Ornitherapy
by Holly Merker, Richard Crossley & Sophie Crossley
This month's book recommendation will help you enjoy birding (and, potentially, life in general) more fully - by practicing mindfulness: by being right here, right now, and focusing on what is in front of and all around you.
The book is organized into "Explorations" that begin simply ("Learning to Look" and "Getting Closer to Birds") and become slightly more challenging as you progress through them. Each Exploration ends with several questions about your experience or observations, or suggests an activity intended to help you become more mindful in your birding. Birding is an activity that might seem to be focused only on the world outside of ourselves, but Ornitherapy shows us that being mindful about one thing in life often carries over to our inner, personal world as well.
Ornitherapy will benefit people of all ages (Young children will need an adult to guide them, and possibly simplify some of the Explorations, but still very worthwhile.)
Highly recommended.