Book Forty - One of my 2013 Goal

Bird Brains: Inside the Strange Minds of Our Fine Feathered Friends by Budd Titlow
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love photography and birds so when I came across the book, Bird Brains: 'Inside the Strange Minds of Our Fine Feathered Friends' by Budd Titlow, I was really interested in reading it, the only thing holding me back was the price. Believe me, it was money well spent! Mr. Titlow not only tells his personal experiences (as both a wildlife biologist but photographer as well) the photographs of the birds are amazing.

The book is broken up into areas of where the birds were found and pretty much covers the US as well as touching on those on the Galapagos Islands. (I found that amazing since the Galapagos Islands is the only foreign land on my 'bucket list'.) The photos are approximately a quarter of a page so don't think this is a picture book (although it does contain these photos, it is not page after page of photos with just a sentence or two about the bird) because it is not and then he starts his description of the bird, its behavior, some personal experiences, what it eats, sometimes a little history and if it is a native species or endangered along with other related information that I found both educational and interesting.

Some of his stories are down right funny. I can't imagine looking through my camera to take a picture of a bird on the ground who keeps walking toward me getting bigger and bigger in my camera so I had to change my lens. Then it still kept coming until I finally had to move my camera and tripod because the bird wanted to walk right where I had it. I am not sure if I'd be shocked and sitting there with my mouth open at my fantastic fortune of being in the right place at the right time or on the ground laughing at this crazy bird who hasn't the sense to walk the other way.

I also learned quite a few things throughout the book about different birds. I know I will never look at a turkey or a bald eagle the same way again. Nor did I ever know there are birds that fly far enough in their lifetime to do a couple of trips to the moon and back. Even some of the more common birds that I have seen here in New England that are covered in the book have some interesting facts told about them that I didn't know and these are birds I see all the time.

The photos are outstanding! Although I will admit I wish there were more pages in the book so the photographs could have been bigger. Not that this is a short book (over 200 pages), it isn't what I consider short and every page is packed with information but those were some amazing shots. Speaking of the shots, the very last one at the end of the book is "haunting" as I can't get it out of my head.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes and are interested in birds.

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