Call number
Publication
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. xii, 320 p. : ill., maps ; 21 cm.
Pages
xii; 320
Description
Biography & Autobiography. Nature. Science. Nonfiction. HTML: An ornithologist's account of his youthful, year-long, cross-country birdwatching adventure: "A fascinating memoir of an obsession." �??Booklist At sixteen, Kenn Kaufman dropped out of the high school where he was student council president and hit the road, hitching back and forth across America, from Alaska to Florida, Maine to Mexico. Maybe not all that unusual a thing to do in the seventies, but what Kenn was searching for was a little different: not sex, drugs, God, or even self, but birds. A report of a rare bird would send him hitching nonstop from Pacific to Atlantic and back again. When he was broke he would pick fruit or do odd jobs to earn the fifty dollars or so that would last him for weeks. His goal was to set a record�??most North American species seen in a year�??but along the way he began to realize that at this breakneck pace he was only looking, not seeing. What had been a game became a quest for a deeper understanding of the natural world. Kingbird Highway is a unique coming-of-age story, combining a lyrical celebration of nature with wild, and sometimes dangerous, adventures, starring a colorful cast of charact… (more)
Awards
National Outdoor Book Award (Winner — Classic — 2017)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2006
Physical description
xii, 320 p.; 8.3 inches
ISBN
9780618709403
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User reviews
LibraryThing member msf59
“But in the early 1970s, we were not birdwatching. We were birding, and that made all the difference. We were out to seek, to discover, to chase, to learn, to find as many different kinds of birds as possible...”
Ken Kaufmann dropped out of high school and went on a quest, with a backpack, a
Kaufmann's quest was to see as many different bird species, in North America, in one year, as he could, attempting to beat the old record. This is extreme birding at it's craziest, which makes for an entertaining journey.
This coming of age memoir, is his story. It also coincides with a time when birding in America really took off and it became a serious pursuit.
Obviously, this book is not for everyone, but if you like birds and nature and enjoy a good travel tale, you might want to give to give it a look.
Ken Kaufmann dropped out of high school and went on a quest, with a backpack, a
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pair of binoculars and virtually no money. Since this was the early 70s, his mode of transportation, the cheapest available, was hitchhiking. Kaufmann's quest was to see as many different bird species, in North America, in one year, as he could, attempting to beat the old record. This is extreme birding at it's craziest, which makes for an entertaining journey.
This coming of age memoir, is his story. It also coincides with a time when birding in America really took off and it became a serious pursuit.
Obviously, this book is not for everyone, but if you like birds and nature and enjoy a good travel tale, you might want to give to give it a look.
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LibraryThing member Sandydog1
A great adventure book covering a birding big year. The twist here is that a young Kaufman does all the traveling with little funding.
LibraryThing member flourgirl49
In 1973, Kenn Kaufman's parents allowed him to drop out of high school and pursue his passion for birding. He undertook a Big Year, traveling all over the United States to see as many birds as possible. He hitchhiked everywhere, spent around $1,000 on his expenses for the entire year, and amassed a
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list of over 600 different species. Today, he is one of America's foremost birding experts. I'm a birder myself, but obviously not to the extent of this man. I would have been more interested in his story had he talked more about the birds rather than his traveling adventures getting to and from each of his stops. It was interesting, but also kind of boring at times. Show Less
LibraryThing member breic
I think that Strycker's big year bird list book, "Birding Without Borders," is much more interesting for a general reader, since Strycker interleaves vignettes from his trip with information about birds and birding. Kaufman's book is focused on the trip, except for a bit of romance and youthful
> the Committee on Classification and Nomenclature of the American Ornithologists’ Union. This group publishes the AOU Check-list of North American Birds … We were all happily using the 1957 list, and subconsciously we had come to regard it as permanent. But not anymore. Birders were now talking about the “great April massacre of 1973.” Since we counted only full species in our listing games, the action of the AOU had lowered everyone’s lists.
> The Myrtle Warbler had been lumped with the western Audubon’s Warbler under the uninspiring name of Yellow-rumped Warbler. Baltimore and Bullock’s orioles had been merged into Northern Oriole … Perhaps now the Cape Sable Sparrow would fall from the birders’ field of view and skulk back into the oblivion from which it had arisen in 1918. Whether it would count for my 1973 year list was unclear. The American Birding Association had no rules dealing with taxonomic changes made in midyear.
> Under the classification used then, the world’s total bird list was considered to be 8,600 species, and Stuart Keith had become the first person ever to see 4,300 of those in the wild
> We had scored 203 on that run, the first “official” 200-plus Big Day in Texas. But that was nowhere near the North American record of 227, set by Guy McCaskie’s team in California the year before.
> This phenomenon—of rare birds attracting more birders, who then find more rare birds, attracting more birders, and so on—was soon given a name: “The Patagonia Picnic Table Effect.”
> No prospects. That was true, wasn’t it? I was working so hard on my year list this year, but what was it going to bring me in the real world? Nothing. Even if I won the year-list “contest,” at year’s end I would still be an unemployed high-school dropout with no prospects for the future.
