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Return of the Osprey: A Season of Flight and Wonder
A memoir, tribute to a once-endangered species, and natural history,
Return of the Osprey
recounts the many discoveries David Gessner made when he immersed himself for an entire nesting season in the lives of the ospreys that had returned to his seagirt corner of Cape Cod.
The osprey, hailed by Roger Tory Peterson as the symbol of the New England coast, all but vanished during the 1950s and '60s because of the ravages of DDT. In the next few decades, however, the birds returned, slowly at first and then in a rush. Writing with passion, humor, and a reverence for the natural world, Gessner interweaves the stories of the nesting osprey pairs he observed with his own readjustment to life on the windblown, beautiful, and increasingly developed landscape he had known as a child.
With a new preface from Gessner and foreword by Helen Macdonald, Return of the Osprey celebrates one of nature's most remarkable creatures, as well as our own limitless capacity for wonder.
The osprey, hailed by Roger Tory Peterson as the symbol of the New England coast, all but vanished during the 1950s and '60s because of the ravages of DDT. In the next few decades, however, the birds returned, slowly at first and then in a rush. Writing with passion, humor, and a reverence for the natural world, Gessner interweaves the stories of the nesting osprey pairs he observed with his own readjustment to life on the windblown, beautiful, and increasingly developed landscape he had known as a child.
With a new preface from Gessner and foreword by Helen Macdonald, Return of the Osprey celebrates one of nature's most remarkable creatures, as well as our own limitless capacity for wonder.
311 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 1, 2001
10 people are currently reading
284 people want to read
About the author
David Gessner
39 books121 followersDavid Gessner is the author of fourteen books that blend a love of nature, humor, memoir, and environmentalism, including the New York Times bestselling, All the Wild That Remains, Return of the Osprey, Sick of Nature and Leave It As It Is: A Journey Through Theodore Roosevelt’s American Wilderness.
Gessner is the Thomas S. Kenan III Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where he is also the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the literary magazine, Ecotone. His own magazine publications include pieces in the New York Times Magazine, Outside, Sierra, Audubon, Orion, and many other magazines, and his prizes include a Pushcart Prize and the John Burroughs Award for Best Nature Essay for his essay “Learning to Surf.” He has also won the Association for Study of Literature and the Environment’s award for best book of creative writing, and the Reed Award for Best Book on the Southern Environment. In 2017 he hosted the National Geographic Explorer show, "The Call of the Wild."
He is married to the novelist Nina de Gramont, whose latest book is The Christie Affair.
“A master essayist.” –Booklist
“For nature-writing enthusiasts, Gessner needs no introduction. His books and essays have in many ways redefined what it means to write about the natural world, coaxing the genre from a staid, sometimes wonky practice to one that is lively and often raucous.”—Washington Post.
“David Gessner has been a font of creativity ever since the 1980s, when he published provocative political cartoons in that famous campus magazine, the Harvard Crimson. These days he’s a naturalist, a professor and a master of the art of telling humorous and thought-provoking narratives about unusual people in out-of-the way-places."
--The San Francisco Chronicle
Gessner is the Thomas S. Kenan III Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where he is also the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the literary magazine, Ecotone. His own magazine publications include pieces in the New York Times Magazine, Outside, Sierra, Audubon, Orion, and many other magazines, and his prizes include a Pushcart Prize and the John Burroughs Award for Best Nature Essay for his essay “Learning to Surf.” He has also won the Association for Study of Literature and the Environment’s award for best book of creative writing, and the Reed Award for Best Book on the Southern Environment. In 2017 he hosted the National Geographic Explorer show, "The Call of the Wild."
He is married to the novelist Nina de Gramont, whose latest book is The Christie Affair.
“A master essayist.” –Booklist
“For nature-writing enthusiasts, Gessner needs no introduction. His books and essays have in many ways redefined what it means to write about the natural world, coaxing the genre from a staid, sometimes wonky practice to one that is lively and often raucous.”—Washington Post.
