Fifty Places to Go Birding Before You Die

Suppose you’re planning a trip to Florida and would like to find some good places to bird. You could pick up the American Birding Association’s A Birder’s Guide to Florida and it will have everything you need. There are plenty of books like this for regions across the globe. There are even books that will tell you where to go for the best chance to find a particular bird. But what if you’re not sure where, exactly, you want to go to begin with? Where can you turn for worldwide suggestions of where to go on your next birding trip? This is the first book that I’m aware of that seeks to fill this void.

I was extremely skeptical when I first saw the listing for this book. The author, Chris Santella, was unfamiliar to me. A quick check revealed that he has written other, similar books such as Fifty Places to Fly Fish Before You Die (along with “…to Sail…”, and “…to Golf…”). I was concerned this would be a vapid book, thrown together by someone who didn’t know what they were writing about in order to milk birders of their money. Harsh, I know, but I’m sure it has been done before. While I can’t speak to the author’s motivation in writing this, I was pleasantly surprised to find the book very much worth reading (with some caveats, as detailed below).

In the introduction the author readily admits that he is not an avid birder. However, he’s not entirely unfamiliar with the hobby. He knew enough to realize that he was not qualified to select sites for inclusion in this book. Thus, he reached out to many famous birders and ornithologists for their recommendations. Each one of these 50 places was recommended by someone different, many of whom you will immediately recognize.

Before proceeding further, you may wish to check out the complete list of fifty places showcased in this book.

Each of the fifty accounts average about 4 pages each. Santella writes each account; however, he liberally includes direct quotes from the site’s recommender. The location, its birds, and other factors that make it a great place to bird are described.

These accounts are fairly short and thus cannot be exhaustive. However, there were some weird omissions. For example, Belize’s most popular birding destination, the Chan Chich Lodge, was not mentioned in that country’s profile. Also, New Jersey’s Cape May is one of the most popular birding sites in the United States. But for some reason the person recommending that place focuses solely on the World Series of Birding that occurs there to the exclusion of almost everything else (as pointed out in this review).

The writing is generally excellent, and Santella does a good job synthesizing the information. I was concerned that his lack of birding experience would be detrimental, but thankfully that was not the case (one misspelling notwithstanding: Toucan Barbot , instead of Barbet).

The best parts are often in the selector’s own words. That’s not too surprising since some of birding’s best authors, such as Kenn Kaufman and Julie Zickefoose, are included. The recommenders tell many great stories of their experiences in these places. Perhaps the most bizarre is of the Pine Marten in Yellowstone that ran up Terry McEneaney’s pant leg in order to escape from a Great Gray Owl!

Each account ends in a brief biography of the recommender and an “If You Go” section. The latter consists of:

• Getting there – gives the nearest airports and air carriers serving it
• Best Time to Visit – takes into account both the species present and the weather
• Guides – birding tour companies that visit the area
• Accommodations – a short list of hotels and other accommodations in the vicinity, or links to websites that can give more suggestions

Most, but not all, of the accounts also include a single photograph. These are full-page, or nearly so, and uniformly excellent. They depict either a characteristic bird species or landscape of the spotlighted location.

Likely the biggest issue most readers will have is with the selection of the places. But that task is extremely subjective and even though I was very surprised at some of the selections (just one example: St. Mark’s over the Everglades?), I cut it a lot of slack. Additionally, whether a site “deserves” to be included greatly depends on how you define the selection criteria. Are we looking for the places with the most birds, the “best” birds, or something else? Yellowstone National Park, for example, is included here even though, as the account states, it does not contain a great number of species or anything that you couldn’t find elsewhere. However, you could make the case that it’s a place everyone should visit regardless of the birds, and thus deserves to be included (and it’s not like the birding is bad!).

That said, it still doesn’t seem right when the United States contains half of the sites, while Africa only has two.

Additionally, there are a few other ways this book could have been improved:

• Pictures – The quality is outstanding, but I was expecting there to be more.
• Maps – There are none! I would wager that birders have a better grasp of geography than most people, but still not everyone knows where Bhutan or Tanzania is. A map with each account would be ideal, but even a two-page world map with all the places located on it would have been greatly appreciated.
• Size – The book is surprisingly small, perhaps in order to fit in with the other books in the series. However, making it a little larger could have insured that the previously mentioned items could be added.

Recommendation

Widely traveled birders won’t get much out of this book, although some of the stories and experiences recounted here would still be worth reading. But anyone aspiring to be widely traveled will find a great deal of inspiration here. Personally, I greatly enjoyed reading about all of these locations, from the ones I’ve visited to the ones I had never heard of. I have only birded six of these places, and am looking forward to crossing more off this list.

Complete List of fifty places.