Down and Dirty Birding

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

I found this book difficult to read: it’s hard to read anything when
your eyes are streaming with tears from laughing nonstop and you’re
doubled over, convulsed with the best bellylaugh you’ve had in
decades.

Not that this book is everyone’s idea of good clean fun. The choice
of terminology is guaranteed to offend a few, and the flippant attitude
will tick off another small group. But for the remaining 90 percent of
all people who have ever thought of watching a bird—or a bird
watcher—it’s heaven at the sewage lagoon.

Although the book’s subject is the antics of birds and those who
watch them (and the book contains lots of solid information on these
topics), it is equally a demonstration in communicating via a shared
appreciation for the ridiculous.

Slinger, a Leacock Medal–winning humorist, takes a pin to the serious
balloon of birding. At the same time, he equips the beginner with useful
facts and the experienced with fascinating trivia. He shocks us by
looking at bird behavior from a human perspective, and then flips over
and looks at humans from the birds’ point of view. And all the while
he’s covering the must-know stuff, such as how to select binoculars
and a field guide, how to identify various species (human and avian),
and how to find the best spots for birding. The biology lesson on
“bird parts” is priceless.