The Universal Pleasures of Birding

A review by Sanford Sorkin

How to Be an Urban Birder, by David Lindo

WILDGuides, 2018

232 pages, softcover

ABA Sales / Buteo Books 14865

Birdwatching London: All the Best Places to See Birds in the Capital, by David Darrell-Lambert

Safe Haven Books, 2018

192 pages, softcover

ABA Sales / Buteo Books 15008

Not every birding career is launched in the wilderness. I remember my own life-altering encounter: staring down at a Virginia Rail that had chosen to stand its ground and glare back, obviously asking why anyone unfeathered would want to perch on a narrow plank boardwalk in the middle of a swamp. It was a captivating experience, one that made me want to see more—and one that inspired me to acquire a camera to help me hold and share the beauty of it all.

That swamp where it all started for me was not in the wilds of Florida or Alaska or any such farflung birding mecca. The boardwalk I was standing on and the rail I was looking down at were in New Jersey—and not in Cape May but in northern New Jersey, in the very middle of the American megalopolis, where the human population density  approaches 5,000 souls per cramped square mile.

Birding in the city highlights the opportunities to bird close to home and to explore more accessible places. In his latest book, David Lindo has brewed a delightful mixture for birders everywhere. The reader follows Lindo to visit backyards, gardens, buildings, landfills, and wetlands in and around London, but the pleasure he finds and the lessons he draws are universal. We could just as easily be in Manhattan with Pale Male in Central Park, Common Grackles in Washington Square, or Peregrine Falcons terrorizing Feral Pigeons in Greenwich Village. Watching a pair of kestrels at the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel makes me wonder if they are drawn by an abundance of prey or a shortcut to New York City.

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