Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts - Hardcover

by J. Drew Lanham (Author)

"You are a rare bird, easy to see but invisible just the same." That thought is close at hand in Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts, as renowned naturalist and writer J. Drew Lanham explores his obsession with birds and all things wild in a mixture of poetry and prose. He questions vital assumptions taken for granted by so many birdwatchers: can birding be an escape if the birder is not in a safe place? Who is watching him as he watches birds?

With a refreshing balance of reverence and candor, Lanham paints a unique portrait of the natural world: listening to cicadas, tracking sandpipers, towhees, wrens, and cataloging fellow birdwatchers at a conference where he is one of two black birders. The resulting insights are as honest as they are illuminating.

Author Biography

J. Drew Lanham is the author of The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature. He is a birder, naturalist, hunter-conservationist, and an Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Master Teacher at Clemson University. He lives in Seneca, South Carolina.