Birds of Point Reyes

A richly illustrated guide celebrates California’s coastal birds and the wonders of witnessing them.

"A compact treasury of natural history knowledge." —Burr Heneman, former executive director of Point Reyes Bird Observatory

"A meditation on beauty and survival." —Amy Tan, author of The Backyard Bird Chronicles

A birding paradise, Point Reyes National Seashore boasts a breathtaking coastline that attracts an array of winged beauties and their flightless fanciers year-round. Both a waystation for feathered vagrants and home to a wealth of native species, this coastal sanctuary is teeming with avian life, and in Birds of Point Reyes expert birder and ornithological illustrator Keith Hansen celebrates this airborne abundance. From the sparrows and cormorants to the hawks and ravens to the wild wanderers who sweep through in vast seasonal migrations, Hansen introduces readers to the wildlife that soar and swirl overhead through over 25 awe-filled portraits of Point Reyes’s birds. Both experienced birdwatchers and less-than-expert birders will delight in Hansen’s reflections, brought vividly to life by full-color artworks that reward the reader’s sustained attention and help to identify the many-splendored species of the region. With this guide Hansen invites readers to imagine the world’s fastest hunt through the eyes of a cliff-dwelling peregrine, to appreciate the evolutionary complexity of the shorebird beaks prodding the sands of Drakes Bay, and to attune to the serenade of birdsong. Grab your binoculars and get ready to see these birds like never before.

Keith Hansen illustrated and coauthored Hansen’s Field Guide to the Birds of the Sierra Nevada (Heyday, 2021), a field guide companion to Birds of the Sierra Nevada: Their Natural History, Status, and Distribution. He is a professional bird illustrator whose images have been featured in Discovering Sierra Birds; Birds of Yosemite and the East Slope; and Natural History of the Point Reyes Peninsula, among other books.