For the Love of Birds

Rating:
Summary: Will Change the Way You See the World Around You
Review: I've never been a bird watcher per se, but reading Kay Charter's account of her life with birds has opened my eyes to these wonderful creatures. Who would have thought that a plot of land just over forty acres could hold such a variety of songbirds, or that such a charming little book could change forever the way one sees the world!

Rating:
Summary: Feathers and then some
Review: Kay Charter is a great storyteller. Her scenes come alive with the sights and sounds of nature. You can visualize what she writes. And, you can feel her passion for Mother Nature's creatures.

"For the Love of Birds" is her personal journey of how she and her husband, Jimmy, established a 47-acre sanctuary for migrating and nesting songbirds in northern Michigan.

Shortly after purchasing the property, they built a three-car garage to store the tools and all their worldly possessions while building a house. But, lightning hit the garage before the house was built and completely destroyed everything.

"Losing all our possessions in a fire was painful, but it wasn't, as some suggested, a tragedy," says Kay. "No lives were lost...no one was even hurt. And the habitat remained untouched. That was a tremendous blessing in the middle of our unfortunate experience. If the trees had burned, we would never have lived long enough to see them grow back."

After rebuilding, Kay worked as a freelance writer and Jimmy developed a profitable carpentry business. But, tragedy struck again, when Jimmy fell from the rain-slippery ladder on their travel trailer, while they were in Tucson. He shattered a vertebra and his wrist. His days of moving his construction equipment from client to client were over.

To make it, they turned their house into a "bed and breakfast" and whenever they were booked, lived in their travel trailer. Kay increased her freelance assignments and went to work in a gift shop and as a cleaning person at a local motel. As she says, we did it "all for the love of birds."

Kay and Jimmy enhanced their property by planting hundreds of pine, hemlock and cedar saplings and by installing nest boxes and nest platforms. In the eight years they have owned the property they have observed at least 52 species of nesting birds. Included are Black-bill Cuckoos, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, Indigo Buntings, and Baltimore Orioles. They've also seen an additional hundred birds stop off at their sanctuary.

From the house, they've seen Phoebes feeding fledglings in the cherry trees, Ruffed Grouse plucking grapes from vines, American Woodcock poking for worms in the earth and an up-close look at a Cooper's Hawk .

The numbers and different species of visiting birds has grown each year. Kay's experiences with chickadees, swallows, kingbirds, hummingbirds and bluebirds are memorable as are many other episodes in the sanctuary. During the winter, they are usually off to Texas, Arizona and California to follow the birds on their migration routes.

The book is beautifully illustrated with wonderful drawings by Michigan wildlife artist Thomas Ford. "For the Love of Birds" has something for everyone from those new to nature literature to the avid birder. I recommend it to anyone who "listens" to nature.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Nature Book
Review: Kay Charter is a great storyteller. Her scenes come alive with the sights and sounds of nature. You can visualize what she writes. And, you can feel her passion for Mother Nature's creatures.

"For the Love of Birds" is her personal journey of how she and her husband, Jimmy, established a 47-acre sanctuary for migrating and nesting songbirds in northern Michigan.

Shortly after purchasing the property, they built a three-car garage to store the tools and all their worldly possessions while building a house. But, lightning hit the garage before the house was built and completely destroyed everything.

"Losing all our possessions in a fire was painful, but it wasn't, as some suggested, a tragedy," says Kay. "No lives were lost...no one was even hurt. And the habitat remained untouched. That was a tremendous blessing in the middle of our unfortunate experience. If the trees had burned, we would never have lived long enough to see them grow back."

After rebuilding, Kay worked as a freelance writer and Jimmy developed a profitable carpentry business. But, tragedy struck again, when Jimmy fell from the rain-slippery ladder on their travel trailer, while they were in Tucson. He shattered a vertebra and his wrist. His days of moving his construction equipment from client to client were over.

To make it, they turned their house into a "bed and breakfast" and whenever they were booked, lived in their travel trailer. Kay increased her freelance assignments and went to work in a gift shop and as a cleaning person at a local motel. As she says, we did it "all for the love of birds."

Kay and Jimmy enhanced their property by planting hundreds of pine, hemlock and cedar saplings and by installing nest boxes and nest platforms. In the eight years they have owned the property they have observed at least 52 species of nesting birds. Included are Black-bill Cuckoos, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, Indigo Buntings, and Baltimore Orioles. They've also seen an additional hundred birds stop off at their sanctuary.

From the house, they've seen Phoebes feeding fledglings in the cherry trees, Ruffed Grouse plucking grapes from vines, American Woodcock poking for worms in the earth and an up-close look at a Cooper's Hawk .

The numbers and different species of visiting birds has grown each year. Kay's experiences with chickadees, swallows, kingbirds, hummingbirds and bluebirds are memorable as are many other episodes in the sanctuary. During the winter, they are usually off to Texas, Arizona and California to follow the birds on their migration routes.

The book is beautifully illustrated with wonderful drawings by Michigan wildlife artist Thomas Ford. "For the Love of Birds" has something for everyone from those new to nature literature to the avid birder. I recommend it to anyone who "listens" to nature.

Rating:
Summary: Great reading, one chapter at a time
Review: Kay Charter's book is a well-written story of a life dedicated to following one of the roads less traveled in our society - the road leading towards helping some facet of nature at the expense of accumulating conventional material wealth. In Kay's life, that road she chose to travel led to helping birds. In a series of marvelous vignettes she describes how her choice of roads unfurled before her over the past twenty years as she traveled around the country. Each chapter is very well-written. Most of them make a good point without being preachy. The book is easy to read in snatches of time here and there or in a few longer readings. Reading this book is well worth the time invested.

Rating:
Summary: Enriching, Engrossing, A Must Read
Review: This was one of those rare books that I couldn't put down. Kay Charter shares not only her deep love of birds, but her moving story of the sheer determination it took to provide our native birds a sanctuary in Northern Michigan. Her words are a call for not only birders, but for all to awaken to our responsibility to keeping wildlife off the endangered list by *active* awareness. A trully wonderful read.

Rating:
Summary: A great read.
Review: What a great book to read. I couldn't put it down. Even if you are only mildly interested in our "feathered friends", you should read this book.

Rating:
Summary: A great read.
Review: What a great book to read. I couldn't put it down. Even if you are only mildly interested in our "feathered friends", you should read this book.

Rating:
Summary: What an inspiration!
Review: When I first picked up this book, I was impressed by the beautiful feel of the cover and the subtle, beautiful artwork. Kay Charter's stories inside matched the effort put into the quality printing. With a delightful blend of humor and candor, Kay tells of her decision to give up a "comfortable" retirement and opt instead for a meaningful retirement devoted to her wildlife sanctuary. These aren't sugar-coated anecdotes of life with birds. Kay gets down and dirty with the predators in order to protect her beloved and rare species, making the book all the more thought-provoking. Bird lovers will be inspired and entertained; non-birders will learn a tremendous amount about birds and the people who love them.