Books by Kenn Kaufman
Although I contributed to some multi-authored works in the 1980s, the first book that I really consider my own was published in 1990. More than a dozen titles later, I'm still writing.
The Birds That Audubon Missed. Avid Reader Press, Simon & Schuster, New York. 2024.
Raging ambition. Towering egos. Competition under a veneer of courtesy. Heroic effort combined with plagiarism, theft, exaggeration, and fraud. This was the state of bird study in eastern North America during the early 1800s, as a handful of intrepid men raced to find the last few birds that were still unknown to science. The most famous name in the bird world was John James Audubon, who painted spectacular portraits of birds. But although his images were beautiful, creating great art was not his main goal. Instead, he aimed to illustrate (and write about) as many different species as possible, obsessed with trying to outdo his rival, Alexander Wilson. George Ord, a fan and protégé of Wilson, held a bitter grudge against Audubon for years, claiming he had faked much of his information and his scientific claims. A few of Audubon’s birds were pure fiction, and some of his writing was invented or plagiarized. Other naturalists of the era, including Charles Bonaparte (nephew of Napoleon), John Townsend, and Thomas Nuttall, also became entangled in the scientific derby, as they stumbled toward an understanding of the natural world—an endeavor that continues to this day. Despite this intense competition, a few species—including some surprisingly common songbirds, hawks, sandpipers, and more—managed to evade discovery for years. In this book I explored this period in history from a new angle, by considering the birds these people discovered and, especially, the ones they missed.
Kingbird Highway. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1997. Still in print (Mariner Books). Honored as a "Classic" by National Outdoor Book Awards, 2017.
This was the first book I started writing, but not the first to be published. At the age of 16 I dropped out of honors classes in high school and hit the road, hitch-hiking back and forth across North America, from Florida to Alaska, from Maine to Mexico. Not an unusual thing to do in the 1970s, but my motivation was different from that of most kids on the road: I was looking for birds. I was trying to find just as many different bird species as possible. For the better part of four years I was traveling and birding almost constantly, living on about a dollar a day. When I was broke I would do odd jobs to earn a few bucks, and then keep going. I went to amazing places, saw wonderful birds, met the leading bird experts of the day, and generally had the time of my life. When those early travels were winding down it dawned on me that these unique experiences were worth writing about, so I wrote a complete first draft of this book in the late 1970s. That first draft was truly awful, but fortunately I couldn’t find a publisher. I had plenty of time to revise and improve the text before it was finally published 20 years later. It’s gratifying to see that the book has been meaningful for many people, and it’s still in print more than a quarter-century after its publication in 1997. To my surprise, the book was even translated into Swedish by Lennart Nilsson and published in Sweden in 2005 by ellerströms, with an introductory essay by publisher and birder Jonas Ellerström. Quotes: “This story is told so naturally that I felt I was in the presence of a mind that is completely original.” – Tracy Kidder “Kingbird Highway is as good a travel and adventure story as any I’ve ever read, and the birds lend it a spice that makes it just about the perfect book.” – Laura Erickson
Peterson Field Guide to Advanced Birding. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1990.
For much of the 1980s I was focused on the most challenging bird identifications: observing birds in the field, reading technical works, and studying thousands of specimens in museums all over the United States. I distilled this research into 35 chapters, each addressing a particular group, from loons to flycatchers to sparrows. During this time I received good advice and encouragement from the late Roger Tory Peterson, editor of this field guide series, who coached me on my pen-and-ink drawings and on some of the more obscure birds. When the guide was published in 1990, it was the only book available to provide many of these ID details. Today, of course, birders can find a wealth of such information online and in specialized books about bird groups, so the guide is only of historical interest.
Lives of North American Birds. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1996.
This book was intended not as a guide for naming the birds, but a reference for understanding them -- a handy one-volume encyclopedia on the fascinating lives of all North American birds. It included information about more than 900 birds: complete life histories for 680 species that occur regularly in North America north of the Mexican border, and shorter accounts for more than 230 others that visit occasionally. I attempted to give every important detail about the lives of birds: what they eat, where they build their nests, how many eggs they lay, what habitat they choose, when they migrate, their conservation status, and much more. At the time I was working on the book in the mid 1990s, such bird behavior notes were hard to find. I spent months combing through books and scientific journals, learning a tremendous amount about birds in the process. The resulting book was popular for several years. Now that so much more information is available on the internet, the book is out of print. However, much of the text has been adapted for use on the National Audubon Society's online guide to birds, so it continues to be useful.
The Kaufman Field Guides series. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Co., Boston, between 2000 and 2015.
For almost two decades I was immersed in producing a series of nature identification guides, the Kaufman Field Guides, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. My first goal was to produce guides that would be easy to use, so that the first steps in learning about nature could be as smooth as possible. During the 1990s I’d seen how bird guides were becoming more complicated and detailed, aiming to capture the attention of expert birders—but the experts weren’t the ones who needed field guides the most. So from the start, my guides were aimed at being helpful for beginners. I began working on the first one (Birds of North America) in 1997, developing a method of illustration in which I started with photographs but then edited them heavily in Photoshop. Ordinarily it’s tricky to use photos for illustration, because differences in lighting can affect the colors so much—the same gray bird might look bluish or brown in different light conditions, for example, or lighter or darker than it really is. By digitally editing all the photos, I could make them directly comparable. Some other nature books have used this method in the years since, but it was a brand new approach when the bird guide was published in October 2000. For the first four books in the series, I was working closely with photographers Rick and Nora Bowers, who took many of the photos and did most of the research to find the others. I also had the benefit of working with other expert naturalists as coauthors and contributors, so I was constantly learning throughout the process.
Published 2000, updated 2005, with some later text updates.
With Jim P. Brock. 2003, updated 2005.
With Nora Bowers and Rick Bowers. 2004.
Translated by Patricia Manzano Fischer; notes by Hector Gomez de Silva. 2005.
With Eric R. Eaton. 2007.
Published 2011.
With Kimberly Kaufman. 2012.
With Jeff Sayre and Kimberly Kaufman. 2015.
A Season on the Wind: Inside the World of Spring Migration. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Co., Boston, 2019.
Every spring, billions of birds sweep north, driven by ancient instincts to return to their breeding grounds. This vast parade often goes unnoticed, except in a few places where these small travelers concentrate in large numbers. One such place is along Lake Erie in northwestern Ohio. I moved to this area in 2005, and soon became captivated by the spectacle of spring migration. The peak of the northward migration season here is so remarkable that it attracts bird watchers from around the globe, and in recent years it has hosted one of the world’s biggest birding festivals. After living in the area and becoming deeply involved in the local birding phenomenon, I knew I would have to write a book about it. Millions of winged migrants pass through the region, some traveling thousands of miles, performing epic feats of endurance and navigating with stunning accuracy. But the situation isn’t stable. Climate change threatens to disrupt the delicate balance between birds, seasons, and habitats—but some forms of “green” energy also pose threats to bird populations, so we find ourselves in a challenging place as we try to protect these priceless habitats for migrants.
Purchasing copies of these books
I'm not set up to sell copies of my own books, but the ones still in print are readily available in many book stores as well as in shops at nature centers, wild bird feeding stores, and so on. They are also available on all the standard online sources.
Autographed copies are available through the Black Swamp Bird Observatory. I stop by their offices every week, and I can sign and personalize books ordered through them. Their online shop is at this link.