Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
1 Flight Calls An Introduction 1
2 Birding a Patch 14
3 Whip-poor-will Synchronicity 31
4 Birds of the Promised Land 34
5 Watching Gulls with Emerson on Cape Tragabigzanda 50
6 Birding on Two Wheels 70
7 On a Street with No Name A Rant 80
8 The Birding John Nelsons 86
9 Twitcher's Temptation 93
10 Rarity Envy 101
11 Sympathy Birds in Nineteenth-Century Massachusetts Literature 113
12 For Birds and People The Brookline Bird Club 134
13 Mr. Forbush and Mr. White 156
14 The Great Marsh Shorebird Swarms and Swallow Waves 165
15 Sauntering through a Graveyard Garden 184
16 Death and the Rose-Breasted Grosbeak 199
17 Cape Cod Following Footprints and Bird Tracks in Sand 208
18 Ravens' Home West from My Patch 227
19 Convalescence 245
20 Further Adventures in Four-Legged Birding 250
21 Geezer Birding 254
22 Our Birds 260
23 Territories 276
24 The Birds after Us 293
References 309
Recommended Reading List 315
Index 319