As oil was washing up on the shores of Louisiana, coveringshorebirds and their nests and eggs after the Deepwater Horizondisaster, Lynn Barber decided to write this book to heightenawareness, not only of the plight of bird species that are decliningin numbers every year, but also of the ways in which the birds wesee every day may also face the same fate.

First explaining the idea of birds “in trouble”—and what thatmeans in terms of population, conservation status, and nationaland international designations—the book then turns to thehabitats that are important to birds, how they are affected bychanges in these habitats, and what ordinary people can do tohelp counter those negative effects. Barber then profiles forty-twospecies that are in trouble in the United States, discussing thelikely reasons why and what, if anything, we can do to improvetheir situations. Illustrated throughout with the author’s signaturebird art, the book closes with a reminder about what we can doto insure that the birds we see every day in our yards, parks, andcommunities will remain with us.