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Kenn Kaufman
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Kingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder Kindle Edition

by Kenn Kaufman (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 529 ratings
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An ornithologist’s account of his youthful, year-long, cross-country birdwatching adventure: “A fascinating memoir of an obsession.” —Booklist

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.
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  1. Print length
    338 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Mariner Books
  5. Publication date
    April 11, 2006
  6. File size
    6859 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
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  9. Enhanced typesetting
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

As ornithologist Kenn Kaufman recounts in his lively memoir Kingbird Highway, he's managed to do what other birders only dream of doing: take a year and chase winged creatures from one end of the country to another. The year in question was 1973, when Kaufman was 19 years old, and a few dollars and an outstretched thumb could go a long way. Armed with binoculars, notebook, and the blessing of birder patron saint Roger Tory Peterson, Kaufman set out to capture the record for most species spotted in a single year. He came close, closing with 666 species sighted from Alaska to Florida and back again. More important, he racked up a lifetime's worth of adventures on the road. These stories form the heart of his book, a narrative in which spotted redshanks, white-eared hummingbirds, marbled murrelets, and black-capped gnatcatchers are among the chief supporting players.

From Booklist

Kaufman set out on his first solo birding trip when he was 16 years old, on a Greyhound bus, starting in Wichita, Kansas, and ending up in a California jail, for it was illegal for minors to be in that state without adult supervision. So began his quest to set a record: spotting the most North American bird species in a one-year period. Kaufman did just that in 1973, sighting what was then a record 229 species on a grueling hitchhiking trip that took him from Puget Sound to the Florida Keys and the Dry Tortugas in the Gulf of Mexico. Other birding trips followed, from North Dakota to Alaska, from Alaska to Maine, from Maine to Mazatlan in Mexico, and from Arizona to New Jersey. On those arduous trips, too, the author hitchhiked, stopping to work at odd jobs to earn a few dollars. His book is a fascinating memoir of an obsession with birds. George Cohen

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B003K16P46
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mariner Books (April 11, 2006)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 11, 2006
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 6859 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 338 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 529 ratings

About the author

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Kenn Kaufman

Kenn Kaufman

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Kenn Kaufman burst onto the North American birding scene as a teenager in the 1970s, pursuing birds all over the continent, an adventure later chronicled in his cult-classic book KINGBIRD HIGHWAY. After several years as a professional bird tour leader, taking groups to all seven continents, he transitioned to a career as a writer, editor, and illustrator. Most of his energy currently goes into writing books and painting bird portraits. His 13 books include seven titles in his own series, Kaufman Field Guides, designed to encourage beginners by making the first steps in nature study as easy as possible. His next book, THE BIRDS THAT AUDUBON MISSED, will be published in May 2024. Kenn is a field editor for the National Audubon Society and a Fellow of the American Ornithological Society, and the only person to have received the American Birding Association’s lifetime achievement award twice. He lives in Oak Harbor, Ohio, with his wife Kimberly Kaufman, also a dedicated naturalist.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
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Top reviews from the United States

Joy Resor
5.0 out of 5 stars We Loved This So Much
Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2023
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First, I bought this book at a thrift store on a road trip because it looked good. When we returned home, I read it aloud to my partner each evening, and we LOVED this true tale of bird watching. It was written well, organized well, and kept our interest with humor and surprises until the last page. Loving it so much, I bought a new copy for a former man I dated, since he'd enjoy it, too. If you like birds or know a bird watcher, consider reading Kingbird Highway.
3 people found this helpful
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Tobyfan
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant story, well told
Reviewed in the United States on January 19, 2023
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This is an amazing story about the journey of a teenager across the country to try and see as many birds as possible on the slimmest of budgets. It is truly a story of dedication and perseverance. My favorite part was the story of how Kenn traveled to Alaska while hitchhiking on a highway that wasn't even paved yet! I was amazed. This the best and most interesting story about birding that I have ever read. I also like that he touches on other well-known birders he met along the way, such as Victor Emmanuel (whose book I also read and he mentions Kenn) and Ted Parker. I will definitely read this again.
2 people found this helpful
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Marc Baldwin
4.0 out of 5 stars Good story whether you're a birder or not
Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2014
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I wasn't sure how I would like this book because I'm a casual birder and not even in the same galaxy as a birding legend like Kenn Kaufman. But based on some of the reviews that I had read it sounded like it was as much about life as it was about birds.

Kaufman had me hooked from the beginning. A 16-year-old drops out of school to hitch hike around the country and look at birds? With a premise like that, I figured there had to be some adventure worth reading about. It is true that most of the book is based on his actual pursuit of seeing birds, not on the process of thumbing it from coast to coast, but the side stories are entertaining.

As a birder, one of the most enjoyable parts of the book for me was looking at all the birds as he mentions them in the book. I have a bird guide app on my phone and I would pause often to look at pics of the birds and listen to their calls. I felt a little bit like I was part of the adventure.

My favorite part of the book was reading about his journey from boyhood fascination, to chasing a big year, and then back to seeking enjoyment from birding rather than focusing on listing. Indeed, birding is not unlike any other endeavor in that once you start spending more and more time doing it there is a lot of pressure to "get better" or "get serious" about it. I very much appreciated Kaufman's conclusion that listing can suck the fun and enjoyment out of observing birds, as much as a stopwatch and a heart rate monitor can suck the fun out of cycling. If love to watch birds, then you're a birder! You don't have to have expensive binoculars, take vacations to Arizona during migration, or keep a list of what birds you've seen. The important thing is to enjoy what you're doing.

