Lost Among the Birds: Accidentally Finding Myself in One Very Big Year
by Neil Hayward
From Bloomsbury:
Early in 2013 Neil Hayward was at a crossroads. He didn’t want to open a bakery or whatever else executives do when they quit a lucrative but unfulfilling job. He didn’t want to think about his failed relationship with “the one” or his potential for ruining a new relationship with “the next one.” And he almost certainly didn’t want to think about turning forty. And so instead he went birding.
Birding was a lifelong passion. It was only among the birds that Neil found a calm that had eluded him in the confusing world of humans. But this time he also found competition. His growing list of species reluctantly catapulted him into a Big Year–a race to find the most birds in one year. His peregrinations across twenty-eight states and six provinces in search of exotic species took him to a hoarfrost-covered forest in Massachusetts to find a Fieldfare; to Lake Havasu, Arizona, to see a rare Nutting’s Flycatcher; and to Vancouver for the Red-flanked Bluetail. Neil’s Big Year was as unplanned as it was accidental: It was the perfect distraction to life.
Neil shocked the birding world by finding 749 species of bird and breaking the long-standing Big Year record. He also surprised himself: During his time among the hummingbirds, tanagers, and boobies, he found a renewed sense of confidence and hope about the world and his place in it.
Yes, another big year book. This one has plenty of birds, Hayward did break the ABA record after all (sorry, but I don’t consider that a spoiler since the publisher mentions it above). But it also has a great story outside of the birds, which makes this a good read even if you aren’t a fan of the big-year-type book.
Lost Among the Birds: Accidentally Finding Myself in One Very Big Year
by Neil Hayward
Hardcover; 416 pages
Bloomsbury; June 7, 2016
ISBN: 9781632865793
$28.00
Buy from NHBS
(based in the U.K.)
Posted by Grant McCreary on June 17th, 2016.
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