I head about this book at #SDBF2026. Author Kenn Kaufman was the last keynote speaker of the festival and as a volunteer I was asked to sell the book before the book signing. After the event, I figured I should read it myself.

I wasn’t sure what to expect but it was a fascinating mix of naturalist history, bird facts, and Kenn’s own personal history. I thought he did a good job giving personality to characters we hardly know today other than by the occasional bird name. He also doesn’t shy away from noting Audubon’s complex legacy and science’s euro-centric interpretation of nature.

I felt like I gained a better respect for the age of discovery in America and the complex scientific process of describing species. As noted in the book, the modern debates around species are often too complex for the average birder to anticipate, but hearing the history of bird identification makes my own birding feel more human. I’d recommend this to anyone interested in either history or birding.