Birding with a Purpose: Of Raptors, Gabboons, and Other Creatures

Ames: Iowa State UP, 1984. First edition. Hardcover. Near fine/Fine. Signed on the title page by Hamerstrom and by the illustrator Jack Oar. Uncommon signed (her first book, An Eagle to the Sky, is common signed, but her other books seem the opposite). 

Birding with a Purpose is Hamerstrom's third memoir, following up on her exploration of her prairie chicken field work in Strictly for the Chickens with this book that's more generally about her passion for birds and her work especially with raptors. Her humor abides again. Hamerstrom broke away from an elite--and as she saw it, effete--background in Boston to become an important woman in ecology and conservation, the only woman to earn a graduate degree from Aldo Leopold (who encouraged her toward those chickens).  Ultimately she was the author of a dozen books and more than 150 scientific papers. She twice won the Wildlife Society Award. With her late husband Frederick, she also won the 1971 National Wildlife Federation Award for Distinguished Service to Conservation, and she is a member of the Wisconsin Writers Hall of Fame. See her New York Times obit for more.

Illustrated with photos and drawings throughout. A near fine book on account of one bump to lower front board edge, otherwise fine in a fine jacket, unread.