Known for seeking out wild places and elusive birds, William Burt has a rare gift for capturing the personalities of his subjects. The more than 150 color photographs here include images of outlandish-looking great egret hatchlings, the gorgeous gallinule and its homely young, the majestic northern gannet in flight, a black tern feeding its mottled babies, and a fierce American bittern guarding its eggs. Burt is also an accomplished writer, and here he introduces these birds and recounts his journeys in search of them.

"[Burt is a] perfectionist whose photographs of shy and elusive birds of the wetlands are unquestionably the finest ever taken."—Roger Tory Peterson

"What really comes through, in the writing and the photographs, is his deep and sensitive appreciation of the uniqueness of each of these most intriguing birds."—David Allen Sibley