About this item
Early in 2013 Neil Hayward was at a crossroads. He didnt want to open a bakery or whatever else executives do when they quit a lucrative but unfulfilling job. He didnt want to think about his failed relationship with "the one" or his potential for ruining a new relationship with "the next one." And he almost certainly didnt want to think about turning forty. And so instead he went birding.. Birding was a lifelong passion. It was only among the birds that Neil found a calm that had eluded him in the confusing world of humans. But this time he also found competition. His growing list of species reluctantly catapulted him into a Big Year--a race to find the most birds in one year. His peregrinations across twenty-eight states and six provinces in search of exotic species took him to a hoarfrost-covered forest in Massachusetts to find a Fieldfare; to Lake Havasu, Arizona, to see a rare Nuttings Flycatcher; and to Vancouver for the Red-flanked Bluetail. Neils Big Year was as unplanned as it was accidental: It was the perfect distraction to life.. Neil shocked the birding world by finding 749 species of bird and breaking the long-standing Big Year record. He also surprised himself: During his time among the hummingbirds, tanagers, and boobies, he found a renewed sense of confidence and hope about the world and his place in it.
About the Author
Neil Hayward is a lifelong birder with a passion for science and travel. He grew up in the UK, where birding ranks high among soccer, tea, and sarcasm as national pastimes. After gaining a Ph.D. in genetics at Cambridge University, he joined a start-up biotech company and moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, as the managing director for the US business. He also brought his binoculars and quickly started using them. In 2011, he left his job to set up his own biotechnology consulting company.
Neil is the field trip coordinator and board director for the Brookline Bird Club, the most active birding club in the country, for which he leads free birding walks. He is also a council member of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, and teaches birding classes at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. Neil has spoken at birding festivals, ornithological clubs and associations, bird clubs, and Audubon Society chapters throughout the United States. He lives with his wife, Gerri, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Lost Among the Birds, which chronicles his record-breaking Big Year in which he saw 749 species of bird, is his first book.
