Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere with Migratory Birds

Bird migration is the world's only true unifying natural phenomenon, stitching the continents together in a way that even the great weather systems fail to do. Scott Weidensaul follows awesome kettles of hawks over the Mexican coastal plains, bar-tailed godwits that hitchhike on gale winds 7,000 miles nonstop across the Pacific from Alaska to New Zealand, and myriad songbirds whose numbers have dwindled so dramatically in recent decades. Migration paths form an elaborate global web that shows serious signs of fraying, and Weidensaul delves into the tragedies of habitat degradation and deforestation with an urgency that brings to life the vast problems these miraculous migrants now face. Living on the Wind is a magisterial work of nature writing.

"A fascinating book, unusually well written, about a truly astonishing phenomenon."--Peter Matthiessen

"Mr. Weidensaul translates difficult scientific concepts into understandable English while artfully interweaving personal experiences into the larger natural-history story . . . [A] book fulfilling for birders and nonbirders alike."--Marie Winn, The Wall Street Journal

"What Rachel Carson did for the sea . . . Scott Weidensaul has now done for bird migration."--Caroline Fraser, Outside

Pulitzer Prize - Finalist