Birds by the Shore
Observing the Natural Life of the Atlantic Coast
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Narrated by:
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Jennifer Ackerman
About this listen
From the best-selling author of The Genius of Birds, the revised and reissued edition of her beloved book of essays describing her forays along the Delaware shore
For three years, Jennifer Ackerman lived in the small coastal town of Lewes, Delaware, in the sort of blue-water, white-sand landscape that draws summer crowds up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Birds by the Shore is a book about discovering the natural life at the ocean's edge: the habits of shorebirds and seabirds, the movement of sand and water, the wealth of creatures that survive amid storm and surf. Against this landscape's rhythms, Ackerman revisits her own history - her mother's death, her father's illness, and her hopes to have children of her own.
This portrait of life at the ocean's edge will be relished by anyone who has walked a beach at sunset, or watched a hawk hover over a winter marsh, and felt part of the natural world. With a quiet passion and friendly, generous intelligence, it explores the way that landscape shapes our thoughts and perceptions and shows that home ground is often where we feel the deepest response to the planet.
©2019 Jennifer Ackerman (P)2019 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Arresting and provocative... A joy to read.” (The Washington Post)
“Ackerman’s glimpses of the Delaware shore are full of the kind of fascinating detail that makes good nature writing as engaging as any fiction.” (Smithsonian Magazine)
“Like walking along an ocean beach with a knowledgeable, articulate friend, reading this personalized natural history is a restorative experience.” (Publishers Weekly)
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When painter Winslow Homer first sailed into the Gulf of Mexico, he was struck by its "special kind of providence." Indeed, the Gulf presented itself as America's sea - bound by geography, culture, and tradition to the national experience - and yet, there has never been a comprehensive history of the Gulf until now. And so, in this rich and original work that explores the Gulf through our human connection with the sea, environmental historian Jack E. Davis finally places this exceptional region into the American mythos in a sweeping history that extends from the Pleistocene age to the 21st century.
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Decolonize gulf history
- By Jesse Carr on 05-02-18
By: Jack E. Davis
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The Old Ways
- A Journey on Foot
- By: Robert Macfarlane
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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In this exquisitely written book, Robert Macfarlane sets off from his Cambridge, England, home to follow the ancient tracks, holloways, drove roads, and sea paths that crisscross both the British landscape and its waters and territories beyond. The result is an immersive, enthralling exploration of the ghosts and voices that haunt old paths, of the stories our tracks keep and tell, and of pilgrimage and ritual. Told in Macfarlane’s distinctive voice, The Old Ways folds together natural history, cartography, geology, archaeology, and literature.
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A perfect pairing of prose and narrator
- By chris on 11-05-12
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Atlas of a Lost World
- By: Craig Childs
- Narrated by: Craig Childs
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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From the author of Apocalyptic Planet, an unsparing, vivid, revelatory travelogue through prehistory that traces the arrival of the First People in North America 20,000 years ago and the artifacts that enable us to imagine their lives and fates. This book upends our notions of where these people came from and who they were.
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Blaaaa
- By Josh NJ on 07-26-18
By: Craig Childs
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Wilderness Essays
- By: John Muir
- Narrated by: Steven Brand
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Part of John Muir's appeal to modern audiences is that he not only explored the American West and wrote about its beauties but also fought for their preservation. His successes dot the landscape and are evident in all the natural features that bear his name: forests, lakes, trails, and glaciers. Here collected are some of Muir's finest wilderness essays, ranging in subject matter from Alaska to Yellowstone, from Oregon to the High Sierra.
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Beautiful writing, but fairly shallow narrative
- By Lauren on 07-26-20
By: John Muir
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The Voyage of the Beagle
- By: Charles Darwin
- Narrated by: Barnaby Edwards
- Length: 25 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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I hate every wave of the ocean', the seasick Charles Darwin wrote to his family during his five-year voyage on the H.M.S. Beagle. It was this world-wide journey, however, that launched the scientists career.
