Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Birds ... But Were Afraid to Ask

It would take a brave, or reckless, author to claim that the “Everything” in the title of this book was an assertion of fact rather than just a turn of phrase. My first test, however, provided convincing evidence that the book was certainly comprehensive. The smallest flightless bird is, indeed, Inaccessible Island Rail (my favourite species), and the more I dipped in, the more I recognised how cleverly this book had been pitched. It targets not only every level of birder, from knowledge-hungry tyro to smug expert, but also the great mass of pub-quiz aficionados and impassioned seekers of general knowledge who probably outnumber the birding public by 50 to one.

The book covers not only “Everything” you might be afraid, for whatever murky psychological reasons, to ask about birds, but plenty that you probably wouldn’t even think of asking. One of the great strengths of the book, therefore, is its very broad appeal. There is something here for everyone, birder or not. Can we picture “an intelligent eleven-year-old” or two blokes propped up at the bar of the Dog and Dunnock wondering “What would happen if we adopted the Phylogenetic Species Concept?” Er, probably not; but then they might well, in the course of youthful curiosity or beery inquisition, demand to know what is the fastest flier, biggest nest, longest migration or loudest singer in the bird world. They would find the answers to all these mainstream questions among the more obscure and esoteric facts, figures and ideas that would be the target of, say, the seasoned Birdwatch reader.

Questions are grouped into 10 subject headings, including “What is a bird?”, “Why do birds sing?”, “Where do birds go?” and “How do we relate to birds?” The answers or explanations to myriad topics under each of these are presented in an accessible and user-friendly format, with the occasional text box slipped in to highlight such items as domestication (“Professional Fowl”), hoarding (“Cache Prizes”) and the largest flying birds (“King of the Wingers”). Yes, the puns are that excruciating, but the book as a whole has a style that is a pleasure to read, and educational without being condescending.

As this book, by its nature, deals with facts and accuracy, the irritating pedant in me is moved to question a few statements. The author presumably means “heaviest” when he says “largest” in “world’s largest flying bird” (page 22)? “Largest” can mean all sorts of things including, I suppose, mass, area, length and height. On page 174 he gives the figure of “11,000” as the number of birds recovered out of the 880,000 that had been ringed in Britain and Ireland that year. The former figure is, if I understand it correctly from the BTO’s ringing report, all ringed birds recovered that year, regardless of the year in which they were ringed. A better representation of recovery rates is the almost 600,000 (about 2 per cent) recovered of the nearly 32 million birds ringed in the British Isles between 1901 and 2002. I couldn’t find the likes of ‘size’, ‘heaviest’, ‘wingspan’ or ‘fastest’ in the index, which makes quick referencing tricky.

I am probably old-fashioned, but I still look for page numbers at the bottom of the page. The ones here are, rather annoyingly, in a little grey semicircle half way up the outside margin, just where your thumbs are likely to rest when flicking through. I was surprised not to find James Fisher’s The Shell Bird Book, published in 1966, in the bibliography. This is a perennial source of delight and information, and doubtless the origin of at least some of the gems in Everything ... .

The book is simply but quite nicely produced. I am relieved that, although it has the RSPB logo emblazoned on the cover, the book does not follow the society’s daft house-style of having lower-case letters for species names. Marianne Taylor’s quirky, witty and often literary cartoons are a delight. I like her pointed observation that girls, too, indulge in this horribly male-dominated hobby (page 180)!

Interpreting the title as an implicit challenge, I am left wondering just what is left to ask. Hmm. Are there any luminous birds? Could a bird fly effectively in zero gravity? Has a bird song ever made the Top 10? Do birds ever get drunk? What is the world’s bestselling bird book? Imagination and research have clearly gone into this particular book in equally impressive proportions, and the results are enormously informative and enjoyable. If you didn’t get one at Christmas, get yourself a copy now.

First published in Birdwatch 164 51 (February 2006). To order a copy of Everything You Always Wanted to Know About birds ... But Were Afraid to Ask, click here.

Tech spec

• Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Birds . . . But Were Afraid to Ask by Stephen Moss (Christopher Helm, London, 2005)
• 192 pages, numerous cartoons
• ISBN 0713668156. Pbk, £9.99