"Flight is the essence of birdness. I strive to illustrate the beauty and complexity of avian flight."
-- Peter Cavanagh
100 Flying Birds: Photographing the Mechanics of Flight offers a vivid and varied glimpse into the world of birds. A white-tailed eagle plummeting through a Japanese sky, a brown pelican striking a silhouette against an Ecuadorian sunset, an Atlantic puffin carrying its fish dinner above the Scottish coast, or a keel-billed toucan gliding through a Costa Rican jungle canopy; readers will marvel at the splendor of birds in flight while learning the techniques to capture these gravity-defying moments from a world-class nature photographer.
For each picture, author and photographer Peter Cavanagh shares his most evocative thoughts: the challenges of the shoot, the beauty of the location, and the curiosities of the species. Bird people will enjoy the bird photographs and facts, travelers will gobble up the tales of distant parts, and photographers will absorb the technical details.
Peter Cavanagh has collected 100 beautiful photos spanning a wide range of species. The subjects of each of the 11 chapters include:
Eagles, Hummingbirds, Gulls and Terns, Small Waterbirds, Large Waterbirds, Ducks, Geese and Swans, Raptors, Condors and Corvids, Cranes, Songbirds, Favorites.
"Through his photographic lens, Peter illuminates the beauty, grace and elegance of birds in flight, building on his knowledge and expertise as a biomechanist and avocations as an airplane pilot and photographer.... His lovely photographs are complemented by engaging prose that provides fascinating historical contexts of his subjects, their flight ecology and conservation status, and guidance for aspiring wildlife photographers on best practices and photographic equipment needed to capture the exceptional quality of the images he shares in his book."
-- Andrew A. Biewener, Lyman Professor of Biology, Harvard University
