Bird Migration Through the Eyes of a Master

A review by Laura Kammermeier

A Season on the Wind: Inside the World of Spring Migration, by Kenn Kaufman

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019

282 pages, hardcover

ABA Sales–Buteo Books 14936

Kenn Kaufman’s Season on the Wind: Inside the World of Spring Migration is a deeply personal look at the phenomenon of bird migration, presented in engaging and observant detail by a keen naturalist with a lifetime of knowledge about birds and their movements.

Written about and from his home in Oak Harbor, Ohio, Kaufman’s latest book focuses on bird migration along nearby western Lake Erie, a critical staging ground for birds moving north in spring. Writing with the intense gaze and curiosity of a master birder, Kaufman recounts both the remarkable feats of strength those birds perform each year and humanity’s role in ensuring their survival.

As Kaufman relates the arrivals and departures and the subtle shifts in behaviors of spring migrants, it’s easy to believe you’re standing behind his binoculars. You see what he sees. But the prologue shows that the author can think like a bird, too. “Pilgrims at the Gates of Sunrise” offers a fascinating insight into the life of neotropical migrants “scattered in a million hiding places, biding their time,” until after a fresh rain and a southerly wind they rise “all at once” to take to the sky, swarming north. Kaufman follows their journey around the arcs of shorelines, the bends of rivers, the rise of mountains, and through the confusion of blinding lights, sharp blades, and glaring windows as they finally come to rest and refuel, storing fat reserves to help them survive the next leg of their journey. With its GoPro-esque perspective, the prologue provides an aerial and intimate view of a bird’s flight—hold on to your hat—while demonstrating the dangers attendant on the migrants’ indomitable urge for going on their way.

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