Dawson’s Avian Kingdom: Selected Writings by William Leon Dawson

Edited by Anna Neher

Paperback, ISBN: 978-1-59714-062-1, $16.95
320 pages (6 x 9)

A California Legacy Book

Marauding magpies, saucy blackbirds, and hurtling swifts

A literary feast for any bird lover, this selection of writings from William Leon Dawson’s legendary book The Birds of California is an illumination and a joy. From predators to songsters, birds swooping over ocean cliffs, and birds nesting in desert cacti, Dawson paints portraits that are elegant, idiosyncratic, humorous, and often emotionally moving—portraits based on decades of careful observation and rendered with literary skill.

The Birds of California was an early and influential guide to the 580 species and subspecies of birds found in the state. The original three-volume 1923 edition is today a rare and expensive find. With the publication of Dawson’s Avian Kingdom, the core of Dawson’s great work is for the first time accessible to a larger audience. We can learn to look, as Dawson put it, with the eye of “the poet, the interpreter, the apologist—the mystic, even—the at-all-times bird lover.”

From the Foreword to Dawson’s Avian Kingdom:

“In an age when ‘modern science’ guides our decisions, Dawson reminds us that a connection to the heart remains important—and that a little whimsy never hurt anyone.”—Graham Chisholm, Deputy Director, Audubon California

Excerpt:

Raven (Corvus corax sinuatus):

“Quick-witted, cunning, and audacious, this fowl of sinister aspect has been invested by peoples in all ages with a mysterious and semi-sacred character. His ominous croakings were thought to have prophetic import, while his preternatural shrewdness has made him, with many, a symbol of divine knowledge.”

About the Author:

William Leon Dawson (1873–1928) was a celebrated ornithologist and oölogist (collector of bird eggs). His egg collection became the foundation of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.

About the Editor:

The Western Anna (Anna Marie Cecilia Neher) hails from the Pacific Northwest but has learned to thrive on the urban detritus of East Bay pubs and coffee shops. To learn something of the Anna’s ways, one need merely penetrate the recesses of a used bookstore and wait: singing carelessly to disguise her inquisitive intent, she will soon edge over to peer out at you from behind a neighboring bookshelf.