Celebrating 50 years of birding

On April 27, 2018, I will be 61 years old. Yikes! On my 11th birthday, I got a pair of binoculars and a bird field guide. So generally I consider that this is when I became a 'birder" since I also became serious about keeping a "life list", which reached 300 species just after my 19th birthday, a Yellow-headed Blackbird in my uncle's back yard in Green Bay, Wisconsin. As my 50th year of birding begins, there are two ways that I plan to celebrate. The first is the publication of A Field Guide to Birds of Michigan by the American Birding Association. While I have made significant writing contributions to six books before this, enough to have my name on the covers, this is the first book that I have completely authored myself, and it is greatly enhanced by photos mainly by Brian Small and a few other photographers, including Michigan's own Darlene Friedman. I have received advance copies, but the publication date is expected to be April 25. It is available from ABA Sales/Buteo Books. I have scanned a few pages, shown below, and more details are available here. Click on the images below to enlarge them enough to read the text.

Front Cover

Back Cover

Inside front and back covers

Sample text from Introduction

Sample species account

I think this book is an excellent resource for beginning and intermediate birders.

My next "celebration" will be a birding/photography trip to northern Peru in mid-July to see the Marvelous Spatuletail hummingbird, among many others. I am hoping to update my blog during that trip as often as time, and connections, will permit. Stay tuned.