The Joy of Birdwatching: 60 Travel Experiences to Uplift and Inspire
Lonely Planet, 2024
272 pages, paperback
The cover of The Joy of Birdwatching depicts a birding fantasy come true. A jungle of brilliant green foliage and deep red and pink flowers curves around a perfectly round sun, with a raptor soaring towards the top. A large green hummingbird drinks from a trumpet-shaped flower, while a stylish woman watches through binoculars. Smaller birds perch in the foliage. It’s a seductive scene, promising euphoric beauty in exotic places; the perfect come-on for a book entitled The Joy of Birdwatching: 60 Travel Experiences to Uplift and Inspire.
A combination travelogue, photography book, and bird-finding guide, The Joy of Birdwatching presents 60 snapshots of places to see splendid birds and experience notable bird behavior. The sites are presented by continental groupings: Africa and the Middle East (7 sites), the Americas and Antarctica (22 sites), Asia (8 sites), Europe (13 sites), and Oceania (10 sites). The topics range from the expected—”finches” of the Galápagos and cassowaries of Queensland—to the little-known or obscure—the swifts of Selborne in England and the barn-owls of Château de Puymartin in France. The emphasis is on the travel experience, as befits a book published by Lonely Planet, the travel guide company that has morphed into a worldwide brand.
Each site is presented in four pages of attractively-designed prose, symbols, bullet points, photographs, and text boxes, using a soothing palette of soft greens and yellows. There is no variation in this template, which makes the book both easy to browse and sometimes a bit frustrating—there are surely places that deserve a little more or a little less attention! Chapter titles emphasize action and superlatives: “Marvel at a rainbow of macaws at the Chuncho clay lick,” “Zoom in on Zapata to see the world’s smallest bird.” You’re not just going to observe these birds, you’re going to admire, track, spectate, witness, and be in awe of them. Subheadings below the title note joyful things on which to focus (these include migratory visitors and superb coffee), and the best time of year to visit. A simplified map shows location. The text always begins with a lush description of how the location feels, followed by some ecological history, a conservation story, and, if we’re lucky, information about the birds themselves. The magnificent photographs that fill the book play an important role here, showing avian close-ups with informative captions.
Text boxes offer additional information. Most notable is the vertical Q&A box, in which (usually local) experts answer questions. Their comments ring much more authentic than the sophisticated travel-writer prose that fills the rest of the chapter. The small, yellow “Don’t Miss” box lists both birdy and touristy activities: “Craning your neck to watch 10,000-plus geese take flight” on the British Columbia Bird Trail, “Enjoying a pint at the pub in Stanley” in the Falkland Islands. The “Find Your Joy” green box lists travel information—how to get to the location, accessibility, when to go, brief information on fees, accommodations, and usually a website. This information appears to be largely accurate, but I highly recommend users back this up with other sources; the section on Zapata, Cuba, for example, gives no mention of the political obstacles faced by visitors from the U.S. The last page of the section lists additional hot-spots, special birds, and, in one instance, special mammals (flying-foxes!).
Photographs have been sourced from commercial photo libraries, mostly Shutterstock, with credits given in tiny print. The cover art and a two-page spread showing condors are by U.K.-based commercial illustrator Owen Gatley. An index helps you find locations and birds plus more general topics, such as “accessible trips” and “swamps and wetlands.” (Users of the index should be aware that it reflects the text, so, for example, the Galápagos “finches” are listed as “Darwin’s finches.”) It seems that Lonely Planet’s stylebook dictates non-capitalization of bird names, which can result in some very confusing sentences, especially when reading about “great bowerbirds,” “great hornbills,” and “great bustards.”
My big question was who wrote The Joy of Birdwatching, and I finally realized that the 60 chapters were authored by 30 writers, listed on the last page of the book with no indication as to who wrote which chapter. This is the Lonely Planet way, especially under its ownership by Red Ventures, a media company that also owns Points Guy and Healthline. Most of the authors are experienced travel writers, and I could find only one writer, Nicholas DeRenzo, who lists birds as an interest.
Nevertheless, the writers have done their homework, and the emphasis on tourism rather than hardcore birding underscores the theme of the book: integrating bird appreciation into all types of travel. The only questionable choice I can see is the above-mentioned Western Barn-Owls of Chateau de Puymartin, Dordogne; there doesn’t appear to be a guarantee that one would see barn-owls at the chateau—only hear ghost stories about them.
Tenijah Hamilton and Maya-Rose Craig stand out as contributing writers who are birders. Hamilton, who also wrote the buoyant foreword, was host of the first four seasons of the podcast “Bring Birds Back” and has elsewhere said that she wrote the chapter on the Atlanta Beltline in this book. Craig is known for her worldwide listing, starting at a very young age, and for her conservation advocacy (note to Lonely Planet: her name is misspelled in the credits).
The Joy of Birdwatching is a beautifully designed book for people who want to weave one or two, maybe even three, birding adventures into their more general travel itineraries. Birders will find nuggets of travel ideas in the broad geographic range and a wide spectrum of target birds, and they may then research additional sources to develop a more intense bird-focused journey. And for birders with non-birding family members, this may be the answer to your prayers—ideas for trips that will please everyone. It’s a book celebrating the beauty of the world and the adventurous spirit of the traveler, and that is something we need right now.
Donna L. Schulman is a retired labor relations librarian and professor and a New York City birder. She has reviewed over 220 books, initially fiction and women’s studies, now birds and nature, including monthly posts at the 10,000 Birds blog. Donna contributes to the annual “Best Bird Books of the Year” episode of the American Birding Podcast.
