Diving Into Return of the Osprey: A Season of Flight and Wonder

by Shelby Diehl

David Gessner is an American essayist, memoirist, nature writer, editor and cartoonist. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts and grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts. With time, Gessner found his way to Wilmington, North Carolina. He now serves as Chair of the Creative Writing Department at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where he is also the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the prizewinning literary magazine, "Ecotone."

When David Gessner returned to Cape Cod, a place he spent his summers at in his youth, he noticed something he had never seen before: hawks with magnificent six-foot wingspans and dark masks.

Gessner’s "Return of the Osprey: A Season of Flight and Wonder" is an immersion into the lives of these extraordinary birds. Over the full course of a nesting season, Gessner observes ospreys’ remarkable adaptability, astonishing fish-catching skills, housekeeping habits, and, when the chicks are born, both their savage and gentle ways of nurturing. And he witnesses an extraordinary event: the survival of ten young ospreys, the most his Cape Cod neighborhood has seen in more than half a century.

"Return of the Osprey" is a story of a remarkable recovery, a celebration of place, and a thoughtful meditation on finding one’s way in the world. In the process, he takes us on a journey into the wild and the tame, the beautiful and the fragile.

This story has been commemorated in the nature writing community, and has sparked more conversations about osprey and the conservation of their species. With praise from the likes of The Boston Globe and Rocky Mountain News, this story is a must read for anyone with a love for birds.

…A reader could put “Return of the Osprey” aside at this point and feel the satisfaction that comes at the end of a memorable book. But Gessner has only been waiting for his chance for him, and the ospreys, to dazzle. And when it comes, Gessner puts you right there.

—The Boston Globe