As a guy who considers himself a terrible birder but loves to be outside watching birds, I felt like Kaufman wrote this book to encourage me - and it worked.
21 people found this helpful
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Elizabeth Leven
5.0 out of 5 stars All that is best about birding reminiscences!
Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2024
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I was expecting a book with epic birding moments but this was so much more: a memoir of a different birding era (Kenn is just a few years older than me); a road trip with a difference, a worthy successor to Peterson and Fisher’s ‘Wild America’ and an unexpectedly moving coming of age biography.
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Candace in Phoenix
5.0 out of 5 stars Birder Lives His Dream
Reviewed in the United States on June 23, 2015
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This book was great. I thought Phoebe Snetsinger was obsessed but she was able to do her birding (albeit hers was throughout the world and Kenn's was in North America) with plenty of money to back her travels. Kenn was only 16 when he hit the road to pursue his passion, with his parents' blessings. At the age of 19, when he embarked on his winning Big Year, he was able to spend only about $1,000 for the whole 12 months of crisscrossing the continent for 69,000 miles, much of it hitchhiking, and rolling out his sleeping bag any place he could find. Now one of the world's top bird experts and bird artists, it paid off for him and he has given up listing for the joys of truly learning about birds.

As a birder myself on a far less grand scale, I loved hearing about the birds but I was mostly fascinated by how he lived during his early years. I'm about the same age as Kenn so I understand what the country was like when he was following his dream and I wish I had been into birding back then, too, at such an exciting time. This book makes me want to read more birder autobiographies to explore the obsessiveness they (we) all seem to share. I'd rather be birding but it's hot in Phoenix right now so I'll read about birding for awhile.
One person found this helpful
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Andrew M Heath
5.0 out of 5 stars An America an 80s child never knew
Reviewed in the United States on March 8, 2013
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Other reviewers have already covered the salient points, so let me offer some perspective:

I was born in the early 80s. To me, this book was fascinating not just for the actual big year attempt, but for the cultural anecdotes fillings its pages. In high school during the 90s, there was no such word as "longhairs". Men who wore their hair long weren't perceived as threatening, just lazy, or perhaps excellent at guitar solos!

Hitchhiking? The idea of a few men standing on the edge of a highway overpass waiting for rides is about as foreign a concept to me as the idea of man going to the moon, though both - we younguns are told - did in fact happen.

The world, and America, has changed greatly in the intervening decades. For those of you who enjoy birdwatching and were born in the 80s or even more recently, this book is a fascinating artifact of a time never to return.

Highly recommended.

The only thing missing would be a photo of the author during the year in question so we could see just how ragged he looked. Oh, there are ample descriptions in the text, but a photo at the end of the book would have been perfect.
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Top reviews from other countries

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Andrew
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic story !! Bird is the word !
Reviewed in Canada on January 16, 2024
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Absolutely LOVED this book. Had heard good things about it from birder friends and was not disappointed! Highly recommend reading this one, birder or not!
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Ridgeback
5.0 out of 5 stars A birding classic
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 15, 2017
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What a great read! As a birder I knew of this book as it is occasionally mentioned in other birding sources. It covers a roughly two year period when the author who was still in his teens and with a passion for birding that was quite remarkable for a teenager in 1970's America, sets out on a birding odyssey. As he hitchhikes round the mainland US he recounts his interactions with other birders, the birds he sees, and his experiences on the road. What could have been a boring checklist is so much more due to the descriptions, the flowing narrative and sufficient biographical material to link it all together. It becomes inspiring rather than tedious as many of these types of accounts can become. So much so that my teenage son is now reading it and enjoying it. (He is also a fairly avid birder so that helps!)
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2nimm
5.0 out of 5 stars récit d'aventures ornithologiques passionnant mais mal illustré
Reviewed in France on August 19, 2011
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livre broché souple moyen format papier recyclé récent (2006/1997) racontant la vie d'un vrai "birder" tombé dans la passion ornithologique depuis sa tendre enfance et par la même occasion l'évolution de cette discipline, plus un style de vie qu'un simple hobby au cours des années 70 en amérique du nord; le texte est absolument captivant divisé en 24 chapitres de 6 à 15 pages inaugurés chacun par une carte en n&b retraçant l'itinéraire d'un "voyage" et des oiseaux rencontrés à cette occasion; hormis ces cartes, seules quelques gravures n&b égayent le texte; ce livre passionnera tous les vrais ornithologues (ce terme français est malheureusement bien imprécis et recouvre des réalités trop différentes), ils vibreront au rythme de cette vie aventureuse, oubliant le caractère indigent de l'illustration
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sure2write
4.0 out of 5 stars Extreme birding!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 21, 2013
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This was a fascinating insight into a young man's obsession with breaking the record for the most bird species seen in one year. His travels and experiences across North America are described in an easy to read style.
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Deirdre Dunlin
5.0 out of 5 stars Great bedside reading for any birder
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 7, 2013
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A twitcher's classic. But more than this. An example of a twitcher who comes to realise there's a greater depth to birding and bird science and protection. And what a sory of an intrepid youngster hitchhiking round the states living on very little and sleeping rough. Impressive drive and ability an example to us all. Birders of whatever persuasion must read this one. Not only birders either, the book has much wider appeal as a truly inspirational travel log. Fantastic!
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