Bird Talk: Conversations With Birds; Author: Powers, Alan; Introduction: Pritchard, William; Paperback

Author: Powers, Alan; Introduction: Pritchard, William
Paperback; Illustrated
North Atlantic Books, Frog Ltd.
ISBN: 1583940650

For the last 20 years, Alan Powers, who lives near Cape Cod, has experimented with birdcalls mimicking and answering the calls he hears around his country home, in cities, and abroad in France and Italy. In BirdTalk, he celebrates this connection with entertaining allusions to history, literature, travel, linguistics, and other fields. The result is a charming and erudite stroll throughan area of interest sometimes lost in the urban din. Powers reveals birdtalk by mapping the history of ornithological studies, quoting such bird fanciers as Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson and discussing specific techniques. In one of the most amusing chapters, he describes his attempts to teach the birds new symphonic riffs on their own calls. This illustrated literary inquiry into birdcalls is a