Review by Booklist Review
Young naturalist Dunn, on his first trip to London, was entranced by a large glass case in the Natural History Museum. Filled with hundreds of hummingbirds, this case jump-started his craving to see these exuberantly colored, tiny birds in the wild. Hummingbirds can be found from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from mountains to deserts to islands. Dunn writes of his years chasing hummingbirds and exploring their terrains. He begins with a journey far north to see the rufous hummingbird, the holder of the longest hummingbird migration on record, 3,500 miles. Dunn moves on to describe all kinds of hummingbird hotspots. Arizona is a hummingbird mecca; Cuba is home of the world's smallest bird, the bee hummingbird. In Costa Rica, he sees 48 hummingbird species in two days. Ecuador is home to the largest hummingbird, Peru has the Nazca Line hummingbird, and the southernmost species dwell on Isla Robinson Crusoe off the coast of Chile. Full of natural history, quotes from early explorers, local history, and adventure, Dunn's chronicle of his hummingbird quests will make readers just as obsessed with these small, quick birds dipped in rainbows.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Natural history writer Dunn (Orchid Summer) takes readers on a wondrous globe-trotting pilgrimage to seek out hummingbirds as their populations are threatened. He stops in Alaska to check on "the most northerly hummingbirds in the world" whose population is in decline (as are birds at the southernmost tip of South America), and visits Patagonia, Ariz., to see "a species at best scarce in the United States." Dunn points to climate change, habitat loss, and hunting as reasons "the clock of extinction is ticking loudly for them." Along the way, Dunn shares odd facts about the birds' physiognomy and behavior--their tongues are so long "that, when retracted, they coil inside the birds' heads around their skulls and eyes," and male Anna's Hummingbirds court prospective mates by making music with their tails. As in the best nature writing, Dunn paints striking pictures: he describes a bird "clad in an impossibly rich and overpowering imperial purple that, as traces of golden light from the lodge struck his breast, exploded into myriad sparks of palatinate life, each feather coruscating and glittering." Dunn's vivid prose, balanced with just the right amount of detail, will captivate birders and non-birders alike. (Apr.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Natural history writer Dunn (Orchid Summer) has been drawn to hummingbirds since childhood. With this latest work, he has written an engaging history of the species while also shedding insight into why people, such as John James Audubon and Henry David Thoreau, have been astonished by them. Over a number of years, Dunn traveled from the Arctic Circle to the southern tip of South America in order to observe, discover, and learn more about hummingbirds, a unique and colorful species only found in the Americas. This inviting narrative describes the author's search for the rare Mangrove Hummingbird in Costa Rica, as well as others threatened with habitat loss in Cuba and Mexico. Along the way, he also details the rise and fall of the fake Harlequin Hummingbird, and the history of bird fraud. Notably, the author takes care to consider the place of hummingbirds in the history, literature, and cultures of their locales. Dunn writes passionately about climate change, habitat loss, invasive species, and unchecked development--all the work of humans--on hummingbird populations. For Dunn, mankind is inextricably linked to hummingbirds and their fate. VERDICT An essential book for bird watchers, especially hummingbird lovers, as well as anyone interested in natural history.--Mark Jones, Mercantile Lib., Cincinnati
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
An acclaimed natural history writer and wildlife guide explores the Americas in search of hummingbirds. As Dunn notes, storytellers have always held hummingbirds in "high regard," from pre-Columbian oral mythologists to 20th-century writers like Gabriel García Márquez. In his latest, the author chronicles his travels from his home in the Shetland Islands to the Americas in search of this alluring bird. Fittingly, Dunn's journey begins in Alaska, where, tens of millions of years ago, hummingbirds arrived after crossing over the land bridge from Siberia. Here, the author introduces us to the "sombre green and white plumage" of the Rufous hummingbird, a species that, in 2010, was documented traveling 3,500 miles, the longest known migration ever recorded by a hummingbird." Among Dunn's numerous vividly recounted adventures, we visit gardens and lush areas in the Sonoran Desert that have become magnets for bird-watchers; a market in Mexico City where we learn about a macabre secret; the Zapata Peninsula in Cuba, home to the bee hummingbird, the smallest in the world; and Tierra del Fuego, in Argentina, where the author spotted the Green-backed Firecrown, a species that Darwin encountered in 1832 "flitting about in a snowstorm." All of these marvelous voyages are only part of what makes this book so enchanting. Along the way, Dunn compassionately shares his extensive knowledge of the species endemic to each location, including their aesthetics, mechanics, habitats, and related regional culture and folklore, and he discusses factors contributing to the decline of hummingbirds, including pesticides, climate change, and habitat loss. Encouragingly, he "encountered examples of where human intervention had come just in time and, locally at least, had pulled a hummingbird back from the brink." However, he also discovered that hummingbirds continue to be seen by some as a "commodity to be consumed and manipulated for their own ends, regardless of the birds' welfare." A mesmerizing, wonder-filled nature study that also serves as a cautionary tale about wildlife conservation. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
