Birdwatching as we know it emerged sometime in the late eighteenth century, and a lively literature about birds and bird behavior positively erupted in the decades that followed. In
An Exhilaration of Wings, Jen Hill has for the first time gathered together the most vital and engaging of these writings, which, while historically specific, are timeless in their evocation of what the passion for birds is all about.
As Hill remarks in her introduction, birdwatching is "an experience of the ears and intellect as much as it is of the eye," all of which comes across clearly in the instructive, revealing, and beautifully written excerpts she has culled for this book. Over seventy-five writers, famous and unknown--from John Muir, John James Audubon, and William Wordsworth to the largely forgotten ornithologists Florence Merriam and Olive Thorne Miller and the English country poet John Clare--share their infectious observations about bird song, migration, nests, raptors, sea birds, hummingbirds, and much more. The entries are by turns practical, lyrical, humorous, literary, scientific--on occasion even mystical--as they illuminate the magical and occasionally unexpected ways in which birding connects us both to the history of the natural world and to that of human experience. This charming compendium is certain to delight birdwatchers and natural history lovers alike.