Kingbird Highway by Kenn Kaufman: A Book Review by the Chapter Librarian

Linder Orourke, Class of 2023

This story is one long tale of Kaufman’s obsession with birds and the magic he experienced when finding rare ones. Every one of his forays into the wilds of America and Mexico and Canada in search of ornithological wonders was funded by his odd jobs like apple picking. He worked long enough to earn $50 then took off again, the optimistic nomad in search of joyous Nature. Like so much in life, Kaufman understood it’s the journey of exploration and travel that counts – just like life – and not how many birds you see in a day or a year. In the curious new world of birding in the 70s he managed to build an amazing reputation; 1973 was his Big Year which was made into a movie starring Steve Martin. A Big Year is now a serious competition including 1000s of people around the world who spend an entire year building a list of all the birds they’ve seen in 1 year.
Kaufman spent his Big Year eating Little Friskies and sleeping outside to save money. Today birders can get a sponsor because it’s more than a pastime, it’s more than a spiritual journey; it’s competitive sport. Roger Tory Peterson was Kaufman’s first guide; then Kaufman became a guide for many other young birders. Kaufman’s book is fun to read because he doesn’t take himself seriously. He described birding “like a continuous party outdoors” (34). Today we have technology to aid us in our bird searches, but Kaufman’s approach was minimalistic and low tech: he would find the leading birder in an area and befriend him strictly for the purpose of learning as much as he could from the man about birds in the area. Just by word of mouth was the main way people birded back in the early days of birding. Everything was on the honor system; you needed pen/pencil, paper, binoculars and snacks on the road to discovering the next rare bird, plus a few bucks for gas in the next car you bummed a ride in. On one trip he covered 1500 miles in 3 days in a car with strangers who were all obsessed with seeing the Sooty Shearwaters off the Pacific Coast. In Texas he saw several varieties of Kingfisher in the Rio Grande Valley, a place we now know as one of the best birding spots in America. He described birding life on the road as a spring tightening: as soon as one bird is seen and checked off his life list, the spring gently loosens for a moment then tightens back up as the next candidate on the life list is identified and a new search begins. His Big Year included 203 birds seen in one day in Texas at High Island in the Anahuac Reserve. It sounds like we in the TMNBP chapter are in the ideal place to start a Big Year and build our life lists! Good luck birding everyone- And let me know how you like the book!

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