“David Gessner has been a font of creativity ever since the 1980s, when he published provocative political cartoons in that famous campus magazine, the Harvard Crimson. These days he’s a naturalist, a professor and a master of the art of telling humorous and thought-provoking narratives about unusual people in out-of-the way-places."
--The San Francisco Chronicle
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
June 3, 2023
David Gessner's book is a glorious tribute to the resilience of the osprey as they made a comeback after the effects of DDT nearly wiped them out in his native Cape Cod. He observes four nests during the season when osprey mate and nest in North America, reflecting on their tenacity, the instincts that draw them back to the same spot again and again, the patterned behaviors of mating and fishing and raising young that have gone on for millenia. But it's also a reflection on human lives, lived "on osprey time" - how sitting and observing the natural world, through an act of what Gessner calls "enforced patience" (113), is an act of will that has tremendous benefit for our understanding of the wild. He says, "If you listen to the world long enough you will hear what it asks for, and it turns out to ask for quite a lot. It calls for nothing less than a new way of looking, a new way of being" (249). A work of erudition that is so much more than nature writing, Gessner's memoir reflects on the work of naturalists, philosophers, and poets in concert with his own observations of the osprey. I want to read everything in his bibliography that inspired this beautiful keeper of a book.
May 5, 2018
I rated it for general readers. If you're a bird lover I think you'll enjoy it although "H is for Hawk" is much much better.
A memoir of a season watching ospreys on Cape Cod with philosophical, introspective, and confessional overtones. The philosophy and introspection are sincere if not especially profound. The descriptive nature writing is sharp and I admire Gessner's enthusiasm for really watching the birds and then diving into the literature. He includes a good bibliography. I learned a few major things about ospreys:
1) they incorporate gaudy plastic trash and other debris in their nests
2) they are basically monogamous but more faithful to their breeding place than their breeding partner
3) they depart and arrive from their breeding range separately and winter individually
4) the nestlings migrate south their first autumn and remain in their winter range for 2 years before they migrate north
5) the bible of the literature on ospreys is Poole's "Ospreys: A Natural and Unnatural History", from 1989, which is apparently out of print
A memoir of a season watching ospreys on Cape Cod with philosophical, introspective, and confessional overtones. The philosophy and introspection are sincere if not especially profound. The descriptive nature writing is sharp and I admire Gessner's enthusiasm for really watching the birds and then diving into the literature. He includes a good bibliography. I learned a few major things about ospreys:
1) they incorporate gaudy plastic trash and other debris in their nests
2) they are basically monogamous but more faithful to their breeding place than their breeding partner
3) they depart and arrive from their breeding range separately and winter individually
4) the nestlings migrate south their first autumn and remain in their winter range for 2 years before they migrate north
5) the bible of the literature on ospreys is Poole's "Ospreys: A Natural and Unnatural History", from 1989, which is apparently out of print
September 14, 2015
I absolutely LOVED this book. It was a gift because I volunteer at Mono Lake in California and spend many hours explaining the osprey to the visitors. This book had so much fascinating information about osprey, but also contained a poetic description of a life lived on "osprey time." As John Hay is quoted toward the end of the book,
"Strange to have come through the whole century and find that the most interesting thing is the birds...Or maybe it's just the human mind is more interesting when focusing on something other than itself."
I look forward to reading more from Gessner.
"Strange to have come through the whole century and find that the most interesting thing is the birds...Or maybe it's just the human mind is more interesting when focusing on something other than itself."
I look forward to reading more from Gessner.
October 15, 2018
I purchased this book, along with an alumni sweatshirt, ten years ago at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington’s bookstore. It’s the school where I did my undergraduate work and where Gessner now teaches. I started reading and just didn’t get into it at the time. I put it down after 20 or so pages. Since then, I have read a couple of Gessner’s books (My Green Manifesto and All the Wild that Remains). Late last month, as I was looking for something to read while I was spending a few days kayaking and camping on Cumberland Island, I decided the try the book again. This time I fell in love with it. While reading on the banks of Brickhill River, I alternated reading with watching an osprey fish.