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High Adventure - Well Written
- By wbiro on 09-16-17
By: Charles Darwin
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The Log from the Sea of Cortez
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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The Log from the Sea of Cortez is the exciting day-by-day account of Steinbeck's trip to the Gulf of California with biologist Ed Ricketts. Drawn from the longer Sea of Cortez, it is a wonderful combination of science, philosophy, and high-spirited adventure.
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Beautiful Book
- By Stuart on 10-07-17
By: John Steinbeck
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The Beak of the Finch
- A Story of Evolution in Our Time
- By: Jonathan Weiner
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Rosemary and Peter Grant and those assisting them have spend 20 years on Daphne Major, an island in the Galapagos, studying natural selection. They recognize each individual bird on the island, when there are 400 at the time of the author's visit or when there are over a thousand. They have observed about 20 generations of finches - continuously.Jonathan Weiner follows these scientists as they watch Darwin's finches and come up with a new understanding of life itself.
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Fascinating in-depth look at evolution in action
- By Philip on 05-15-11
By: Jonathan Weiner
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The Founding Fish
- By: John McPhee
- Narrated by: John McPhee
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Few fish are as beloved, or as obsessed over, as the American shad. Although shad spend most of their lives in salt water, they enter rivers by the hundreds of thousands in the spring and swim upstream heroic distances in order to spawn, then return to the ocean.
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Read and released.
- By Darwin8u on 11-14-14
By: John McPhee
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The Hidden Life of Trees
- What They Feel, How They Communicate - Discoveries from a Secret World
- By: Peter Wohlleben
- Narrated by: Mike Grady
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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How do trees live? Do they feel pain or have awareness of their surroundings? Research is now suggesting trees are capable of much more than we have ever known. In The Hidden Life of Trees, forester Peter Wohlleben puts groundbreaking scientific discoveries into a language everyone can relate to.
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Tree Hugger
- By Darwin8u on 04-18-19
By: Peter Wohlleben
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The Secret Life of Lobsters
- By: Trevor Corson
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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In this intimate portrait of an island lobstering community and an eccentric band of renegade biologists, journalist Trevor Corson escorts the listener onto the slippery decks of fishing boats, through danger-filled scuba dives, and deep into the churning currents of the Gulf of Maine to learn about the secret undersea lives of lobsters.
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Uninteresting and poorly written
- By Alexandra DuSablon on 01-10-20
By: Trevor Corson
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What listeners say about Birds by the Shore
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Thomas Creel
- 05-16-19
Natural History of the Delaware Coast
Was expecting more about birds in this title, but the content was more towards other forms of natural life in and around the Delaware shore. It was very enlightening from that perspective.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Sully
- 11-22-23
Thoughtful and lyrical
The personal experiences of the author are meshed beautifully with good science and lovingly detailed observation, delightfully narrated.
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-01-19
Learned a lot
A lot more than birds is covered in this book. The author shares an intimate knowledge of the shore with the reader. It gives you a greater appreciation of the shore and a different way to look at things.
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- Clifford H.
- 02-17-21
Not really about birds.
This is an autobiography interesting but not enough bird info. Should not be listed a nature book.
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- Marc
- 07-01-22
Good choice
Very interesting set of themes. The book is not exclusively about birds, but it captures where our minds go when we are lucky enough to be observing them.
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- dexter
- 09-15-23
Title is misleading. Not really about birds
Struggled to finish. Should have read description more thoroughly. Author very descriptive. Really was looking for bird natural history
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- Max
- 10-17-23
Not a book for birders
If you're going into this to learn more about shorebirds or "birds by the shore" then look elsewhere. If you're looking for a book about salt marsh ecosystems or the Delaware coast then this is for you. Disappointed by the misleading title and cover image of an American Oystercatcher..
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- Robbie Hail
- 11-29-21
Hard to finish
I started this book in hopes it would interest me but it didn't. Some books aren't for everyone this one definitely isn't for me.
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