Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Trifecta of birding books

So, I managed to finish up my trifecta of birding books in May. Earlier, in April, I read A Supremely Bad Idea, which was a great book. At the end of April I started up Kingbird Highway and (ironically) was reading that book when I saw the Western Kingbird in Tawas, MI! I'm pretty sure the Kingbird showed up because I was reading the book :) Another funny thing happened while reading that book. I was just getting started reading it and I got an email from...none other than Kenn Kaufman! Granted, it was an email to one of the birding listserves I subscribed to, but it was still, an email from the author! Pretty exciting stuff :)

After gobbling up Kingbird Highway - very good book, makes me think about trying cat food sometime - I moved on to the third birding book, The Big Year by Mark Obmascik. This book is actually being made into a movie RIGHT NOW!
This was also a great book and I was surprised at the lengths the competitors would go to to see new birds. It was also mind-blowing that these competitors were all able to see 700+ species of bird in just 1 year. Especially surprising was that one of the guys was able to hold down a full-time job while doing all this birding.

Reading amazing books like these last couple always makes me feel like I'm such a slacker. It's a good thing I'm headed to ABQ next weekend so I can get my fill of some Western birds!

So far, I'm two books ahead of my '1 fun book per month' New Year's resolution - which is AWESOME :) I just started my June book, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. It's a doozie (600 pages)! Maybe I'll get some reading done on the flight to New Mexico :)