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| Kingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder | 
| Author: Kenn Kaufman
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 146960
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0618709401
Dewey Decimal Number: 598.0723473
EAN: 9780618709403
ASIN: 0618709401
Publication Date: April 11, 2006
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Amazon.com
As ornithologist Kenn Kaufman recounts in his lively memoir Kingbird Highway, he's managed to do what other birders only dream of doing: take a year and chase winged creatures from one end of the country to another. The year in question was 1973, when Kaufman was 19 years old, and a few dollars and an outstretched thumb could go a long way. Armed with binoculars, notebook, and the blessing of birder patron saint Roger Tory Peterson, Kaufman set out to capture the record for most species spotted in a single year. He came close, closing with 666 species sighted from Alaska to Florida and back again. More important, he racked up a lifetime's worth of adventures on the road. These stories form the heart of his book, a narrative in which spotted redshanks, white-eared hummingbirds, marbled murrelets, and black-capped gnatcatchers are among the chief supporting players.
Product Description
Now revered as one of North America's top birders, Kenn Kaufman hit the road at age sixteen and spent a year crisscrossing the country to see as many birds as he could, in a birding competition known as a "big year." In what has become a classic among birders, this memoir chronicles the subculture of birding in the 1970s and a young man's search for his place in the world. In a new afterword, Kaufman looks at the evolution of bird-listing since his own big year.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
 Kenn Kaufman tells a great story February 13, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Kingbird Highway is a must read for every birder. It is a real adventure story; complete with life and death struggles! If Kenn Kaufman's life work wasn't birding - he could easily be a writer. Do yourself a favor and read this book.Kingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder
Read this and take a yearlong journey into the great outdoors January 26, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
As a birder, I empathized with Kaufman's desire to see rare birds in Aleutians, explore the unknown, and experience the American wilderness through the binocular lens. For those of us who might be apprehensive about dropping out of high school and hitchhiking around the country pursuing our dreams, Kaufman makes it easy. He does it for us.
This is the story of a young kid who was obsessed with birds. He left behind a life in small-town American in pursuit of his dreams (meaning to see new birds), and made a niche for himself in the then budding birdwatching sub-culture. On virtually no budget, he managed to navigate his way all around the United States, learning and growing as he traveled, making new friends and seeing wildlife all the while.
His writing is gripping. The excitement that he feels in seeing each new bird, meeting Roger Tory Peterson, or having a car stop to pick him up after having walked for hours on a roadside is very real to the reader. This journey transcends the birds that define it, and background discussion make this book accessible to birder and non-birder alike.
Perhaps most importantly, Kaufman provides an unconventional model for success. Not everyone has to go through the motions of securing a college degree, going to graduate school, or finding an entry level position someplace and begin climbing the corporate ladder. I wouldn't condone abandoning education, but think that Kaufman's case is useful in that it shows that self-education outside of the classroom can be just as (or more) informative and fulfilling.
Kaufman's journey takes him through the full range of human emotion, introduces him to people from all walks of life, and opens up a natural world that a young, lonely kid in Kansas could only dream about. Mixing in some self-deprecating humor, Kaufman's book is both thrilling, and relaxing.
 Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Birds February 9, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Written many years after the fact, this book is well worth reading many years after the fact. Kingbird Highway is an autobiography, a travelogue, and a `where-to-bird' guide for 1973. It is a tale of life, liberty, and the pursuit of birds. Kingbird, alias Kenn Kaufman drops out of high school to pursue his dream (obsession) of seeing more birds in a single year than anyone had ever seen before. There are several catches to his liberty and pursuit of birds. He must see the birds north of Mexico, a technicality that affects his dream. He has almost no money, so he does cheapest Big Year ever with the lowest dollar to bird ratio ever. He spends only about $1000 by hitchhiking everywhere and living off Little Friskies in a can of cold soup for dinner. Kingbird Highway provides a wonderful map of where to bird even now over forty years later. For example, the Brownville Texas Municipal dump is still the place to see Tamaulipas crows. Read in conjunction with a field guide, Kingbird Highway opens a world of birds, their habits, and habitats that might otherwise escape notice.
Different than expected November 4, 2006
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a good book, but not what I expected. It's about a specific time in birding and America. This makes Kenn Kaufman's experience unique. This was during the "early days" of birding and bird listers. There was not the instantaneous information of the location of rare species we have now. If you are interested in birding, the search for rare bird species, or the effort to see bird species out of their normal range, I would recommend this book.
Great book for birders October 19, 2004
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Kenn Kaufman began birding at an early age, and as a young teenager he hid his "geeky" habit from his friends. Eventually, as he became older, he realized that there was a birding fraternity and he began to bird with others who loved it as much as he did. At 16, with his parents' blessing, he dropped out of school and began doing cross-country birding by hitchiking around the country. His knowledge of birds grew and his contacts with other birders increased. In 1973 he decided to go for a Big Year, that is a year in which he attempted to break the record for most birds seen in a year. The pace of Kaufman's quest was amazing and he relates his adventures in an interesting and down-to-earth style. Towards the end of his Big Year, Kaufman begins to question his own motives for building up his list and his introspection brings a new maturity to him and his methods of birding. This is a great book for any bird enthusiast.
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