Down to the nitty gritty

“Feeding the birds is also a form of prayer…”

Pope Pius XII

If you were into birding this book was a game changer. This is a rare first edition of A guide to Finding Birds West of the Mississippi, written in 1953 by Olin Sewall Pettingill. A later book dealt with the east. Pettingill’s book changed the pastime of birding forever. Many publications scientifically documented bird species across the world. Uniformly the description of locations were vague, vast, inaccurate and unhelpful. By 1953 the middle class was mobile – cars, trains, planes and cameras at their disposal. They wanted to see these birds up close. Pettingill with this book gave exact, practical information about locations to find these birds. The impact of these guides was such that by 1956, of 750 North American bird species, one amateur birder had documented seeing 598 in a single year. To find a copy of this book on Ebay is rare, they often had a hard life out in the field. #christmaspresenttime #letsmakelemonade