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Kingbird Highway:

The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder
Front Cover
60 Reviews
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Apr 11, 2006 - Nature - 336 pages
Now revered as one of North America's top birders, Kenn Kaufman hit the road at age sixteen and spent a year crisscrossing the country to see as many birds as he could, in a birding competition known as a "big year." In what has become a classic among birders, this memoir chronicles the subculture of birding in the 1970s and a teenager's search for his place in the world. In a new afterword, Kaufman looks at the evolution of bird-listing since his own big year.
  

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Review: Kingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder

User Review  - Jackson - Goodreads

Birds are some of the most interesting creatures, and so are those who bird them -- more than watch, it is stalk and enthuse and search the world (or at least the US) to find and commune with. Kenn Kaufman writes as well as he searches, with smooth prose & extreme poetry. Read full review

Review: Kingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder

User Review  - Emily Trettel - Goodreads

Charming as a travelogue, naturalist manifesto, and memoir. A must-read for all bird nerds. Read full review

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About the author (2006)

Kenn Kaufman is a legend among birders. At sixteen he hitchhiked back & forth across North America, traveling eighty thousand miles in a year, simply to see as many birds as he could; he came back to tell the story in "Kingbird Highway." A field editor for "Audubon" & a regular contributor to every major birding magazine, he is the youngest person ever to receive the Ludlow Griscom Award, the highest honor of the American Birding Association. His books include "Lives of North American Birds" & the "Peterson Field Guide to Advanced Birding." He lives in Tucson, Arizona.

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