The Feather Quest

Toward the beginning of this diary of a birder's ideal year, Dunne ( Hawks in Flight ) describes the sighting of a Ross Gull in Newburyport, Mass., as ``the equivalent of reaching into your pockets for change and coming out with the Hope Diamond.'' The book may be the Hope Diamond of natural history diaries, sparkling throughout with vivid depictions of birds (``a drab, dirt-colored finch that would have to stretch to see the top of a saltshaker''), birding (``looking at birds is a little like viewing art in a gallery'') and the people and places he comes across in his journeys throughout North America, driven by that which ``makes people bind hours of their lives to the horizon.'' In the introduction, Peterson, whose guides have accompanied millions of birders in the field for more than five decades, points out that ``birds can be anything or everything depending on the person. . . . They can even be a bore if you are a bore.'' In The Feathered Quest they are not, because Dunne is not. Photos not seen by PW. (Jan.)