Kirk Moodey reviewed The Bird Way by Jennifer Ackerman
Review of 'The Bird Way' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
The great part of this book is the new material - I'd already read some books on birds and was worried I'd just be reading the same old, same old, but this actually goes out of its way to cover a lot of Southern species. This does not mean that Northern species get no mention, or that information learned about a group in, say, Australia has no relevance elsewhere; the section on cuckoos is great, for instance, and there are definitely Northern species. In fact, it tells us exactly how weird Northern species are compared to the rest of the world.
I had been curious about Ani ever since I learned about them, and was thrilled to see they were mentioned in the book. It even had species I'd never heard of before, white winged chough, which do something I've never heard of an animal other than humans or ants …
The great part of this book is the new material - I'd already read some books on birds and was worried I'd just be reading the same old, same old, but this actually goes out of its way to cover a lot of Southern species. This does not mean that Northern species get no mention, or that information learned about a group in, say, Australia has no relevance elsewhere; the section on cuckoos is great, for instance, and there are definitely Northern species. In fact, it tells us exactly how weird Northern species are compared to the rest of the world.
I had been curious about Ani ever since I learned about them, and was thrilled to see they were mentioned in the book. It even had species I'd never heard of before, white winged chough, which do something I've never heard of an animal other than humans or ants doing - it kidnaps and enslaves other birds! For that alone I'd recommend this book.
