Book Review: Birdmania

"It's easy for observers to project human experiences onto birds and get incredibly emotional about them.  At a deeper level, however, people who devote themselves to birds open themselves up to the beauty of creatures that live their lives according to the mysterious, alien laws.  It's almost as though birds inhabit an alternative realty  Despite the divide - or perhaps because of it - engaging with them brings many people great joy."

Like many zookeepers, I was slow to come around to birds.  I originally wanted to be a carnivore keeper, then a reptile keeper, then a hoofstock keeper, and then back around to reptiles again.  Then, I went through a small mammal phase.  For reasons that I can't explain, I'm proud that I never got into primates.  Birds were background noise to me in those days (often literally) - something bright and colorful that you put in an exhibit that was primarily devoted to other, more interesting animals.

Once I started really paying attention to birds, however, I was hooked.  They've become absolute favorites of mine, to the point where I've started primarily judging many zoos based on their bird collections.  Now, I often find myself in the position of being irked when confronted by people who just don't appreciate how cool birds really are.

Bernd Brunner gets that.  Actually, a lot of people do.  In Birdmania: A Remarkable Passion for Birds, the nature writer takes us on a very quick, scatter-shot tour of our shared history with birds.  He recounts the many ways in which birds have entranced us over the years, from the mysterious bird of paradise skins which European explorers brought back to their homelands centuries ago, completely baffled as to what they were looking at, to the pet birds that share our homes with us.  He also introduces an interesting cast of human characters who have spent their lives devoted to birds - sometimes with fatal, disastrous consequences for the birds... or, in a handful of cases, for the humans themselves.

I'd read Brunner's previous work on Bears, so was curious what he had to say about birds.  The answer seemed to be, a lot, but not much, really.  The book is too all-over-the-place for me, jumping around as a series of anecdotes and historical vignettes haphazardly strung together.  At the same time, I feel that there are so many important and more interesting stories that could have been woven into the book but were not.  As a zoo person, I was especially shocked that there was basically no mention of zoos - the California condor and whooping crane alone could have been a chapter.  You're going to write a book about people who are fascinated about birds and not give mention to people who devote their lives to breeding, rearing, and releasing endangered birds?  Or the facilities in which most people have their only in-person encounters with flamingos, penguins, parrots, and many of the other most recognizable bird species on the planet?

Even more surprising, there really was no mention of domestic birds - ducks, geese, turkeys, and, above all, chickens - the species which we have most intimate connection with.  It honestly felt like Brunner had just come across a few stories and thought, "Yeah, I could get a book out of this."

The book is full of lovely illustrations (it was the cassowary on the cover which originally caught my eye), but these don't do much other than take up space, and certainly don't contribute much to the text.  This book might be worth mining for a fun story or two, but I feel that birds, as a group, deserve a better biography than this.

Birdmania: A Remarkable Passion for Birds on Amazon.com