City Birding

The waterways of New York-New Jersey, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the French Quarter of New Orleans -- all unlikely spots for bird-watching. For the careful observer, however, these urban locations and others like them can be settings for memorable birding experiences. In this unique book, some of the country's best-known birders observe birds in places where thriving bird life comes as a surprise. Funny, informative, and thought-provoking, the true stories collected here demonstrate the amazing adaptability of birds, which sometimes seem to thrive in almost any setting humans create: city parks, busy marinas, cemeteries, sewage lagoons. They also illustrate the vulnerability of the natural world in an increasingly man-made environment, and show how the excitement of bird-watching can exist in the most unexpected places.