Though I don't particularly identify with the story of a father taking his daughter out 'owling' under the full moon, I do identify with the experience of the silent winter woods, of listening to the deep, resonant conversations of owls in the darkness, and of occasionally being fortunate enough to call one in to view by mimicking the sounds. Owl Moon by Jane Yolen I was swept away by Jane Yolen's Owl Moon when I first discovered it. So, if you're interested, here are my favorites.įor the kid in each of us, or the ones in our lives:

There may be some science attached to some of them, but it's not overwhelming and the underlying fascination with the simple beauty, song, and joy of birds is what makes each of these books remarkable and why they are still on my shelf. These are not the scientific volumes, mind you, but the books that celebrate birds in general. Today, I still work with birds, but at somewhat of a remove, and to be honest all the number-crunching that accompanies that work does not come close to matching the interest I have in simply seeing and hearing them.īut as I sit here, I began to wonder what books fed my curiosity through the years, so I went to my shelves and found the ones that have stayed with me. on northern lakes, and that fascination carried over into the beginnings of my career in biology. In college I became fascinated with loons in part because of where they are found. The fascination continued through my young adult years when family vacations took me to northern lower Michigan, and I desperately wanted to see an endangered bald eagle soaring over the dunes along the Lake Michigan shoreline. It began when I was young with plastic binoculars and a Golden Guide to the Birds. As I sit at the dining room table watching Black-capped Chickadees, Common Redpolls, and the occasional nuthatch fly back and forth from the feeder, it occurs to me that I have spent almost my entire life doing this: watching birds.

Bird Watch by Jane Yolen