Gessner’s prose is wonderful. There is a relaxed tone to the book as he draws us into a season he spends on Cape Cod observing these magnificent birds. This book is part memoir, as we learn about the author’s recent bout of cancer, which he uses to draw us into the story of how chemicals (especially DDT) almost wiped out the osprey population. But they have made a comeback. Personally, I encounter osprey almost every time I paddle out of Delegal Creek, heading to Wassaw or Ossabaw Island. Perhaps this experience helped draw me into Gessner’s story.
As he watches the osprey return from South America to their nesting grounds on Cape Cod, Gessner informs us of the birds’ habits. He draws on experts on the birds, such as John Hay, but also carries on a written discussion in his narrative with broader ecological writers including Thoreau, Rachael Carson, John and Mildred Teal, Wendell Berry and Scott Russell Sanders. He explores the dynamics of his own family. He regularly visits his father’s grave while his mother spends the summer with Gessner and his wife. Also, for shorter periods of time, his troubled brother visits, followed by a more delightful visit of his sister and her son, Gessner’s nephew. Reflecting on his own family allows him to also ponder the family dynamics of osprey. As the book goes from late winter to early fall, the reader joins Gessner in cheering on each stage of development during the osprey’s nesting season. First they select and build a nest, then the eggs, then the hungry newborns. As the season begins to wane, the young fledglings’ take to the sky and then, before it is time for them to migrate, begin to master fishing.
Ospreys are often called sea eagles and they obtain almost all their food from fish. I was pleased to learn that occasionally a Cape Cod osprey will eat a muskrat, as I once saw an osprey near here come back to the nest with what appeared to be a marsh rat.
I recommend this book. It’s great nature writing. In a way, it reminded me of Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire and Annie Dillard’s A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, even though both authors write their stories as if they are living alone (both had a spouse or significant other with them, I remember learning from a Scott Russell Sander's lecture). Gessner, by including his family, is able to take us out of the “lone nature lover” situation to one who, like the Osprey, live lives with others. A good read.
Gessner’s prose is wonderful. There is a relaxed tone to the book as he draws us into a season he spends on Cape Cod observing these magnificent birds. This book is part memoir, as we learn about the author’s recent bout of cancer, which he uses to draw us into the story of how chemicals (especially DDT) almost wiped out the osprey population. But they have made a comeback. Personally, I encounter osprey almost every time I paddle out of Delegal Creek, heading to Wassaw or Ossabaw Island. Perhaps this experience helped draw me into Gessner’s story.
As he watches the osprey return from South America to their nesting grounds on Cape Cod, Gessner informs us of the birds’ habits. He draws on experts on the birds, such as John Hay, but also carries on a written discussion in his narrative with broader ecological writers including Thoreau, Rachael Carson, John and Mildred Teal, Wendell Berry and Scott Russell Sanders. He explores the dynamics of his own family. He regularly visits his father’s grave while his mother spends the summer with Gessner and his wife. Also, for shorter periods of time, his troubled brother visits, followed by a more delightful visit of his sister and her son, Gessner’s nephew. Reflecting on his own family allows him to also ponder the family dynamics of osprey. As the book goes from late winter to early fall, the reader joins Gessner in cheering on each stage of development during the osprey’s nesting season. First they select and build a nest, then the eggs, then the hungry newborns. As the season begins to wane, the young fledglings’ take to the sky and then, before it is time for them to migrate, begin to master fishing.
Ospreys are often called sea eagles and they obtain almost all their food from fish. I was pleased to learn that occasionally a Cape Cod osprey will eat a muskrat, as I once saw an osprey near here come back to the nest with what appeared to be a marsh rat.
I recommend this book. It’s great nature writing. In a way, it reminded me of Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire and Annie Dillard’s A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, even though both authors write their stories as if they are living alone (both had a spouse or significant other with them, I remember learning from a Scott Russell Sander's lecture). Gessner, by including his family, is able to take us out of the “lone nature lover” situation to one who, like the Osprey, live lives with others. A good read.
