Not just for birders, this captivating book brims with warmth, humor, and drama that will have wide appeal.
The frantic, rewarding life of a hummingbird-rescue hotline worker.
In this bright, engrossing debut, Masear, who teaches English as a second language at UCLA Extension, recounts her experiences as a rehabber of injured or orphaned hummingbirds in Los Angeles. Since 2008, some 20,000 callers have sought her help for birds in trouble. Whether hit by a golf ball in Bel Air, or by a stretch limousine in Beverly Hills, or simply found floating in a Hollywood Hills swimming pool, the cute, charismatic little creatures invariably win the hearts of humans—and prove demanding, stress-inducing patients. “I got involved in saving hummingbirds because their delicate beauty and poetic flight spoke to my soul,” writes Masear, who spends her summers advising panicky callers regarding birds in distress (“The birds are screaming, my kids are crying, and my wife hates me….What do I do?”), often conducting rescues herself. In a film-prop warehouse, she saved one trapped bird by duct-taping an antique butterfly net to an aboriginal spear. With a sharp eye for anecdotes—both bird and human—the author offers highly readable stories of birds like Gabriel, who was near death when she began his five-month rehabilitation, and an astonishing range of callers, from goths and martial artists to the woman who communicated telepathically with birds in her backyard. There are five species of hummingbirds in the Los Angeles area—the Allen’s and Anna’s are most common—and their numbers range in the thousands. Masear describes their courtship practices, flight maneuvers, and migrations; her hectic rounds of half-hourly feedings; and her emotional trauma over birds she cannot save. For her own guidance, she turns to the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu (“Surrender yourself humbly; then you can be trusted to care for all things”). In the past four decades, Southern California rehabbers have released more than 10,000 healthy young hummingbirds.
Not just for birders, this captivating book brims with warmth, humor, and drama that will have wide appeal.Pub Date: June 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-544-41603-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
The author skillfully fills a scholarly, historical niche, producing an environmental and biographical work with broad...
An encyclopedic, multigenerational chronicle examines a family’s extraordinary contributions to wildlife biology, conservation, and nature literature.
What the Kennedys are to politics, the less-famous Craigheads are to nature—a prolific and accomplished clan. Benjey (Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, 2011, etc.) traces their ancestry to Scottish-Irish immigrants who settled in central Pennsylvania in 1733. In 1868, a railroad bisected the family farm. A great-great grandson built a depot, Craighead Station, and started grain, lumber, and coal businesses. A mansion, still standing by Yellow Breeches Creek, connected generations of Craighead children with flora and fauna. Five siblings, born between 1890 and 1903, graduated from college. Frank Craighead Sr. became a U.S. Department of Agriculture entomologist. His brother, Eugene, became a state entomologist for Pennsylvania. Frank’s twins, Frank Jr. and John, gained fame as self-taught teenage falconers. They later studied grizzlies, devised the first radio-tracking collars for large animals, and battled National Park Service bureaucrats over bear management. They wrote the 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, authored National Geographic articles, and produced lectures, photographs, books, films, and television programs. Their sister, Jean Craighead George, wrote more than 100 children’s books about animals and nature. Best known are Julie of the Wolves, a Newbery Medal winner, and My Side of the Mountain, a Newbery Honor work made into a movie. Five Craigheads achieved name recognition, but Benjey approaches the family as an ecosystem, deftly covering three dozen members over three centuries. He includes a family tree (indispensable) and a useful index and endnotes. Largely chronological, the book alternates between sections following entire generations through decades and chapters highlighting key individuals or topics. Benjey displays prodigious research skills and enthusiastic storytelling. With extensive family cooperation, he weaves interviews, letters, school yearbooks, family photos, and public records into such detailed scenes that he seems to have been present. He often sounds like a Craighead. Granular details about extended family members occasionally tread close to tedium, but overall, this comprehensive, impressive synthesis of the historical, familial, social, economic, and natural forces that created the famous Craigheads is well-told.
The author skillfully fills a scholarly, historical niche, producing an environmental and biographical work with broad popular appeal.Pub Date: Dec. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9909748-9-5
Page Count: 264
Publisher: The University of Montana Press
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A provocative and controversial conservationist encapsulates his opinions and suggestions for restoring the health of a planet at risk. Brower (For Earth's Sake, 1990) has reached the ripe age of 82, and this slim volume feels like a swan song—or perhaps he might prefer to call it ``goose music,'' referring to the tonic of wildness that we all must hear, appreciate, and identify with in order to save our soiled Earth. Aided by Chapple (Kayaking the Full Moon, 1993), Brower runs through a handful of eco-ideas, some more familiar than others: putting boundaries around cities, linking protected animal havens to allow natural migration, encouraging eco-tourism, reining in our overuse of the automobile, and turning to solar power. He waxes enthusiastic on the subject of reducing forest consumption, and his own words are printed here on paper made from kenaf, a hibiscus relative whose development as a tree substitute might eventually protect our last acres of old-growth forest. Brower urges that efforts be made to promote ``CPR for the Earth'': conservation, preservation, and restoration. The book is a mother lode of quotable sayings from the man best known to readers from John McPhee's Encounters with the Archdruid, and sometimes style obscures content. Brower has a wonderful, folksy voice, and though he has more enemies than most conservationists, he has also become a mythic figure in the environmental movement—so it feels almost disloyal to note that a towering ego shows through his comments. In addition, the Archdruid's prescriptions are fairly vague, though it could be argued that this is a statement of personal mission, not a grant proposal. Unapologetic and defiant as ever, Brower has penned a manifesto for those who would pick up his torch. Whether his methods have been more help or hindrance to his cause is still to be decided. (Author tour)
Pub Date: April 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-06-252033-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1995
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
