The Birds and the Beasts Were There: The Joys of Birdwatching and Wildlife Observation in California's Richest Habitat

Margaret Millar

Jul 2018 · Soho Press

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Santa Barbara in the 1960s was home to two of the 20th century’s most important mystery writers, Margaret Millar and her husband, Ken (Ross Macdonald). It was also home to nearly 400 species of bird. This is the charming story of Ken and Maggie’s quest to see them all.
 
The addiction that is birdwatching comes to vivid life in Margaret Millar’s delightful memoir of her early days as a naturalist. Part autobiography and part birdwatcher’s journal, it is a moving elegy to a bygone place and time. Millar brings her meticulous plotting and no small amount of suspense to these charming stories of a belligerent brown towhee named Houdunit, a larcenous raven called Melanie, and a rat who carefully ferments his grapes before eating them, to name only a few.

Ornithology was a passion for both Ken and Maggie and they devoted their lives to it with the same keen sense of detail and, in the case of Margaret, storytelling vigor as they brought to their writing. In this book, the only memoir she wrote, Millar takes us on her journey from curious amateur to obsessive completionist. It is a phenomenon nearly any birding enthusiast will recognize.
Ken and Margaret Millar were founding members of the Santa Barbara Audubon Society.

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Margaret Millar (1915-1994) was the author of 27 books and a masterful pioneer of psychological mysteries and thrillers. Born in Kitchener, Ontario, she spent most of her life in Santa Barbara, California, with her husband Ken Millar, better known under the nom de plume of Ross MacDonald. Her 1956 novel Beast in View won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel. In 1965 Millar was the recipient of the Los Angeles Times Woman of the Year Award and in 1983 the Mystery Writers of America awarded her the Grand Master Award for Lifetime Achievement. Millar’s cutting wit and superb plotting have left her an enduring legacy as one of the most important crime writers of both her own and subsequent generations.