In these delightful meditations, biologist and bird lover Richard Cannings weaves stories of his personal encounters with birds into fascinating descriptions of their behavior, anatomy, and evolution. He muses over the meadowlarks' ability to hide their nests so completely that he has seen only two in a lifetime spent searching for them; the trumpeter swan, as picky as a two-year old, devouring potatoes and carrots but turning up its beak at Brussels sprouts; the northern gannet, with its snowy plumage, black wingtips, and startling blue eyes; the little saw-whet owl, which dabbles in bigamy and even trigamy; and more than two dozen other birds. Covering the entire continent, from the cacophony of a seabird colony on the shores of the Atlantic to a symphony of snow geese on the autumn plains to songbird courtship in the alpine tundra of the Rockies, An Enchantment of Birds informs and entertains, in one fell swoop.

Published in partnership with the David Suzuki Foundation

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Richard Cannings is a renowned naturalist, conservationist and lecturer on birds and bird habitats. He works as a consulting biologist assessing endangered species and organizing bird population surveys, and he can be heard on the CBC Radio 1 program BC Almanac as its regular birding expert. He is the author of An Enchantment of Birds, The Rockies: A Natural History, and Birds of Interior BC and the Rockies and is co-author of British Columbia: A Natural History, Birds of Southwestern British Columbia, and the upcoming Birds of British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest. He lives in Penticton, BC.

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