This freewheeling, readable memoir describes youthful passion, a deep affection for a rural, wild place and its birdlife, and the early formative experiences that led the author to eventually migrate from Oregon to a career with the Biological Survey at the U.S. National Museum. The book’s title hints at a double meaning, which is its intent: “A Rogue Birder birds the Rogue River watershed. A Rogue Birder is also a state of mind, an attitude.” The author perceives himself, and rightly so, as a gentle gadfly who enjoys challenging the conclusions about the taxonomy and distribution of Oregon birds. The natural setting is the vast and diverse Rogue River Valley of southwestern Oregon. The climate and vegetation here “bridged the gap between environments of the Coast Range and east to the Great Basin.” In the 1950s, when this tale begins, this region’s birdlife was little explored. Over the decades, Browning made it a life’s goal to fill in the blanks by documenting range extensions and new records. As a result, “Rogue Birder” teaches a lot about the distributional limits of birds in southern Oregon. The book is organized into 16 chapters which carry us on a meandering path that reveals the many early field adventures that led to deeper thinking about bird biology and science. While it follows a general chronology, the chapters do no not have to be read sequentially for the memoir to be appreciated. Browning makes passing mention of his scientific papers, but the reader could have appreciated his many contributions more fully if a bibliography of his publications had been included.