For the Birds

Do you have one of those field guides by Roger Tory Peterson? The one to help identify birds?

 Have you ever wondered about who Mr. Peterson was? How he came to be the author of such a book? I never even thought about it until the other day when Lydia brought home a book from the library particularly for Grace, our bird lover. It was such a cold windy day and I wasn’t feeling very well. My husband sat on the couch with me and some of our children nestled around us as he read to us, “For the Birds: The Life of Roger Tory Peterson” written by Peggy Thomas and illustrated by Laura Jacques. I love big colorful pictures and the illustrations in this book are amazing! And I love it when my husband reads to us!

The book is about “Professor Nuts Peterson” as some of the kids at his school called him. The story starts out when he was a young boy with very few friends preferring the more friendly creatures from nature. As Roger grows, so does his love for birds and art. When he was older, he was drafted in the army and continued his art even then… in the bathroom!

There is a wealth of information in this book. It left me a host of key words to further our studies:

*  Bird-Lore magazine, a Junior Audubon leaflet

*  “Two Little Savages” by Ernest Thompson Seton

*  Louis Agassiz Fuertes, another famous bird artist

*  DDT a pesticide banned in 1972

*  It also makes me want to go and visit the American Museum of Natural History   

    in New York

*  The book uses lots of metaphors throughout that are easily understood by
    young audiences.

*  And especially, it makes me want to study the birds even closer!

It sure inspired us to get out our own copy out of Peterson's "A Field Guide to Western Birds" copyrighted in 1961 (orig 1941). I have illustrated my own dust cover for our book.

For my birthday, my husband bought me a nice camera and I hope to make great use of it zooming in closer at the birds who come to eat from our feeder.