THE MAN WHO FLIES WITH BIRDS

Over a long career, Israeli ornithologist Yossi Leshem has used migration studies to reduce bird/plane collisions, substituted birds for pesticides to control rodents, established feeding stations and bird-watching areas, organized the election of an Israeli national bird and promoted international cooperation. This professional biography concentrates on his early work on bird migration, supported by the Israeli military because of its connections to flight safety, but includes more recent activities as well. Both topically and chronologically organized, the text fluctuates between description and explanation. Chapter headings reveal the breadth of coverage—migration, the physics of flying, CSI for birds, balancing nature and the economy and saving the birds of the world—but there is no table of contents. Sidebars add information and U.S. connections, even including the January 2009 emergency landing in the Hudson River of a plane that had encountered a goose. Extensively illustrated with color photographs, this is more an introduction to a field than to a person, probably most appealing to middle-school readers already curious about birds. (further reading, websites, index) (Nonfiction. 10-14)