November 11, 2025
I've read several of Mr. Gessner's books over this past year. Three or four to be more exact, and he's becoming one of my favorites in the nature writing genre. He's not your typical nature writing author. He approaches his subject, whether it be ospreys or Cape Cod, the destruction of habitats, the Charles River, or writing contemporaries (Edward Abby) both with awe, respect, and also a dollop of humor thrown in. At times writing about nature and the environment you would think, may be boring, but not in Gessner's hands. He is Everyman's (and Everywoman's) nature writer. He's both scientific and also very down to earth.
For this book he spends a spring/summer season observing a group of osprey nests on Cape Cod, close to where he is living. I have to admit that the osprey is probably one of my favorite birds, but you don't need to be interested in birds or birding to really enjoy this book. Excellent writing, excellent author. Read More Gessner!
For this book he spends a spring/summer season observing a group of osprey nests on Cape Cod, close to where he is living. I have to admit that the osprey is probably one of my favorite birds, but you don't need to be interested in birds or birding to really enjoy this book. Excellent writing, excellent author. Read More Gessner!
April 25, 2018
What a wonderful journey. This is a story of the observer and the observed. Oh how I wish I could take the time to sit and watch the ospreys that inhabit the water tower where I work. The author takes the reader on a journey with him as he observes these beautiful birds. From arrival, setting up housekeeping, feeding, nesting, and raising their family, the ospreys taught the author who in turn taught the reader the importance of this cycle of life. Since I don’t have the pleasure of sitting and watching, I do have the joy of listening and hearing the call and cries of our seasonal neighbors and yes it is sad when they leave but hope does return in the Spring.
March 9, 2020
Great book on bird watching and connecting or reconnecting to nature and wildness.
October 26, 2009
On the surface, David Gessner’s wonderful book, “Return of the Osprey” is about just that: the return of a thriving, sustainable population of osprey, once known as “fish hawks,” to the Atlantic coastline.
The author digs in and watches a season of osprey nestings and the raising of their families on Cape Cod.
“A new clarity illuminates the days. Honeysuckle sweetens the air and the post oak’s leaves wave big and waxy, no longer mere drooping half leaves. We approach the solstice, the annual climax of light, the days when we see longest and clearest. The other night a luminescent apple core, cleanly split in half, stood in for the moon, and later fireflies sparkled. I sleep rocked by a larger rhythm, the ocean breathing in and out. It doesn’t take much imagination to understand why ospreys choose to live near water. On some nights I walk down to watch the world’s eye sink: the sun drops into the water of the bay, staining the sky with pinks, yellows, and oranges,” writes Gessner.
And there it hangs. Any great book is about more than it purports to be, and Gessner’s is about slowing down and actually seeing: longest and clearest. Seeing with the heighten vision of a raptor.
“An osprey’s vision is almost eight times greater than a human being’s but that only hints at their acuity,” he reports. Call it awareness, totally in tune with their natural world.
As Gessner ensconces to watch ospreys and the marshland around them: “That’s the central paradox of slowing down: it leads to excitement that is often dazzling. What, after all, surprises and delights us? Speed. Growth. Quantity. Vibrancy. Variety. These are the qualities the natural world presents if we simply sit still and open our eyes.”
To seal the deal, Gessner goes to Harvard’s rare book collection at Houghton Library and visits some of the handwritten journals of the master of transcendence Ralph Waldo Emerson, who viewed the world with a “transparent eye.” Emerson is noted for being the cool, analytic rationalist, free of emotion, but Gessner notes that the handwriting of the master of the well-measured sentence becomes “less legible when he grew excited and rushed.” We sense a pounding, enthralled heart in Ralph Waldo and then Gessner and, now, even myself.
Published in 2001, “Return of the Osprey” is a superb, textured read.
The author digs in and watches a season of osprey nestings and the raising of their families on Cape Cod.
“A new clarity illuminates the days. Honeysuckle sweetens the air and the post oak’s leaves wave big and waxy, no longer mere drooping half leaves. We approach the solstice, the annual climax of light, the days when we see longest and clearest. The other night a luminescent apple core, cleanly split in half, stood in for the moon, and later fireflies sparkled. I sleep rocked by a larger rhythm, the ocean breathing in and out. It doesn’t take much imagination to understand why ospreys choose to live near water. On some nights I walk down to watch the world’s eye sink: the sun drops into the water of the bay, staining the sky with pinks, yellows, and oranges,” writes Gessner.
