Arctic Wings: Birds of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

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* 200 color photos from award-winning nature photographers Subhankar Banerjee, Michio Hoshino, Steven Kazlowski, Arthur Morris, Hugh Rose, and Mark Wilson
* Essays/text contributions by noted writers, biologists, and conservationists including David Allen Sibley, Debbie Miller, Kenn Kaufmann, and President Jimmy Carter
* Life histories of individual bird species from every major group including shorebirds, songbirds, and raptors plus dramatic stories of migration and strategies for survival
* Includes 60-minute CD of bird songs recorded in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by Martyn Stewart of www.naturesound.org

A Buff-breasted sandpiper running along a barrier beach in the Carolinas is only mid-way in an annual journey of incredible magnitude-one that takes it from its nesting ground in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to its winter quarters on the pampas of South America. The Yellow wagtail begins life in a willow thicket in the Arctic but winters in Indonesia, where its return each year signals rice farmers to begin their spring planting. The ecosystems of the world are linked by birds, and nowhere is that more apparent than the Arctic Refuge, where more than 180 species converge from six continents and all fifty states to nest and rear their young. The unique habitats of the Arctic Refuge and the intense Arctic summer produce a rich diet that makes the incredible migrations worthwhile.

Essays include DAVID ALLEN SIBLEY on the grand dance of avian migration and the sense of time and place on the earth that it provides; DEBBIE MILLER tells of how the incredible journey of songbirds from the Arctic Refuge and back connects the world's habitats -- and its people -- together; biologist MARK WILSON shares his story of discovery canoeing down the Refuge's Canning River; STANLEY E. SENNER, Vice President of Audubon Alaska, explains the ecological importance of the region and how oil development has impacted the North Slope; and ROBERT THOMPSON, an Inupiat wildlife guide, reveals the relationship between birds and native culture.

Photographers who contributed to this project: SUBHANKAR BANERJEE, author of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land, has had his images featured in major museums such as the Smithsonian Institute of Natural History and in magazines such as Vanity Fair; MICHIO HOSHINO, whose professional career as a photographer began with publication of Grizzly, which won an Anima Award for distinguished wildlife photography; nature photographer STEVEN KAZLOWSKI, a finalist for Wildlife magazine's 2004 Wildlife Photographer of the Year award, is the author of Alaska Wildlife Impressions and Bears of the North, among other titles; ARTHUR MORRIS specializes in bird photography and has had more than 11,000 of his photos published in magazine such as American Bird, Audubon, National Geographic, Outdoor Photographer and many more; HUGH ROSE has worked as a naturalist guide in Denali National Park for six years and since then has guided natural history trips from Alaska to Antarctica and places in between; MARK WILSON, a staff photographer at the Boston Globe, has returned to the Arctic over and over again, drawn by the amazing light, the incredible birds, and its great sense of space and time.

The book is packaged with a 60-minute CD of bird songs recorded in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by Martyn Stewart of www.naturesound.org. This recording includes individual species tracks in the foreground over layers of ambient background sounds, with the option to search for your favorite birds by numbered track.

Arctic Wings is produced jointly by The Mountaineers Books and Manomet Center for Conservation Science. It is published in the tradition of Seasons of Life and Land-a book that has won critical acclaim and has helped inform the debate over opening the Arctic Refuge to oil drilling.

For more information, visit www.arcticwings.org.