A "rara avis" in his own right, ornithologist Roger Tory Peterson was a triple-threat illustrator, photographer, and writer whose 1934 Field Guide to the Birds remains the gold standard for excellence. Now, ten years after Peterson's death, this wonderful book collects the best of his columns from Bird Watcher's Digest -- delightfully discursive essays that include profiles of admired colleagues, gorgeously descriptive travelogues, and deeply felt opinions on a variety of nature and wildlife topics. As for the writing, we defy anyone to resist the timeless appeal of prose like this: "The dispassionate brown eyes of the peregrine, more than those of any other bird, have been witness to man's struggle for civilization, from the squalid tents on the steppes of Asia thousands of years ago to the marble halls of European kings in the seventeenth century."