I live in New York City so when I was invited to the first annual Tucson Book Festival to talk about The Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature I jumped at the chance. After all, I could combine books and birds, which is what life is all about. (People are nice too.)

By Sam Fried

I’d never been to a birding festival before when I was invited to give a keynote talk about my book, The Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature at the Space Coast Birding Festival in Florida last week. The festival, in Titusville, Florida, is an extraordinary gathering of birding and photographic talent – Pete Dunne, Bill Thompson III, Kevin Karlson, Arthur Morris and many more–and a devoted population of bird-seeking, nature loving, binocular-toting attendees.