Feathered Forest

In Feathered Forest, an award-winning nature writer entwines the lives of birds with a hidden vertical world of wild trees. Beginning with an ascent of a 200-foot-tall Douglas-fir with a bird biologist, author Marina Richie leads us from her home in Central Oregon into the ancient forests of Cascadia, a bioregion which rivals the Amazonian rainforest in significance for climate and biodiversity. Birds are guides to intricate and imperiled communities thriving at every level, from understory to midstory to overstory. They steer us to cool havens within multilayered, centuries-old groves that are critical refugia in a time of climate crisis. Their songs and flights show us what we must protect for the future of threatened birds, forests, and humankind. A narrative of perception change, memoir, and kinship, Feathered Forest is a soaring ode to birds and wild trees.