Hi,.

I am currently reading Jonathan Rosen's "The Life of the Skies" and I have a
different view of the book. I am also a reader of poetry, which plays a
major part in at least the first half of the book, in that the author refers to
poets and their poetry, as well as Thoreau and his book Walden. This book is
definitely no Ken Kaufman's Kingbird Highway, to which Jonathan, also,
refers.

To me the book is a philosophical look at nature, birds in particular, and
how it impact the reality of humans and their needs and the needs of nature.
How we impact nature in our search of understanding nature --- Audubon's and
others shooting of birds so that the birds can live on in pictures or to
obtain knowledge --nomenclature of species and subspecies; the impinging of man's
urbanization of the planet and its impact on nature. How he views seeing
the live birds over seeing the specimens in the Natural History Museum, even if
those specimens may contain birds that he will never see in life, because
they are extinct.

I am just ending the first part of the book where Rosen talks about Robert
Frost and his poem "Ovenbird" and I think that the last two lines of the poem
about the singing Ovenbird sums up what Jonathan is talking about in the
first part of the book:

"The question that he frames in all but words,
Is what to make of a diminished thing"

Also, the subtitle of the book is "Birding at the End of Nature"

Since I still have half of the book to go, I can not say whether it ends on
an optimistic point of view or not.

Do I recommend this book? YES!!! But be prepared to THINK. One of my
signature block now has a quote from book which I believe is a summary of his
book, or at least the first half.


Great birding and find that next lifer,

John (One of Birders2)

John + Irma = 2, we are birders, too.

John C. LeVine Birders2 at aol.com Los Angeles, CA

...the ivory bill can help us see ourselves as we really are,
torn between our own desire to be free -- to shoot and
develop and cut down and expand -- and the desire to live
among free things that can only survive only if we are less free.
************************************************************************
The Life of the Skies by Jonathan Rosen



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