100 books like Flight Lines

Twitchers pursuing long lists of bird sightings can seem to be fixated rather than appreciating nature in a sensible way.

Sean Dooley achieves something unlikely by showing that a world ruled by a "near-autistic obsession for list-making" has a lot going for it, because birds are wondrous things that lure birders to amazing places, providing access to something transcending everyday life. Dooley’s quest is to break the record for the number of species seen in Australia in one year.

His parents died young of cancer leaving him at age 33 with enough money to buy a comfortable house in the outer suburbs of Melbourne but instead he blows it on a four-wheel drive and a year of bird-obsessed travel that entailed 80 000 kilometres of driving, 60 000 kilometres in the air and 2 000 kilometres by boat. (Meaning, regrettably, a large carbon footprint.)

Dooley scored a record 703 species… show more.

This is not strictly an Australian bird book but is so rich in Australian content it might as well be.

American science writer Jennifer Ackerman takes us into the minds of birds and delivers surprises on every page. An explosion of recent research has shown birds to be far more sophisticated than was thought possible and Australian birds epitomise that. In her introduction Ackerman says that Australian birds crop up throughout her book for their extreme behaviours, intelligence, and ecological diversity.

She travelled Australia to see them and to interview experts, including me. Asking ‘Can a lyrebird lie?’ she offers evidence that they do. She tells of fairy-wrens and zebra finches communicating important information to their young while these are still inside their eggs.

We learn of brush turkey chicks, after hatching from the egg, spending more than two days digging to escape from the nest mound, then receiving no… show more.

Leila Jeffreys treats the birds in her photography studio like celebrities destined for the cover of Vogue. She takes time getting to know them and letting them know her, so that instead of just seeing birds she sees into them, and they into her.

Her book of bird portraits is a testament to trust between divergent species. She mentions a black-breasted buzzard coming to accept her photographic gear then suddenly becoming very focussed on her: "It’s an exhilarating feeling when a bird makes this transition and we begin to communicate silently as we study each other. The intelligence of this bird was profound."

The birds in her portraits look variously intense or relaxed, curious or knowing, engaged or merely comfortable, soulful, intelligent, refined, and so much else. As a child, Jeffreys was ‘besotted’ with animals and saw them as people, imagining they could talk to her. That shows through… show more.

English naturalist John Gould is recognised as the father of bird study in Australia.

During 19 months in 1838-1840 he travelled in NSW, South Australia, and Tasmania, seeing the birds and landscapes before they had been affected much by Europeans, and leaving insightful descriptions that provide a unique window into a past when, for example, regent honeyeaters, endangered today, flitted about in the middle of Adelaide city.

Gould introduced the budgerigar to Europe, was the first to describe the bowers of bowerbirds, and the first in so many ways. His book appeared in 1865 but remains relevant today. I quoted him many times in my bird book for his unique insights and observations. But the common names he used can be difficult to swallow. He praised the regent honeyeater as ‘one of the most beautiful birds inhabiting Australia’ but called it the ‘warty-faced honeyeater’.

This book (or pair of books… show more.

In my living room, I have a shelf of discarded birds’ nests, and my sofa is a beachy aqua colour. It’s no wonder then, that I was initially drawn to this book’s cover. The story itself was a pleasant surprise. I can best describe this novel as a nature meditation because, when I started reading, Inga Simpson’s prose seemed to slow time. I became less interested in achieving my daily tasks and paid minute attention to the birds and trees outside my window. Although a story of loss and heartache is weaved through this Nest, it is less important than the gaps between the plot. I am convinced this delightful novel about an art teacher and her garden added a year or two to my life! 

Quick, what’s the most melodious sound in the English countryside? Is it the nightingale or the skylark, perhaps? Maybe the coo-coo?

Songbirds are quintessentially northern hemisphere species, and their songs permeate literature, not just in Europe but also in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Of course, birds evolved in the global north. Right? Wrong! Low argues that songbirds, parrots, and pigeons first evolved in Australia and have spread out across the world.

It’s a controversial view, but as a proud Aussie, I’m happy to believe it. Even if it’s wrong, Low writes about birds with a passion that only the truly obsessed can pull off. If you love birds, you’ll love this book.

Why Did the Chicken Cross the World? might be the worst title of all time, but it is a wonderfully surprising and fascinating book. There are tasty nuggets here for everyone (sorry/not sorry for the pun). Did you know that Mexicans eat more eggs per capita than any other people in the world? Or how many different slang terms and metaphors there are for chickens through time? (“Biology can’t explain why our favored slang word for the male organ refers to a bird that lacks one.” Ha!) Or that in the mid-nineteenth century, Britain and America were absolutely obsessed with raising exotic “fancy” chickens? And that pound for pound, chicken releases only one-tenth the greenhouse gases of red meat such as hamburgers? Read up on the world’s favorite bird and laugh while you’re at it with Lawler’s book.

The Syrian refugee crisis is the largest in the world, with over 12 million displaced people. As an elementary school librarian in a diverse city, I would have loved to read this book to every class. I appreciated that the story wasn’t violent yet managed to show what the boy and his family had to escape. I think any aged child from any background could care about this Syrian boy as I did.

Told in first person, the boy misses and worries about the pigeons he raised as his family flees their town (bombed in the distance). I was struck by the illustrator’s palette choice—realistic but respectful of a child’s sensibilities. Dark smoke and flames engulf the town, but the brightly-coloured family survives.

In the refugee camp, the boy’s father plants a life-sustaining, vibrant green garden. In time, the boy feeds and cares for the birds again. When a traumatized… show more.

This book delighted me because it’s packed with the backstories behind the names of birds—and those stories feature surprising historical anecdotes, quirky characters, and more. Did I say “quirky”? The namesake for Leach’s storm petrel was so far past “quirky” that you can’t even see it in the rear-view mirror.

I enjoyed thinking about early naturalists trying to fit strange birds from strange lands into what was familiar from home (hence, North American and Australian “robins.”). I learned about bird names that are onomatopoetic (“rook”), based on folklore (“goatsucker”), unexpectedly descriptive (“swallow”), and, of course, eponymous (the titular “Mrs. Moreau’s warbler.”). The writing is graceful, and the book design is lovely. What a treat! 

Packing a huge amount of research onto every page, Strycker, who in his 2015 big year logged a record-setting 6,042 bird species, engagingly analyzes the biology and behavior of penguins, magpies, hummingbirds, albatrosses, and more to explore how the lives of birds are simultaneously incredibly alien to and indelibly intertwined with those of humans in activities and emotions as diverse as altruism, dancing, seduction, and fear. His insights, delivered with a light touch, may well change the worldview of those who think that humans are somehow more worthy than any other animal on the planet.