Dare to bird Exploring the joy and power of birds

Melissa Hafting

Book - 2024

"Melissa Hafting is an ethical, passionate, and respected birder, photographer, and mentor. Her love for birding has helped shape who she is and has helped with her mental health, along with enabling her to cope with the difficult aspects of grief and loss after the death of her mother and father. Showcasing some of Melissa's most stunning bird images from the continental United States, Hawaii, and Canada, Dare to Bird explores the joy that birding and photography has brought to her life and how both have allowed her to foster meaningful connections with young birders from diverse backgrounds, along with the conservation community, eco-travel advocates, rare bird enthusiasts, and ethical wildlife viewing practitioners in order to ...preserve bird habitats that are constantly under threat. At the same time, she is determined to expand birding to include more BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour), women, and LGBTQIA+ through youth outreach and talking about the barriers (racism and sexism) she herself has faced in her journey to become part of the birding community"--

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Location Call Number   Status
2nd Floor New Shelf 598.022/Hafting (NEW SHELF) Checked In
Subjects
Published
[Calgary, Alberta] : Rocky Mountain Books Ltd [2024]
Language
English
Main Author
Melissa Hafting (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
239 pages : color illustrations ; 23 x 25 cm
ISBN
9781771606547
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction
  • The importance of diversity and inclusion
  • Flight
  • Hummingbirds - the prismatic gems
  • Connection
  • The healing power of bird sounds and sound
  • Birding with mom
  • The dance
  • The secrets of birds
  • Rare bird alert
  • In my solitude
  • Owls
  • The charms of albatrosses and pelagics
  • Colonies
  • Young birders
  • Grief, birds, and birding with dad
  • The wonders of bird travel
  • How birds can save us
  • Friendship and the social aspect of birding
  • Birding with a dog
  • Hope
  • Afterword
  • About the author.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Ecologist Hafting debuts with an appealing celebration of birding's many pleasures. Reflecting on what the hobby has meant to her, she discusses how spending time in the presence of birds helps her feel less lonely and how "the heavy burden of life and grief lightens just a little" when she listens to birdsong. Hafting's parents feature heavily in her recollections, as when she credits her father for "instilling the love of nature and birds in me" and tenderly describes the joy that watching pelicans and yellow-headed blackbirds brought to Hafting's ailing mother during a final birding trip before she died of cancer. Hafting, who is biracial, emphasizes the need for greater diversity in birding and discusses how she started a young birders program in part to provide an inclusive space for birders of color to explore their passion. There are some mildly amusing avian facts sprinkled throughout (hummingbirds' hearts "can beat up to 1,200 time per minute" while in flight; burrowing owls make their homes in holes dug by prairie dogs or ground squirrels), but the main draw is Hafting's eye-catching photos, which capture a bald eagle in flight, the male greater sage-grouse's mating dance, and hundreds of nesting common murres on a Newfoundland cliff face. It's a deeply personal love letter to birding. Photos. (June)

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