Years before pesticides and other pollutants began to endanger species, humans had no trouble finding less sophisticated ways of endangering wildlife. When the twentieth century had barely begun, the passenger pigeons had been slain to the last and the American bison had been hunted to the brink of extinction. Love of and concern for nature called people like Florence Merriam Bailey to action.

Bailey was one of the first to study live birds in their natural environment instead of studying specimens that had been shot and brought into a laboratory. She was the first woman to be an associate member of the American Ornithologists’ Union, and for fifty years, with her husband Vernon Bailey, chief naturalist for the U.S. Biological Survey, she spent summers in the West and Southwest observing birds and making field notes, often from the back of a horse or mule.

Harriet Kofalk has chronicled Florence Merriam Bailey’s life, with Florence’s sixtyyear correspondence with her brother, Hart, as a major source. Numerous excerpts from her ten books and more than one hundred articles are included, all describing joyfully the pleasures of studying live birds.

“Harriet Kofalk tells with care and affection the story of an explorer and teacher: a woman who helped win for nature study the wide respect it now commands. Her windows to nature were the colors, songs and life-patterns of living birds. A fine book.”--Victor B. Scheffer

“Harriet Kofalk tells with care and affection the story of an explorer and teacher: a woman who helped win for nature study the wide respect it now commands. Her windows to nature were the colors, songs and life-patterns of living birds. A fine book.” --Victor B. Scheffer

“Students of nature in general, of birds in particular as well as students of the West and Southwest will enjoy this amply researched biography of a Victorian-era lady naturalist.” --The North San Antonio Times

“. . . will appeal to a variety of readers. . . . a lively, amusing, and well-researched book chronicling the life and times of Florence Merriam Bailey—an interesting life and an interesting time. . . . The reader will be impressed, amused, and uplifted by Mrs. Bailey’s ability to narrate scientific fact, analyze and organize data, and draw word pictures of her emotional responses to the beauties, tragedies, and inspirations of nature as she studied it. The title of the book is well chosen. Florence Merriam Bailey was no tenderfoot woman. --Naturalist Review

“Birders everywhere but especially in New Mexico will be pleased with this biography of the author of Birds of New Mexico, which has become a bible for bird fanciers as well as a collectors’ item for rare-book fanciers.” --New Mexico Magazine

“Kofalk’s book is a thoughtful and detailed study of an important ornithologist and nature writer.” --Recent Ornithological Publications

“ . . . the first full-length account of one of the earliest and most distinguished of America’s women ornithologists . . . Kofalk has made Bailey’s life story accessible.” --Forest & Conservation History

“. . . an eye-opener for a new generation of scientists, whose bibliographies rarely include works written before 1950. . . . will provide a much-needed role model for aspiring women scientists.” --Canadian Field-Naturalist

“I recommend this book to anyone whose interest in birds and natural history reaches beyond the next Rare Bird Alert.” --Alan Contreras

“Readers of this book will profit from the excellent overview of the early Audubon movement. . . . No Woman Tenderfoot is a well-illustrated, nicely produced biography of a worthy subject recommended for general readership. . . .” --Quarterly Review of Biology

“Though all the correspondence and excerpts set the scene, Harriet Kofalk, the author, knits it all beautifully together. . . . This is an absorbing book, of which the author can be proud. It is also a good look back into the early days of white settlement in the West, when both land and wildlife retained much of their primeval beauty and plenty.” --Books about Birds