Book Review of The Biggest Twitch by Bryan Bland

When we learned that Bryan Bland had written a review of our book in Birding World magazine, we felt doubly honoured. Who could ask for more? A review of our book in THE magazine for serious birders, written by the most skilled and experienced, but at the same time unassuming and charming, birder you could possibly hope to meet.

Consider this short resume to give you an idea of Bryan’s eminent background:

Bryan Bland is a Sunbird director who lives in Norfolk, alternating his highly regarded residential birdwatching courses with his overseas tours – a combined total of 1000 so far. He has studied birds in over 50 countries around the world and has been closely involved with the development of Sunbird’s successful 'Birds and Music' and 'Birds and History' tours (reflecting his other passions outside ornithology). Bryan's interest in identification is evinced by the fact that he has served on the records committees of both Norfolk and Scilly and has discovered numerous rarities, including county and country firsts. His papers and reviews have appeared in Birding World and British Birds. A busy lecturer, he is also well known as an illustrator.

Bryan Bland

But somehow, this busy gentleman has taken the trouble to read and write this review of our book. Take a read for yourself:

“Many of us have considered the option – selling up and abandoning safety and security for the freedom and excitement of touring the world to see as many birds as possible. Alan and Ruth actually did it. In 2008 they saw 4,341 species, breaking Jim Clements’ 1989 calendar-year world record of 3,662 by a staggering 679 species. Their energy, enthusiasm and perseverance was outstanding. In particular, notwithstanding their sequence of 4am starts and gruelling days in the field, they were disciplined enough to update their website every evening before snatching a few hours sleep. Without such a daily record they would surely not have been able to recall their adventures in such detail and with such verisimilitude that we can all now share their experiences from the comfort of our armchairs. Distilling 366 action-packed days into 283 pages of narrative could not have been an easy task, but Ruth and Alan have succeeded magnificently and produced a fast-paced and enthralling read for birders everywhere.

Seriously, but maybe wisely, they each wrote separate chapters in separate rooms (‘we both knew exactly how to write each chapter, and we both knew that the other was wrong’). But they both reveal an equal flair for writing and evocatively original images abound (a Wallcreeper, ‘grey, until it opened its wings to reveal a slash of magenta – like the silk lining of a vampire’s cape’; the Greater Adjutant’s neck with a hanging pouch ‘like a giant scrotum’; the Shoebill ‘with a Dutch clog for a beak’; Alligators ‘lurking like discarded tyre treads’; the scaly surface of Ayer’s Rock ‘as though suffering from a skin complaint’; or even a simple reference to ‘bruised purple clouds’). The book could so easily have been little more than a relentless roll-call of five thousand bird names (hits and misses), but the authors have deftly interspersed these with so many human-interest stories, humorous anecdotes, and vivid evocations of people and places that the reader’s interest is held page after page. Even so, bird names do come thick and fast and ideally the reader should keep a few field guides handy to enjoy fully the sequence of amazing species which counted for so much more than ‘one more’ in the numbers game. But be warned: these aide-memoires amount to quite a library as the areas visited by the authors constitute (literally) and A-Z of birding hot spots: Argentina, Arizona, Australia, Brazil, California, Canada, Cape May, Cyprus, Ecuador, England, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, Ghana, India, Kenya, Malawi, Malaysia, Mexico, Namibia, Norway, Panama, Peru, South Africa, Spain, Texas, Turkey, Wales and Zambia. Every page of narrative deserves a facing page of colour pictures. As it is, we have to be content with 16 pages incorporating 52 photographs. For the rest you will have to catch up with the authors on a lecture tour. Hopefully we can now look forward to a sequel recounting the authors’ adventures in seeing the other half of the world’s bird species. Buying the book for the vicarious experience is much more comfortable, and much cheaper, than doing it for real. Send in your sponsorship forms now. Bryan Bland”

Thank you Bryan for such a great review, we’re sure it will encourage many Birding World readers to rush out and buy a copy of The Biggest Twitch. To subscribe to Birding World magazine yourself, contact sales@birdingworld.co.uk.