Olivia Gentile, author of the recently released non-fiction thriller/biography, Life List: A Woman’s Quest for the World’s Most Amazing Birds. I caught up with journalist/author Olivia Gentile to talk about how she came to write Life List: A Woman’s Quest for the World’s Most Amazing Birds , and what it was like to track the story of one of the most exciting and extreme world birders of the 20th century — a woman named Phoebe Snetsinger. Forget what you’ve heard about all those knobby-kneed nerds with green sunglasses tromping through the backyards and neighborhood parks and wetlands. They’re just the tip of the bird-watching iceberg. Turns out it’s competitive, dangerous, expensive, and challenging as any extreme sport and as rich and vast in its recompense as any work of art. Bird watching, a global race for the chance to see what few have seen, to be alone with beauty, and to use your wit and physcial skill to get you there, is in truth a sport for the intrepid adventurer, and some of those adventurers are the last people you’d ever think of as ruthless and savvy take-no-prisoners globe-trotters. Such was the case for bird-watching hero Phoebe Snetsinger, whose amazing life story is beautifully told by Gentile. We see plenty about the wild behavior of flora and fauna

Read the original here Vickie Karp: Third Screen: It’s Violent, Dangerous, and Beautiful. It’s … Bird Watching