Always a popular group of birds, raptors symbolise freedom and fierceness, and in Pete Dunne's definitive guide, these traits are portrayed in hundreds of stunning colour photographs showing raptors up close, in flight, and in action – fighting, hunting, and nesting. These gorgeous photographs enhance the comprehensive, authoritative text, which goes far beyond identification to cover raptor ecology, behaviour, conservation, and much more. In returning to his forte and his first love, Pete Dunne has crafted a benchmark book on raptors: the first place to turn for any question about these highly popular birds, whether it's what they eat, where they live, or how they behave.
Pete Dunne forged a bond with nature as a child and has been studying hawks for more than forty years. He has written fifteen books and countless magazine and newspaper columns. He was the founding director of the Cape May Bird Observatory and now serves as New Jersey Audubon's Birding Ambassador. He lives in Mauricetown, New Jersey.
Kevin Karlson is an accomplished birder, tour leader, and wildlife photographer. Kevin is a coauthor of The Shorebird Guide and two other books.
"[...] Birds of Prey: Hawks, Eagles, Falcons, and Vultures of North America is by far the most interesting, I would go as far as to say gripping, way of learning about these birds. Whether you read it at home or during lulls at your favorite hawk watch, whether it would be your first book about raptors or you already have a shelf full of them, it deserves a place in your library."
– Grant McCreary (06-05-2017), read the full review at The Birder's Library
"Exhaustively researched and complemented by a stunning collection of photos, the real highlight of this book is Pete Dunne's writing. He weaves together personal anecdotes, historical accounts, and technical information to create something greater than the sum of all of its parts: a beautiful, authoritative, and engagingly written guide to the natural history of North American hawks."
– David Sibley, author of The Sibley Guide to Birds
"Books about raptors used to fall into two major categories: field guides versus nature writing. No more! Pete Dunne's new book skillfully conjoins those two genres. Like a good field guide, Birds of Prey is authoritative and utilitarian; and like our finest nature writing, Dunne's prose is lyrical, sensitive, and full of feeling."
– Ted Floyd, editor, Birding
"What do you get when you combine Pete Dunne's clear and evocative writing on birds of prey research with stunning raptor photographs selected and arranged by Kevin Karlson? A superb raptor book!"
– Bill Clark, coauthor of the Peterson Field Guide to Hawks of North America
"Pete Dunne mixes humorous anecdotes and whimsical analogies into the life history accounts of our North American birds of prey, intertwining history from our early ornithologists with current knowledge. The stunning quality of the color images found throughout this lavishly illustrated book, which span behavioral as well as ID postures, are the product of this generation's most elite bird photographers."
– Brian K. Wheeler, author of Raptors of Eastern North America and Raptors of Western North America