cover image Follow That Bird!

Follow That Bird!

Bill Oddie. Robson Books, $26.5 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-86051-919-5

Birders and travel buffs will enjoy the author's account of his various peregrinations in search of birds. Comic TV actor, writer, broadcaster Oddie is probably Britain's best-known bird-watcher. Here, he chronicles adventures in Morocco, the Scilly Isles, Shetland, Ireland, India and Papua New Guinea. In the last, he accompanied a BBC crew to photograph birds of paradise. Oddie pokes gentle fun at twitchers--those obsessed with seeing rare birds; he disdains guided tours, preferring the company of one or two friends. In the Scillies, Shetland and Ireland, he seeks American birds that have crossed the Atlantic. In India he visits a reserve where a friend was killed by a tiger, and goes tiger-watching from the back of an elephant. Ultimately birds are almost incidental in this piece of lighthearted entertainment; we remember the ambiance more than the species. (Sept.)