{"product_id":"tracking-desire-a-journey-after-swallow-tailed-kites-9780820328195","title":"Tracking Desire: A Journey After Swallow-Tailed Kites","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"My memory is etched with a clear image of how that bird swung into view and hung over me, suspended like an angel, so starkly black and white, with its wide-scissored split of a tail.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIt took just one sighting of a swallow-tailed kite to dispatch Susan Cerulean on a pilgrimage through its fragmented and ever-shrinking habitats. In \u003ci\u003eTracking Desire\u003c\/i\u003e, Cerulean immerses us in the natural history and biology of \u003ci\u003eElanoides forficatus\u003c\/i\u003e. At the same time, she sifts through her past--as a child, student, biologist, parent, and activist--to muse on a lifelong absorption with nature. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eOnce at home throughout much of the eastern United States, the swallow-tailed kite is now seldom seen. With ornithologist Ken Meyer, and then on her own, Cerulean roams the kite's much-reduced homelands, gaining knowledge about the bird and the grave threats to its breeding grounds and migration patterns. Her quest takes her to the muddy banks of the Mississippi, to an enormous and vulnerable roost on corporate ranchlands in southwest Florida, and to the remnant pinelands of Everglades National Park. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn seeking the bird, Cerulean comes to question her own place in our consumerist society. \"My journeys after kites have led me to understand that the power of our longings is placing the integrity of life on our tender emerald planet so greatly at risk,\" she writes. \"What are the fractured places in our hearts and minds and spirits that have allowed us to stand by and watch, and even to participate in, the destruction of so much of life?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSUSAN CERULEAN is a writer, naturalist, and advocate based in Tallahassee, Florida. She has written and edited many books, including gold medal Florida Book Award winner \u003ci\u003eComing to Pass: Florida's Coastal Islands in a Gulf of Change\u003c\/i\u003e, and her nature memoir, \u003ci\u003eTracking Desire: A Journey after Swallow-tailed Kites \u003c\/i\u003e(both Georgia), that was named and Editor's Choice title by Audubon magazine. \u003ci\u003eI Have Been Assigned the Single Bird: A Daughter's Memoir \u003c\/i\u003e(also Georgia) is her most recent work.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University of Georgia Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50461339582738,"sku":"9780820328195","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_b7e923ee-9d0c-459e-a7bb-c9ee2f407ca9.jpg?v=1730064479","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/tracking-desire-a-journey-after-swallow-tailed-kites-9780820328195","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}