Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill & Ballantine Books (Paperback)
Return Of The Osprey
A Season of Flight and Wonder
Overview:
For six luminous months–an entire nesting season–David Gessner immersed himself in the lives of the magnificent osprey’s that had returned to his seagirt corner of Cape Cod. In this marvelous book–part memoir, part paean to a once-endangered species, part natural history of the Cape–Gessner recounts the many discoveries he made in the course of that magical season.
Hailed by Roger Tory Peterson as the symbol of the New England coast, the osprey all but vanished during the 1950s and ‘60s because of the ravages of DDT. But now these breathtaking birds are returning. Writing with passion, humor, and a reverence for the natural world, Gessner interweaves the stories of the nesting osprey pairs he observed with the narrative of his own readjustment to life on a windblown, beautiful, and increasingly developed landscape he had known as a child.
For Gessner, spotting an osprey dive for fish at forty miles an hour becomes a lesson in patience and focus, watching the birds build their nests illustrates the vital task of making a home, and following the chicks’ attempts to fly shows him the value of letting go.
A story of recovery and connection, Return of the Osprey celebrates one of nature’s most remarkable creatures as well as our own limitless capacity for wonder.
For Gessner, spotting an osprey dive for fish at forty miles an hour becomes a lesson in patience and focus, watching the birds build their nests illustrates the vital task of making a home, and following the chicks’ attempts to fly shows him the value of letting go.
A story of recovery and connection, Return of the Osprey celebrates one of nature’s most remarkable creatures as well as our own limitless capacity for wonder.
Press & Reviews For Return Of The Osprey
A much earlier book, Return of the Osprey, wove together the personal with the ornithological and the literary in a manner that would later be made well known by Helen MacDonald’s wonderful H is for Hawk. It was chosen as a top ten book of the year by The Boston Globe, whose reviewer called it “a classic of American nature writing.”
“Gessner’s witnessing of an osprey’s dive—a wing-folded plunge of 50 feet or more, talons extended at the last moment to spear a fish and carry it to the surface and then aloft—is the obvious high point of his season observing ospreys in Brewster and Dennis and the nearby waters of Cape Cod. But it is the mark of how fine a nature writer Gessner is that his description of the more prosaic activity of nest-building is as perfectly realized as the accounts of the thrilling dives. Return of the Osprey can, on those grounds alone, claim a place among the classics of American nature writing.…A reader could put “Return of the Osprey” aside at this point and feel the satisfaction that comes at the end of a memorable book. But Gessner has only been waiting for his chance for him, and the ospreys, to dazzle. And when it comes, Gessner puts you right there.” — The Boston Globe
“This beautifully told story of a season with birds of prey makes for engrossing reading as we learn about osprey life from a master essayist.” — Booklist (Boxed Starred Review)
“It was David Gessner’s good fortune to become obsessively interested in ospreys, and it is ours that he writes about them with such clarity, elegance, and passion that this book becomes an instant classic of natural history. It is also a work of great spiritual power…This is a book to read, reread, and remember for a long time.” — John S. Major, Senior Editor, Book-of-the-Month Club
“Gessner’s Osprey soars with detail and a sense of wonder.” — The Miami Herald
“A year well spent and carefully recorded: heedful, respectful and filled with the romance of being out of doors.” — Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
“A naturalist’s jewel…Gessner provides insights into the history of the great sea bird of prey that will delight both the committed birder and the general reader.” — Publisher’s Weekly
Gessner’s Osprey soars with detail and a sense of wonder By the end of the book, you feel as if you’ve been out there with Gessner much of the time, shivering in the woods, mucking through the marsh, kayaking upriver to an isolated nest site. It’s strangely satisfying, imparting a sense of the profound. And you don’t even have to venture outdoors to experience it.” — The San Diego Union-Tribune
