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Title: Hand-Taming Wild Birds at the Feeder by Alfred G. Martin, Stephen W. Kress ISBN: 0-911469-07-9 Publisher: Countryman Pr Pub. Date: July, 1991 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (6 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: How Cool
Comment: Not only do I own this book, but also his book True Maine Woodland stories. He was my mother's cousin and both my books are autographed. What most people don't know is Al Martin was also a wonderful artist painting with oils on canvas.

Rating: 5
Summary: Replacing boredom and terror with joy.
Comment: HAND-TAMING WILD BIRDS AT THE FEEDER. By Alfred G. Martin with Photographs and Illustrations by the Author and with Cover Art and Illustrations by John Still. 144 pages. Chambersburg, Pennsylvania: Alan C. Hood & Company, Inc., 1991 [1963]. ISBN 0-911469-07-9 (pbk).

Alfred Martin was something of an oddity. When he was ten years old he learned how to tame wild birds by trapping songbirds for the English bird trade. Later he found his way to Maine, built a house in the woods, fished, hunted, practised taxidermy, and cultivated the friendship of wild birds. Although he possessed a great fund of knowledge about birds, we learn that no great knowledge is required to teach a wild bird to feed out of our hand. The method Martin employed, and which
will work with many though not all birds, is simplicity itself and is clearly described in his book. What is required, then, is not knowledge but something far more difficult for us moderns - what is required is a shift of attitude, and a great deal of patience.

The intelligence, skills, and abilities of wild creatures are vastly underrated in our modern world. So puffed up are we with arrogance, so obsessed with the illusion that we are at the tip of a mythical 'evolutionary tree', so proud of our technical achievements and contemptuous of life forms which seem to get along without the aid of technology, it has become almost impossible for the average person to accept the fact that wild creatures, far from being wholly other than us, are our fellows. But for Martin birds were not so much animals as persons, and he emphasizes that without a genuine respect for their intelligence and talents, without fully accepting them as our fellows and equals, they in turn will never come to respect and trust us enough to come to our hand.

Martin's book is written in a rather rambling style and contains much else besides his method of hand-taming wild birds. His book is rich in personal anecdote, and in addition to the many good stories about his experiences with numerous species of birds and other animals there is also a great deal of information and practical advice for anyone who may be thinking of setting up a bird-feeding station to attract birds to their backyard. Among the many topics he covers are how to build a birdbath, how to build houses and feeders, how to select appropriate foods, how to care for injured birds, and so on.

Given modern society's strict insistence on the otherness of nature, however, Martin's most important lesson for us is his seemingly outrageous notion that birds are every bit as worthy and deserving of our respect and compassion as are our fellow humans. He assures us that once we begin to see wild birds, not so much as 'animals' but as little people in their own right, it won't be long before we experience the thrill of them landing on our hands to receive the gift of food. But before this can happen it is absolutely essential that we drop all feelings of superiority.

The prevailing ideology insists on our separateness from nature. But the idea that we are essentially different, being false, runs contrary to our nature and leads to
real suffering, the suffering of an alienation that issues in boredom. Martin points out that birds rightly consider man as their worst enemy. Terror is the form their suffering takes. Martin's achievement is to have given us a book which demonstrates how easily both the bird's terror and man's boredom can be replaced with real joy.

Rating: 5
Summary: Definitely a must for people trying to hand-feed wild birds
Comment: I am originally from the state of Maine where Mr. Martin hailed from. This book is terrific and not only gives insight on how to hand-feed wild birds, but also gives helpful information about them. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in birds.
And don't let Karen Seichevilch's review get you down; she just didn't have the patience to go through all the steps to get birds to feed from her hand. It took me 6 months to get a bird - a chickadee - to feed from my hand.