num_pages: 229
description: Since 1972 Mark Cocker has been a member of a community of people who sacrifice most of their spare time a good deal of money sometimes their chances of a partner or family and even occasionally their lives to watch birds. There is the record-holding husband and wife who cross continents to twitch (spot rare birds); the disgraced stringer who takes desperate measures to falsify a spotting of the coveted black lark leading hundreds on a fruitless search; and a group of friends who go birding in America only to be plagued by car trouble drunk drivers robbery and an encounter with the border police.Birders is also an inspiring and heartwarming account of the author's lifelong love for his hobby and the way it transforms him -- from his fetishistic love affair with his notebook and bins (binoculars) to his deep mourning for a friend who went missing when he followed the call of an elusive pheasant in the Himalayan mountains. Informative touching and astoundingly funny here is the layman's invitation to share in an unlikely obsession.
language: English
title: Birders: Tales of a Tribe
publisher: Grove/Atlantic