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BIRD WATCHING AND WRITING ARE BEST DONE SOLITARILY. However, making a book about the two may involve, among other things, suggestions and corrections, nudgings and judgings, and companionship of friends and kindred souls who critique and act as real or imagined sounding boards. In this case, they included (in no particular order) Alan Burger, Andrea Lawrence, Paul Spitzer, Lillian Reade, John Alcock, Margaret McVey, Greg Fell, Dean Leslie, Charles Sewall, Glenn Booma, Albert Reingewirtz, Andrea Lawrence, John Marzluff, Peter Miller, Duane and Nancy Leavitt, Lance Lichtensteiger, Alexandra and Garrett Conover, Joel Babb, and Lynn Jennings. Of these I acknowledge especially John Alcock for reading a draft of the manuscript and making valuable technical suggestions. I also thank my agent, Sandra Dijkstra, and Lynn Jennings, who have often nudged me in the right direction and helped me keep on course. I give sincere thanks to the editors and production staff of the publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, in this case specifically Camille Smith and Deanne Urmy, whose critical watchful eyes were in many cases more perceptive than mine. Last but not least, I have profited greatly from the generous support of Craig Neff and Pamelia Markwood, of the Naturalist’s Notebook of Seal Harbor, Maine, for digitizing, archiving, and storing almost all of my illustrations and making the appropriate ones conveniently available to be used for this publication.