Not intended, I’m sure, as a sequel to the 1972 classic, The Joy of Sex, but potentially a book to get the pulse racing if you are keen to see lots of species of bird all over the world. I’ve seen c1400 or so, a great many of them whilst working, which means there are plenty left (over 9000) and some of them are in this book.
I doubt that Peter Kaestner, globe-trotting American diplomat and birder, who saw his 10,000th species of bird in February this year, will be buying this book and nor, probably, will the c25 others who have seen 8000+ bird species. But that leaves a lot of people who like birds and who might adjust their holiday plans to take in some places where lots of birds can be seen. I’m not sure this book is a great incitement to travel as its design is a bit messy and busy to my taste and the choice of locations is always going to be difficult but doesn’t work for me.
If you turn to the double-page spread which introduces Europe to the reader, we find two Puffins touching beaks – it’s a lovely image of lovely (though slightly overworked) birds but the two birds meet where the pages join, and the book’s binding separates them at the point of their kiss. The birds are disappearing down into the book. And moreover, there is a large pale circle containing the word ‘EUROPE’ covering much of the left hand Puffin’s head. This is an attractive image wrecked by design. Turn the page and we are in London seeing Peregrines on the Houses of Parliament and Tate Modern but neither the buildings nor the birds are displayed to great advantage. Turn the page once more and you see a pair of Tufted Ducks with their beaks under their wings sitting on a log at, presumably, the London Wetland Centre – very dull.
The 13 featured sites in Europe comprise London, Cornwall (for Choughs), Selborne (Swifts and Gilbert White) and Minsmere for the UK, German Lakes (Ospreys), Rome (Italy for winter Starlings), the Alentejo (Portugal for White Storks), Valencian Hoopoes (Spain), the Dordogne (for Barn Owls) and the Pyrenees (Griffon Vulture) in France, Icelandic Puffins, Hungarian Great Bustards and Estonian Steller’s Eiders. I quite fancy that last one and might look up the trains to get there. Anyone could say that they would have chosen differently, but the sites in this book don’t seem aimed at any particular class of birder – they are a scattergun approach and it’s quite an ambition to produce a book of sites across the world that will work for the average RSPB member and Peter Kaestner.
As a birder, I liked looking through these pages but I didn’t think the book was aimed at me and couldn’t really think what its intended audience is.
The cover? Schematic rather than realistic, obviously, but attractive, as are internal illustrations by Owen Gatley. I’d give the cover 8/10.
The Joy of Birdwatching; 60 travel experiences to uplift and inspire is published by Lonely Planet.
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