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pp. 289, “Gessner insists that this is not a bird book but, instead, a book about the nature of human happiness. Many of the people in it ‘have turned their attention to things with feathers that fly.’ Gessner had become obsessed with ospreys while on Cape Cod and decided to follow a flock when the flock left at the end of the summer on its annual migration. The birds fly over the eastern U.S., then over Cuba, and spend the winter in South America. Gessner joined a BBC crew making a documentary, traveling illegally into the mountains of Cuba and then into Venezuela. They traveled by car, plane, boat, and on foot to follow these raptors, whose wingspread measures six feet. Gessner describes the birds’ antics and writes about the people he meets along the way.”