Pale Male and Family

The famous Red-tailed Hawks of Fifth Avenue in New York City had no greater friend or champion than the late Charles F. Kennedy. The story of Kennedy's relationship with Pale Male, the patriarch hawk, is one of devotion and joy-along with a helping of "flying envy." Pale Male and Family: Essays and Photos of Charles F. Kennedy is Kennedy's previously unpublished homage to the nesting hawks. It includes a foreword by Kennedy's close friend, Frederic Lilien, whose documentary film "The Legend of Pale Male" will have its premiere in the fall of 2009. Pale Male and Family educates and entertains with Kennedy's superb photos and essays that shine with wit, anthropomorphic whimsy, and hawk science. This handsome collection follows the life cycle of young hawks-from small nestlings peering over the nest's edge, to fledging from the nest, to independent hunting in Central Park. Pale Male and Family is the defining tribute to the Red-tailed Toast of Manhattan. Readers will see and hear, in Kennedy's beatific images and metaphors, the wonder with which he beheld the behavior of the red-tails; how he marveled at the hawks' power, resilience, and parenting instincts. Pale Male and Family will enchant bird lovers and nature fans of all ages.