“In your travels,” writes Larkin Powell, “you may stumble upon birders who make you wonder how a human being can drift so far away from the mainstream--these are the folks with binoculars that cost more than the car you are driving, and a camera with a lens longer than their walking stick. “You can learn a lot by talking to these intense birders,” observes the author of Great Plains Birds , “but do not expect this to be a long friendship. They are here for the birds.”