Kenn Kaufman (born 1954) is an American author, artist, naturalist, and conservationist, known for his work on several popular field guides of birds and butterflies in North America.
Born in South Bend, Indiana, Kaufman began birding at the age of six.Kaufman, Kenn. Kingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, pp. 2-3. When he was nine, his family moved to Wichita, Kansas, where his fascination with birds intensified.Kaufman, Kenn. Kingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, pp. 3-6. At age sixteen, inspired by birding pioneers such as Roger Tory Peterson, he dropped out of high school and began hitchhiking around North America in pursuit of birds.Kaufman, Kenn. Kingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, pp. 6, passim. Three years later, in 1973, he set the record for the most North American bird species seen in one year (671) while participating in a Big Year, a year-long birding competition.Kaufman, Kenn. Kingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Appendix, pp. 317-8. His record included regions like Baja California that are no longer ornithologically considered part of North America, and his record has since been surpassed.Kaufman, Kenn. Kingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. His cross-country birding journey, covering some eighty thousand miles, was eventually recorded in a memoir, Kingbird Highway.Kaufman, Kenn. Kingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, passim.
Subsequently, he focused his work on creating and expanding upon birding field guides. In 1992, he was given the Ludlow Griscom Award by the American Birding Association. Kaufman also received the ABA Roger Tory Peterson Award in 2008 for a "lifetime of achievements in promoting the cause of birding."
Kaufman resides in Oak Harbor, Ohio with his wife Kimberly. Kenn writes for Birds and Blooms, Bird Watcher's Digest, and works/volunteers at the Black Swamp Bird Observatory. Kaufman maintains a blog where he reports bird sightings in the northwest region of Ohio and makes predictions about the spring bird migration.
Works Kaufman Focus Guides: Field Guide to Nature of New England (with Kimberly Kaufman) Kaufman Focus Guides: Birds of North America Kaufman Focus Guides: Butterflies of North America (with Jim P. Brock) Kaufman Focus Guides: Mammals of North America (with Rick Bowers and Nora Bowers) Kaufman Focus Guides: Insects of North America (with Eric R. Eaton) Lives of North American Birds (1996) Kingbird Highway (1997) Kaufman Field Guide to Advanced Birding Flights Against the Sunset: Stories that Reunited a Mother and Son (2008) A Season on the Wind: Inside the World of Spring Migration (2019) The Birds That Audubon Missed: Discovery and Desire in the American Wilderness. Avid Reader Press, 2024.
References
External links
Kenn Kaufman's Nature Site Kenn Kaufman interview at birdwatching.com Kenn Kaufman interview at Birding magazine