Reveals the lifetime dedication of an expert naturalist who for seventy years has studied birds in tropical America, from Mexico to Peru and Venezuela. A pair of violaceous trogons, the only New World birds known to nest in an arboreal ants' nest; a pair of laughing falcons, the only raptors that might be called friends of small birds; hummingbirds who learn the songs they repeat in courtship assemblies that attract females; soaring kites that catch insects with their feet instead of their bills, as flycatchers do; and other notable birds are covered in Skutch's straightforward but literate style.