Conservation is not just an ideal that we read about; it works.

I consider myself to have been the bridge between the shotgun and the binoculars in bird watching. Before I came along, the primary way to observe birds was to shoot them and stuff them.

Birds, it must be admitted, are the most exciting and most deserving of the vertebrates; they are perhaps the best entre into the study of natural history, and a very good wedge into conservation awareness.

Conservation is not just an ideal that we read about; it works.

Birds are an ecological litmus paper.

I can recognize the calls of practically every bird in North America. There are some in Africa I don't know, though

Not all is doom and gloom. We are beginning to understand the natural world and are gaining a reverence for life - all life.