George Divoky is an extreme birder's extreme birder. For more 49 years, he has spent every summer alone in an Arctic seabird colony, nurturing its inhabitants. The birds, called black guillemots, are fabulous creatures with bright red mouths, black and white wings and garrulous personalities. George builds them nests out of junk and lovingly records the details of their births, marriages and lives, while protecting them from the marauding bears of a melting world.

An elder of extraordinary energy, George, now 78, has sacrificed comfort, wealth, status and a normal domestic life for the good of the colony. In exchange, he's gained deep wisdom about the ways of the winged and the unprecedented transformation of their icy, isolated world.

In the decades following his discovery he spent every winter talking to anyone and everyone about the dramatic, catastrophic changes in the Arctic ecosystem -- which is much more complicated than ice loss -- and he spent his summers watching his beloved colony shrink.

Someone else might have fallen into despair, but George -- the chattiest, funniest hermit you'll ever meet -- is not one for crying. A lifelong outsider, he is driven by by an indomitable spirit, an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and a bone-deep belief in the importance of science.