"Amy Irvine implores us to trade in our solitude for solidarity, to recognize ourselves in each other and in the places we love, so that we might come together to save them."
?PAM HOUSTON

AMY IRVINE is a sixth-generation Utahn and longtime public lands activist. Her work has been published in Orion, Pacific Standard, High Desert Journal, Climbing, Triquarterly, and other publications. Her memoir, Trespass: Living at the Edge of the Promised Land, received the Orion Book Award, the Ellen Meloy Desert Writers Award, and Colorado Book Award. Her essay "Spectral Light," which appeared in Orion and The Best American Science and Nature Writing, was a finalist for the Pen Award in Journalism, and her recent essay, "Conflagrations: Motherhood, Madness and a Planet on Fire" appeared among the 2017 Best American Essays' list of Notables. Irvine teaches in the Mountainview Low-Residency MFA Program of Southern New Hampshire University-in the White Mountains of New England. She lives and writes off the grid in southwest Colorado, just spitting distance from her Utah homeland.

"For the nature lover with a sense of humor."

-SIERRA MAGAZINE


Eli Knapp takes readers from a leaky dugout canoe in Tanzania and the mating grounds of Ecuador's cock-of-the-rock to a juniper titmouse's perch at the Grand Canyon and the migration of hooded mergansers in a New York swamp, exploring life's deepest questions all along the way. In this collection of essays, Knapp intentionally flies away from the flock, reveling in insights gleaned from birds, his students, and the wide-eyed wonder his children experience. The Delightful Horror of Family Birding navigates the world in hopes that appreciation of nature will burn intensely for generations to come, not peter out in merely a flicker. Whether traveling solo or with his students or children, Knapp levels his gaze on the birds that share our skies, showing that birds can be a portal to deeper relationships, ecological understanding, and newfound joy.


ELI J. KNAPP, PhD, is professor of intercultural studies and biology at Houghton College and director of the Houghton in Tanzania program. Knapp is a regular contributor to Bird Watcher's Digest, New York State Conservationist, and other publications. An avid birdwatcher, hiker, and kayaker, he lives in Fillmore, New York, with his wife and children.

Introduction Part I. Through a Child's Eyes 1.

1. The Only Things to Fear Are Birds Themselves
2.
2. One Short of a Parliament
3.
3. Nothing to Sneeze At
4.
4. A Flicker of Life
5.
5. Birders Can't Ride Shotgun
6.
6. Chomping at Nature's Bit
7.
7. The Birds and the Bees
8.
8. The Delightful Horror of Family Birding

1. The Grand Titmouse
10.
2. Absurd Bird Words
11.
3. Sole Recipients of Grace
12.
4. Film Fallout
13.
5. A Golden Opportunity with a Silver Lining
14.
6. Serendipitous Birding
15.
7. Please Disturb
16.
8. Dutch Blitz Birding

1. Flying Through the Bird Portal
18.
2. My Chickadee Epiphany
19.
3. One of Life's Harrier Moments
20.
4. Bearing Through the Birdfeeder Blues
21.
5. The Nature of Nature
22.
6. Clutch Performance
23.
7. Frustration or Fervor
24.
8. Just Because
25.
9. The Moral of the Mourning Doves
26.
10. Never Again…Until Next Time