Atlas of Rare Birds

by Dominic Couzens

Book by Couzens, Dominic

Genres: Birds, Nonfiction, Nature, Photography, Biology, Animals, Science

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Dominic Couzens is an expert bird guide and author. He has published numerous books and articles on natural history, including for BBC Wildlife and Bird Watching, specialising in birds and mammals. His books include Extreme Birds, Atlas of Rare Birds, The Secret Lives of Garden Birds, and Top 100 Birding Sites of the World.

He travels widely for writing and speaking, and his website is www.birdwords.co.uk.

Reviews

[Nihal Vrana · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I write fiction about birds, I try to read as many facts about them as possible. This one is full of interesting anecdotes and very interesting birds (partially linked to the reasons they are rare). I also liked the tone of the book, it is not like a preservation manifesto (nothing wrong with that, but this even-keeled approach of showing the importance via examples works better for me) and it explains the points of view of all stakeholders very well. The only part, I do not agree with in the book was the measures to be taken to protect one duck species by killing thousands of another duck species, for all purposes beating the other one fairly. I think that that is taking things a step too far; that is a natural extinction process; it is not to us to decide that the other duck cannot expand.

[alexander shay · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting selection of birds, though a lot of them are quite plain looking. Each bird gets about 4 pages dedicated to it and a handful of pictures. I found the history around how the birds were discovered/lost/rediscovered actually interesting, which surprised me since I was initially picking up this book to read about the birds themselves. Some of the birds have details about them included but most of the book covers how people looked for/came across them and/or how they got lost and found again.

[Tinwerume · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was great! A little sad, a little heartwarming, and full of interesting birds. Funniest story was the group of scientists that discovered a new species by accidentally eating it. Most heartwarming award goes to the people who trained Whooping Cranes to follow microlight planes so they could teach them a new migration route.

[Alex Wang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought it was just be another coffee table book but was actually a page turner. Vignettes of a variety of conservation stories from around the world all in one place. Found it fascinating.

[Becky B · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting half pictorial, half text guide to many birds that are extremely rare, though in various stages of being endangered. And as Couzens points out well, we never seem to actually know how rare or common species really are despite our best efforts.

While the book cover flap touts it as "accessible, readable, and visually appealing" I would only heartily agree with the last description. Accessible and readable, are a bit more of a stretch. I certainly wouldn't have read this all the way through except the pictures urged me on and I had nothing better to entertain me while monitoring middle schoolers on lunch break. Several of the stories start to sound repetitive and Couzens often throws in occasional words that the average English speaker is going to need a dictionary for. I will give him credit though, for an avid bird scientist he did a good job of mostly avoiding technical terms, and often made the birds' stories interesting as best he could. He also did a fairly good job avoiding saying that birds should rule the world and everyone else should just shove off, though I sometimes found it almost laughable how much he was trying to restrain himself from coming right out and saying 'we need to kill all rats, and these other pesky birds who are endangering these rare specimens'.

My favorite section -- which I also found the most interesting and well-written -- was Discoveries. In this section Couzens relates 5 stories of how people have accidentally discovered new bird species in unconventional ways in the past ~50 years.

A good resource for someone doing research on rare birds or a gift for a bird enthusiast.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding! Outstanding! Yes, two outstandings.

Author Couzens has searched the world over to find 50 rare birds: species in decline, species near extinction and species perhaps already gone. Beautiful birds, plain birds and even one duck so "ugly" that the females of the species seem to rather mate with another not of her kind. What makes this work so compelling, so heart-warming and so heart-breaking are the individual stories of each species. Their uniqueness to the world and their unique struggle to stay in it.

In the pages of the "Atlas of Rare Birds" you'll meet such species as the ultramarine lorikeet, Bali myna, marvellous spatuletail, po'ouli, Spix's macaw, Udzungwa forest partridge, long-whiskered owl and the before mentioned white-headed duck, plus the hundreds of people worldwide racing to save them from extinction.

Fascinating. Well written and researched.

[Smellsofbikes · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not exactly an atlas -- more an overview of different categories of rare and near extinct birds, with discussions of the various birds' habitats and what's led to their rarity.