> I had broken the year-list record in late July, and now I was up to 630. Hardly forty species remained that I could reasonably hope to find before the year ended. But the five months ahead might not be enough time to find them all; those forty species were scattered all over the continent, mostly uncommon birds in out-of-the-way places.
> In short, Axtell’s conclusion was that this mystery shorebird, with its blackish feathers, odd-colored legs, and strange behavior, was merely a yellowlegs that had gotten into some oil. Standing there reading and rereading this bombshell, I was in shock. … the general conclusion was that Harold Axtell had been right and that all the dozens of other birders had been wrong. This episode had a profound impact on me—partly because I’d spent five days hitching in the rain, 2,500 miles out of my way.
> birders had accepted the American Ornithologists’ Union definition of “North America” as consisting of Canada, the United States, and three other nearby areas with similar birdlife: Greenland, Bermuda, and the peninsula of Baja California.
> Just because I had broken listing records, they expected me to be a top-notch birder—and I was not. They were comparing me to Ted Parker, who had set the record just two years before—but there was really no comparison.
> The totals amassed by Murdoch and me would be edged out in 1976, as a young ornithology student named Scott Robinson made a low-budget, high-knowledge run around the continent. But that would be the last time that any record could be set by a birder who focused on the normally occurring birds. … Floyd Murdoch won: in the region that would become the official checklist area of the American Birding Association, he tallied 669 species, three more than I. However, many birders in 1973 were still using the old checklist area of the American Ornithologists’ Union, which included Baja California; my five Baja birds brought my list up to 671.
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angst. You can't help but learn something about birds and birding, and it is hard to resist looking up the species to learn more, but that's not a big focus. It is also an impressive story, hitchhiking across the country for a year to find birds. For a birder, at least, this is still a fun read. > the Committee on Classification and Nomenclature of the American Ornithologists’ Union. This group publishes the AOU Check-list of North American Birds … We were all happily using the 1957 list, and subconsciously we had come to regard it as permanent. But not anymore. Birders were now talking about the “great April massacre of 1973.” Since we counted only full species in our listing games, the action of the AOU had lowered everyone’s lists.
> The Myrtle Warbler had been lumped with the western Audubon’s Warbler under the uninspiring name of Yellow-rumped Warbler. Baltimore and Bullock’s orioles had been merged into Northern Oriole … Perhaps now the Cape Sable Sparrow would fall from the birders’ field of view and skulk back into the oblivion from which it had arisen in 1918. Whether it would count for my 1973 year list was unclear. The American Birding Association had no rules dealing with taxonomic changes made in midyear.
> Under the classification used then, the world’s total bird list was considered to be 8,600 species, and Stuart Keith had become the first person ever to see 4,300 of those in the wild
> We had scored 203 on that run, the first “official” 200-plus Big Day in Texas. But that was nowhere near the North American record of 227, set by Guy McCaskie’s team in California the year before.
> This phenomenon—of rare birds attracting more birders, who then find more rare birds, attracting more birders, and so on—was soon given a name: “The Patagonia Picnic Table Effect.”
> No prospects. That was true, wasn’t it? I was working so hard on my year list this year, but what was it going to bring me in the real world? Nothing. Even if I won the year-list “contest,” at year’s end I would still be an unemployed high-school dropout with no prospects for the future.
> I had broken the year-list record in late July, and now I was up to 630. Hardly forty species remained that I could reasonably hope to find before the year ended. But the five months ahead might not be enough time to find them all; those forty species were scattered all over the continent, mostly uncommon birds in out-of-the-way places.
> In short, Axtell’s conclusion was that this mystery shorebird, with its blackish feathers, odd-colored legs, and strange behavior, was merely a yellowlegs that had gotten into some oil. Standing there reading and rereading this bombshell, I was in shock. … the general conclusion was that Harold Axtell had been right and that all the dozens of other birders had been wrong. This episode had a profound impact on me—partly because I’d spent five days hitching in the rain, 2,500 miles out of my way.
> birders had accepted the American Ornithologists’ Union definition of “North America” as consisting of Canada, the United States, and three other nearby areas with similar birdlife: Greenland, Bermuda, and the peninsula of Baja California.
> Just because I had broken listing records, they expected me to be a top-notch birder—and I was not. They were comparing me to Ted Parker, who had set the record just two years before—but there was really no comparison.
> The totals amassed by Murdoch and me would be edged out in 1976, as a young ornithology student named Scott Robinson made a low-budget, high-knowledge run around the continent. But that would be the last time that any record could be set by a birder who focused on the normally occurring birds. … Floyd Murdoch won: in the region that would become the official checklist area of the American Birding Association, he tallied 669 species, three more than I. However, many birders in 1973 were still using the old checklist area of the American Ornithologists’ Union, which included Baja California; my five Baja birds brought my list up to 671.
Show Less
LibraryThing member dele2451
Kenn successfully completes an item many experienced birders have high on their bucket lists and he does it on his own hitchhiking as a teenager with a miniscule budget. Nostalgic and inspiring and fun to read--a sure bet for any twitcher.