Islands and the Florida Keys, the Maine woods to the deserts of the southwest--and our own gardens and backyards feeders.

What better companion to a field guide to the birds of North America than these personal accounts of birds and bird watching by a Who's Who of American literature? Put your binoculars aside and follow Lewis and Clark across the continent, Audubon as he sketches in New Orleans, Emerson and Thoreau rambling around Walden Pond. Join Theodore Roosevelt as he recalls the birds of his New York childhood, Rachel Carson observing a skimmer on the Atlantic coast, and Roger Tory Peterson casting a keen eye on snail kites and limpkins in the Everglades. Add to this an impressive array of modern and contemporary poets, all celebrating the wonder of birds and the joys of bird watching. This chronological survey of how and why Americans have watched birds makes the perfect gift for both the serious birder and the backyard watcher, indeed anyone who's ever been drawn by the wonder of birds.