For forty years, Alan Contreras has studied birds and natural history in the West. In Afield, he recounts his bird-watching experiences? primarily in Oregon, but also in Alaska, Arizona, California, and Texas. Sprinkled with comments made by ornithologists and early explorers of the West, his essays offer elements of natural history, personal memoir, and adventure travel. In the largest sense, Afield is a love story, reaffirming the practice of unhurried observation of nature. It is a chronicle of growing up as a person interested in the natural world. From encounters with Oregon's first...

Poetry by the acclaimed nature writer Alan Contreras of Oregon.

Four poems about love among men: Antinous (two versions by Fernando Pessoa), David and Jonathan (three related poems by Byron Herbert Reece). Antinous has rarely appeared in print in the U.S.