And there it hangs. Any great book is about more than it purports to be, and Gessner’s is about slowing down and actually seeing: longest and clearest. Seeing with the heighten vision of a raptor.
“An osprey’s vision is almost eight times greater than a human being’s but that only hints at their acuity,” he reports. Call it awareness, totally in tune with their natural world.
As Gessner ensconces to watch ospreys and the marshland around them: “That’s the central paradox of slowing down: it leads to excitement that is often dazzling. What, after all, surprises and delights us? Speed. Growth. Quantity. Vibrancy. Variety. These are the qualities the natural world presents if we simply sit still and open our eyes.”
To seal the deal, Gessner goes to Harvard’s rare book collection at Houghton Library and visits some of the handwritten journals of the master of transcendence Ralph Waldo Emerson, who viewed the world with a “transparent eye.” Emerson is noted for being the cool, analytic rationalist, free of emotion, but Gessner notes that the handwriting of the master of the well-measured sentence becomes “less legible when he grew excited and rushed.” We sense a pounding, enthralled heart in Ralph Waldo and then Gessner and, now, even myself.
Published in 2001, “Return of the Osprey” is a superb, textured read.
July 3, 2008
Spending a summer of my own photographing and falling in love with these magnificent birds allowed me to relate to David Gessner's story on a very personal level. This man holds nothing back as he recounts his experiences throughout an entire nesting season along the New England coast. During his six osprey-filled months, Gessner makes many discoveries about both the fishhawks and himself as he struggles to live on "osprey-time." His obvious love and admiration for these patient hunters and devoted parents comes through on every page. If you've ever been captivated by the sight of a raptor soaring high upon the thermals or held your breath as it dives for its next meal, you'll find much to enthrall and inspire you on these pages.
August 22, 2015
This book is a collection of the author's observations of four Osprey nests during a year in Cape Cod. He had written a sequel to this one and I had read that one first. That one covered the Osprey migration southward. This one focuses on the Osprey nesting behavior and on the birth and maturation of the fledglings as they compete for food, learn to fly and learn to fish. It's a very interesting book. We always have many Ospreys in our area here at the Jersey Shore during their nesting season and I enjoy watching them as I kayak through some of our area's wetlands.
September 24, 2014
This was a fabulous book - not just because the focus was my favorite bird, the Osprey! David Gessner has captured his search for a meaningful life when he returns to his family's home on Cape Cod. I was moved as he explores man's relationship to nature and how we defend the creatures and land. I very much enjoyed his real-life conversations with famous Osprey-lovers such as Alan Poole. I am looking forward to reading Soaring with Fidel next.
November 11, 2014
Wonderfully written book that takes the reader closer and closer to the lives of Ospreys. If you don't already know how magnificent these birds are, you'll gain a deeper appreciation and understanding of them as well as the people who follow them closely. Gessner is an adventurer as well as bird lover - not a scientist - but he makes all the details so easy to understand and so interesting.
September 28, 2011
Excellent book. I learned so much about the Osprey. One is the young ospreys migrate to south America but the 1 and 2 year olds don't return to NA until there 3rd year when they are sexually mature. Heck, I wouldn't fly 1000's of miles to not have any enjoyment.
June 10, 2015
I read it. Some things I didn't like - actually skipped a couple parts - but I enjoyed the lesson. Mr. Gessner is a very descriptive writer. I do love, however, ospreys and I am so happy they have returned.
June 1, 2010
Fundamentally this is a riveting study of the life of Cape Cod Ospreys in a single year. But I found myself increasingly distracted and irritated by Gessner's often vacuous metaphysical ramblings.
June 11, 2010
I loved everything about this book!
February 4, 2016
this was a bit long and a bit too introspective for my taste. It does have good info about osprey.
February 4, 2016
this was a bit long and a bit too introspective for my taste. It does have good info about osprey.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews