Acknowledgments

I thank the many researchers and educators who welcomed me into their work and blessed me with their expertise, including Steven Ackers, Tim Coonan, Adam Dillon, Allen Fish, Natasha Hagemeyer, Ryan Harmon, Martha Henderson, Peter Impara, Walter Koenig, Lyndal Laughlan, Lindsey MacDonald, Katherine McEachern, Libby Mills, Gene Myers, Ida Naughton, Mickey Pardo, Jackie Randall, Jon Reidel, Nicholas Stranger, Frederick Swanson, Vincent Voegeli, Chris Walter, Erik Walters, and Step Wilson. I also thank the following Golden Gate Raptor Observatory (GGRO) Hawkwatch dayleaders, not only for including me in their counts, but also for their long-term contributions to citizen science: Jon Altemus, Tim Behr, Christine Carino, Lewis Cooper, Dennis Davison, Joshua Haiman, Mary Kenney, Horacio Mena, Kim Meyer, Brian O’Laughlin, Bob Power, James Raives, Laury Rosenthal, and Step Wilson. Regrettably, beyond the GGRO dayleaders, I did not record names of more than a hundred research assistants, interns, citizen scientists, graduate students, and administrative staff with whom I rubbed elbows during my time in the field. It was a privilege to share in their enthusiasm for their projects and their love of natural history, and I apologize that I’m unable to list them all here.

Thanks to the following field stations I visited and the residencies they extended me, and to the foundations, conservancies, and/or universities that support them: Hastings Natural History Reservation; Santa Cruise Island Reserve; Golden Gate Raptor Observatory; H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest; Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature and the Written Word; and the Environmental Learning Center of the North Cascades Institute. Thanks also to Santa Clara University for granting me sabbatical time to research this book. And thanks to the Whitely Center of Friday Harbor Marine Laboratories of the University of Washington for affording me time as a Whitely Scholar to attend to revisions after the peer review process.

Thanks to the anonymous peer reviewers who contributed their time to making this a better book. Enormous thanks to Kitty Liu, the editor of Com-stock Publishing Associates, for whom a more appropriate title would be “guardian angel.” Thanks also to Regina Ryan, my agent, who helped keep this molehill from transmogrifying into a mountain. Thanks as well to the dream team at Cornell University Press who once again helped make a book of my scribbled field notes, especially senior production editor Susan P. Specter, copy editor Marie Flaherty-Jones, and acquisitions assistant Meagan Dermody. And, of course, a heartfelt thanks to my friend Tom Fleischner, the executive director of the Natural History Institute, for the kindness of providing a fore-word to this book.

Finally, I am forever grateful to Carol, the love of my life, for continuing to endure my wifeless wanderings through the wilderness in search of a book. Thank you, again, for the many ways in which you inspire and support my writing.