| Red-Tails in Love: A Wildlife Drama in Central Park | 
 enlarge | Author: Marie Winn
Publisher: Pantheon
Category: Book
List Price: $24.00
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $23.99 (100%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  27 reviews
Sales Rank: 660453
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 305
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.7 x 5.9 x 1.1
ISBN: 0679439978
Dewey Decimal Number: 598.072347471
EAN: 9780679439974
ASIN: 0679439978
Publication Date: March 17, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
The literature of bird watching is full of memoirs set in out-of-the-way, rural locales, but few are set in the heart of big cities such as New York, where Wall Street Journal ornithology columnist Marie Winn hangs her hat. In this delightful account, Winn tells of birding in Central Park with an unlikely band of fellow enthusiasts (including Mary Tyler Moore and Woody Allen). Among her objects of study were a pair of increasingly uncommon wood thrushes who set up their nest in the park's Ramble, treating city dwellers to their "penetrating, flutelike, heart-stoppingly beautiful song: Ee-oh-lee, ee-oh-loo-ee-lee, ee-lay-loo," and a pair of red-tail hawks who courted, mated, and produced offspring, thus quickening the spirits of Manhattanites. Both urbanites and those inclined to country matters will enjoy Winn's gracefully written story of observation and discovery.
Product Description
Marie Winn is our guide into a secret world, a true wilderness in the heart of a city. The scene is New York's Central Park, but the rich natural history that emerges here--the loons, raccoons, woodpeckers, owls, and hundreds of visiting songbirds--will appeal to wildlife lovers everywhere. At its heart is the saga of the Fifth Avenue hawks, which begins as a love story and develops into a full-fledged mystery.
At the outset of our journey we meet the Regulars, a small band of nature lovers who devote themselves to the park and its wildlife. As they watch Pale Male, a remarkable young red-tailed hawk, woo and win his first mate, they are soon transformed into addicted hawk-watchers. From a bench at the park's model-boat pond they observe the hawks building a nest in an astonishing spot--a high ledge of a Fifth Avenue building three floors above Mary Tyler Moore's apartment and across the street from Woody Allen's.
The drama of the Fifth Avenue hawks--hunting, courting, mating, and striving against great odds to raise a family in their unprecedented nest site--is alternately hilarious and heartbreaking. Red-Tails in Love will delight and inspire readers for years to come.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 22 more reviews...
 Who's in love here? August 14, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
There's a lot of love poured out in this book. It flows freely from the New York City hawk watchers, of whom the author is one, for the red-tailed hawks of the title and the myriad bird life in and around Central Park. The story turns around the mating attempts, failures, and successes of a male red-tail hawk, called Pale Male for his light plumage. A common enough nature story, perhaps; except this hawk courts, mates, hunts, and raises young in Manhattan in full binocular-enhanced view of a band of dedicated hawk watchers and, eventually, international media.
If you want a scientific discourse on hawks and their mating habits or the skinny on avian romance from the birds' point of view, don't look for it here. Only as much ornithology is offered as needed to understand why the human participants in the story react to events as they do. The birds are not artificially thrust into the narrator's role; their separateness from our species is not negated by the author's imagination. I respect the author's decision; it fits well with my preference that animals be respected for what they are; not for how they are similar to us, how they entertain us, or how they are useful to us. This decision does mean that readers, like the hawk watchers, can only observe the wildlife drama of the book's subtitle from a distance.
What this rather charming book offers close up is the tale of the watchers themselves, their love of birds, and the informal community that coalesces around their nesting season hawk nest stake-outs. The reader is drawn to these people who love birds and are willing to sacrifice comfort (like warm beds on cold mornings), endure tedium (to watch and wait for signs of hatching), and sometimes put aside their "real" lives (even to the extent of postponing job hunting) to feed their love.
Wanted More Hawk & Less Birder Content March 22, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
For me the book was so-so. There seemed to me to be more energy spent on which birders were standing where, when, and saying which anthromopomorphic statements than there was content on the subject of the book, hawks in/near Central Park. The story of the hawks was intriquing but I didn't feel like I really got a cohesive story about them, it was frequently interupted by the other concerns of the book (Hawkwatchers, Earlybirds, 'Moth'ers, Duckers, Butterflyers, Dragon/Damselflyers...)
 Fun read! March 10, 2008
I bought this book for my husband, then I read it in one day while stuck at the airport. It was a compelling read, good story and interesting information. We live in New York and go to Central Park often, so this made it even more interesting... I am keeping my eyes open for what birds are in the parks near my house. A well written book, I would recommend it.
book review January 16, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Although the book is written in a kind of factual style (e.g. On this day we saw this and this happened. A week later this happened...), I have enjoyed reading it. If you are an animal lover,especially of the bird kind, it is a heartwarming story of a real hawk trying to live and make it in Central Park. That is amazing in itself.
Some people may get a little bogged down in the recounting of the daily activities of the bird watchers who meet in the park. But if you love birds, it is worth it to wade through that. I would buy the book again.
 wonderful story February 11, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I live in Portland Oregon, and have large populations of birds in my back yard, so this was a fun read. Perhaps i will visit NYC someday, and i will bring my glasses! What a nice book!
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