The protagonists of Ken Kaye's collected stories (some previously published, most not) are al natives or residents of Evanston, Illinois. The book title also acknowledges the coincidence of birds in major, supporting, or walk-on roles (a gull prompts a mute teenager to open up in therapy; a falcon without a mate lectures a lonely man), as well as people and objects taking wing (a couple who divorced twenty-five years ago find themselves alone together in a small plane, 8,000 feet above Niagara Falls).

Ken Kaye, a family psychologist, earned the MFA degree in Fiction from Bennington College. His fiction has appeared in Lit Pot and Glimmer Train Stories. He has lived in Evanston since 1958.