Birds and Birdwatchers

The publisher is William R. Parks: www.wrparks.com Here is a book for birdwatchers who wish to go beyond field identification. This wide-ranging essay collection, drawn from the author's avocational interest in ornithology, explores many avian topics that would otherwise be found in a shelf of resources. Here, for example, is ornithological history from Audubon and Wilson to Peterson and Sibley; information about extinct species - passenger pigeon, Carolina parakeet and Eskimo curlew - and the questionable status of the ivory-billed woodpecker; birding episodes from Baghdad to Korea by way of Mexico; and strange field encounters with bald songbirds and a two-headed sparrow. Even the species accounts include gems of information like the letter in the turkey essay from Ben Franklin to his daughter about whether the turkey or the eagle should be our national emblem. As a birdwatcher for 80 years, Gerry Rising brings that experience to the informal essays in this book, many of which appeared during his 25-year tenure as weekly Nature Watch columnist for the Buffalo News. He also served as editor of the New York State ornithological journal, The Kingbird, and contributed species accounts to Bull's Birds of New York. Birding has, however, always been an avocation for Rising. A mathematics teacher by profession, Dr. Rising taught in New York and Connecticut schools before joining faculties at the University of Minnesota and finally the University at Buffalo, from which he retired as distinguished teaching professor. He has written over 100 journal articles and a dozen math-related books including most recently Program Your Calculator and About Mathematics, the latter a text for college liberal arts students. Not a professional ornithologist, Professor Rising seeks in these essays to communicate his own involvement with and love of birds and the outdoors. In doing so he brings to bear the teaching skills for which he has received many awards and his extensive field experiences not only in western New York where he now resides but in extended trips to Florida and Alabama, Minnesota, Colorado and Washington and in Canada Ontario, Quebec, Vancouver and Newfoundland. He has hiked the Bruce Trail, the Finger Lakes Trail and extensive sections of the Appalachian Trail, has climbed the 46 high peaks of the Adirondack Mountains and has "circumnavigated" each of the Great Lakes on motor scooter camping trips. For anyone as yet unfamiliar with Rising's writing, you have a real treat ahead when you immerse yourself in these essays. The publisher is William R. Parks - Website: www. WRParks.com - Twitter: www.twitter.com/WParksPublisher - Facebook: www.facebook.com/wparkspublishing