num_pages: 320
description: At sixteen, Kenn Kaufman dropped out of the high school where he was student council president and hit the road, hitching back and forth across America, from Alaska to Florida, Maine to Mexico. Maybe not all that unusual a thing to do in the seventies, but what Kenn was searching for was a little different: not sex, drugs, God, or even self, but birds. A report of a rare bird would send him hitching nonstop from Pacific to Atlantic and back again. When he was broke he would pick fruit or do odd jobs to earn the fifty dollars or so that would last him for weeks. His goal was to set a record - most North American species seen in a year - but along the way he began to realize that at this breakneck pace he was only looking, not seeing. What had been a game became a quest for a deeper understanding of the natural world. Kingbird Highway is a unique coming-of-age story, combining a lyrical celebration of nature with wild, and sometimes dangerous, adventures, starring a colorful cast of characters.
language: English
title: Kingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder
titlecomplete: Kingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder
genres: Biography, Nature, Science, Birds, Natural History, Nonfiction, Travel, Animals, Adventure, Memoir
ratings_count: 2261
awards: awardedAt: 1483257600000
name: National Outdoor Book Award
category: Classic
publisher: Mariner Books