Dawson's Avian Kingdom: Selected Writings by William Leon Dawson

A literary feast for any bird lover, this selection of writings from William Leon Dawson's legendary book The Birds of California is an illumination and a joy. From predators to songsters, birds swooping over ocean cliffs, and birds nesting in desert cacti, Dawson paints portraits that are elegant, idiosyncratic, humorous, and often emotionally moving.

The Birds of California was an early and influential guide to the 580 species and subspecies of birds found in the state. The original three-volume 1923 edition is today a rare and expensive find. With the publication of Dawson's Avian Kingdom, the core of Dawson's great work is for the first time accessible to a larger audience. We can learn to look, as Dawson put it, with the eye of ''the poet, the interpreter, the apologist--the mystic, even--the at-all-times bird lover.''