The Rarest Bird in the World

January 4, 2016
More than 20 years after a group of scientists from Cambridge University discovered “a small, solitary wing” of a rare bird in Ethiopia, Head, a South African architect and conservationist, ventures there hoping to learn more. In this solid, if sentimental, volume, he charts his journey and enduring interest in ornithology. Writing of the original expedition, Head notes that the “scientists were modern in their approach to Nechisar and nature,” but their motivations remained decidedly old-fashioned in their desire to “seek out and catalogue life.” According to Head, the explorers were “aesthetes and poets infused with naivety; dreamers but also doers.” Traveling with three others, Head sets out to follow in their footsteps and is stunned by the scenery and the creatures he encounters. “Ethiopia smiles and cries at once,” he writes, “lush in some places and stark in others.” Head’s language is laudatory, his tone elegiac. Recalling his foray into Nechisar National Park, where “unusual trees poked up out of the plain like party-favours,” Head is reminded of time spent as a child on his grandfather’s Johannesburg farm, where he developed an interest in bird-watching. Head’s search for an elusive bird opens up his past and reveals a contagious curiosity and passion about nature. Agent: Michael Carlisle, Inkwell Management.

February 1, 2016

Here is a tale of the Nechisar nightjar, a mysterious night bird known only from a partial specimen, its left wing. Four bird experts, including Africa's premier ornithologist Ian Sinclair, explore the area where the wing was discovered in remote Ethiopia in 1990. Conservationist Head (chairman, BirdLife South Africa) further details other birds that might qualify as being the rarest in the world, describing their status in Ghana, Madagascar, Mauritius, the Galapagos Islands, Hawaii, Zambia, Somalia, Australia, the Sudan, and Venezuela. What would have been a compelling travelog is hampered by the author's overly florid prose that verges on poetic excess. The passages distract from descriptions of the exciting quest, though less so in the book's later chapters. We read of mammals and the geology, people, and scenery of Ethiopia, a few more photographs of which would have greatly enhanced the volume's appeal, but the only image is of the left wing. VERDICT Recommended for those interested in natural history, exploration, and Africa.--Henry T. Armistead, formerly with Free Lib. of Philadelphia

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