Red-Tails in Love: A Wildlife Drama in Central Park.

WINN, Marie.

$475.00

Item Number: 148001

New York: Pantheon Books, 1998.

First edition of this “engaging work…Dr. Zhivago with feathers” (The Boston Globe). Octavo, original half cloth, cartographic endpapers. Presentation copy, warmly inscribed by the author in the year of publication on the half-title page, “For Anne and Reed, who were there at the Hawk Bench when it all began, with warmest regards, Marie Winn 7/11/98.” Fine in a fine dust jacket. Jacket illustration by Tomar Levine.

The scene of this enchanting (and true) story is the Ramble, an unknown wilderness deep in the heart of New York's fabled Central Park. There an odd and amiable band of nature lovers devote themselves to observing and protecting the park's rich wildlife. When a pair of red-tailed hawks builds a nest atop a Fifth Avenue apartment house across the street from the model-boat pond, Marie Winn and her fellow "Regulars" are soon transformed into obsessed hawkwatchers. The hilarious and occasionally heartbreaking saga of Pale Male and his mate as they struggle to raise a family in their unprecedented nest site, and the affectionate portrait of the humans who fall under their spell will delight and inspire readers for years to come. "A sublime lesson in adaptability, hope, and wild-bred devotion. It'll make you look to the skies, no matter where you live" (Carl Hiaasen).