When acclaimed naturalist Sy Montgomery and wildlife artist Matt Patterson arrive at Turtle Rescue League, they are greeted by hundreds of turtles recovering from injury and illness. Endangered by cars and highways, pollution and poachers, these turtles --- with wounds so severe that even veterinarians would have dismissed them as fatal --- are given a second chance at life. The League’s founders, Natasha and Alexxia, live by one motto: Never give up on a turtle. Ancient and unhurried, long-lived and majestic, their lineage stretches back to the time of the dinosaurs. Some live to 200 years or longer. Others spend months buried under cold winter water. Montgomery turns to these little understood yet endlessly surprising creatures to probe the eternal question: How can we make peace with our time?

When Sy Montgomery went to spend a day at falconer Nancy Cowan’s farm, home to a dozen magnificent birds of prey, it was the start of a deep love affair. Nancy allowed her to work with Jazz, a feisty, four-year-old, female Harris’s hawk with a wingspan of more than four feet. Not a pet, Jazz was a fierce predator with talons that could pierce skin and bone, yet she was willing to work with a human to hunt. From the first moment Jazz swept down from a tree and landed on her leather gloved fist, Sy fell under the hawk’s magnetic spell. Over the next few years, she spent more time with these magnificent creatures, getting to know their extraordinary abilities and instincts.

As one of the most beautiful and intriguing birds found in nature, hummingbirds fascinate people around the world. The lightest birds in the sky, hummingbirds are capable of incredible feats, such as flying backwards, diving at speeds of 61 MPH, and beating their wings more than 60 times a second. Miraculous creatures, they are also incredibly vulnerable when they first emerge from their eggs. With tenderness and patience, Brenda Sherburn rescues abandoned hummingbirds and nurses them back to health until they can fly away and live in the wild. In THE HUMMINGBIRDS' GIFT, the extraordinary care that Brenda provides her peanut-sized patients is revealed and, in the process, shows us just how truly amazing hummingbirds are.