To See Every Bird on Earth: A Father, a Son, and a Lifelong Obsession

The other day, I was having my weekly coffee with friends when one of them said to me, (in relation to a FB post of mine she’d recently seen): “You’ve become a real Twitcher, haven’t you?”

I hadn’t started this book yet, but my answer was a resounding “no” for several reasons, though it was hard to really define them for her. Now that I have finished this book, it’s much easier, and I’ll get back to that at the end of my post.

To See Every Bird on Earth is meant to be, if you believe what it says on the wrapper, a book that explores the thrill of the chase across the world to witness as many of the earth’s birds as possible in a lifetime. There’s some of that, but mostly, it’s the culmination of what I’m show more guessing was a lot of therapy for the author; a psychological catharsis of his family’s dysfunction, written and published. In many ways, this book was marketed to the wrong demographic; those that find personal substance in others’ stories about personal journeys would find a lot to like in this book. Needless to say, it’s not my jam.

BUT having said that, in between the family drama being laid bare, there was a lot of interesting insight into the world of Big Listers. Big Listers are those that have seen thousands of the known species of birds in the world. Known species is a moving target, and is currently around 10 thousand. The biggest Big Lister has seen over 8 thousand. This is about big numbers, big money, and big obsessions – and very little about the birds. Koeppel, when he focuses on these people, does a better than credible job getting into their heads and their world and it was fascinating for me, in a rubber-necking kind of way. The chance to see the birds these people have seen is tantalising; how they go about it, like a military invasion, isn’t.

And ultimately, this is why I’m not a twitcher, neither of the hobby sized or obsessive Big Lister variety. True, I have the list of birds in my state, and I do check them off when I see them, noting the time and place. But I don’t count, I don’t plan, set goals, or study, and I’m embarrassed at how few bird songs I can identify after the 10 years I’ve spent tramping around the bush – and at how easily I can confuse myself over identifications.

But I have no desire to ‘do better’ because my hazy goal, set when I started this and unchanged since, isn’t to just see the birds. When I moved to Australia, not knowing how long I’d be here, I wanted to see Australia, I wanted to experience this place so far away from the rest of the world on so many levels. Looking for birds (which are, let’s be honest, the low-hanging fruit of the wildlife tree), makes me look up, down, and into the bush; I have to actually explore my surroundings, and in doing that I come much closer to actually experiencing this amazing land. The added bonus: not only have I seen (and am seeing) Australia in a way that will stay with me, but I have a new found sense of wonder wherever I go, including home to Florida. I apparently lived 90% of my life alongside hundreds of bird species I never knew about because I never paid attention. And by looking for the birds, I’m finding an entire world of wildlife right there for me to appreciate (or not, in the case of some).

So while I didn’t enjoy To See Every Bird on Earth as much as I’d hoped, I do thank its author for helping me clarify in my own mind my motivations for my avian hobby that definitely isn’t bird-watching. show less

Dan Koeppel's father's obsession with birds began at age 12. He wanted to be an ornithologist, but because of pressure from his parents, went to medical school and became a doctor. He married, had two kids, and divorced. After the divorce, he arranged his life to accommodate the bird-watching habit he had never given up. He worked as an ER doctor, allowing him to accumulate funds, and then take off on long birdwatching trips to exotic locations around the world. He belonged to that elite group of birdwatchers known as "big listers." It is estimated that there are around 9,600 distinct species of bird in the world (only about 900 in the US and Canada), and to see more than 7000 is a huge accomplishment.

This book brings us right into the show more world of these big listers--the lengths they go to and the money they spend to "see every bird." But it is also a son's memoir of coming to terms with his estranged father, as in later life he joined his father on several bird watching trips and struggled to understand his father's obsession.

Recommended

3 1/2 stars show less

I selected the book To see every bird on earth : a father, a son, and a lifelong obsession on a whim. I thought the book would be interesting because of having once been a novice 'birder" myself. I got sucked into this book deeply, however, when the author made the comment about how birding is an obsessive hobby with birders liking to count all sorts of things...including books. Hmm? I couldn't stop laughing. Then he talked about stamp collectors collecting bird stamps. I thought back. Oh, yeah! When I was a kid, I collected stamps...and counted them, too! :D

This book was not only about birds. It was also about the author's family history which was, oddly enough, tied to the history of the State of Israel. For me, that was an show more unexpectedly interesting part of this book, although I'm not sure how appealing it would be to other birders.

As I continued to read this book, I saw how sad it was. There were a lot of painful revelations about the author's parents and how both of their lives didn't turn out as expected. It was also disheartening to read how birds interfered with the dad’s relationship with his two sons. Dan’s life was lonely as a child. It was too bad he did not have more support from his father at the time he needed it.

Fortunately, Dan has made his own successful way into the world. This book is but one of his achievements as he is noted in the field of mountain bikes as well as writing.

The author's dad set an amazing record in the number of birds he counted, but as the book progressed, I saw that it was at the expense of other aspects of his life. It seemed more and more as if birding was merely a driving obsession. Only illness stopped this obsessive behavior and gave the father a chance to interact with his son more closely in order to complete the writing of this book.

The author's brother’s favorite bird was the hoopoe bird. It’s also been my favorite bird. From this book, I've learned that the hoopoe bird was supposed to be very wise and have a spiritual connection. In remembering this comical bird, I also remembered the great fun I had in bird watching years ago and made up my mind to take it up as a hobby again in the coming months. show less

Summary: Dan Koeppel's father has seen over 7,000 species of birds. That's impressive enough on its own, considering that there are about 10,000 bird species on the planet, but even more impressive is that there are less than a dozen other "Big Listers" that have attained those kinds of numbers. However, that kind of accomplishment is not without a price. In To See Every Bird on Earth, Koeppel traces the origins of his father's birding, how it sprung from stifled childhood dreams and turned from a hobby into an obsession that consumed and overwhelmed everything else in his life, including his job, his marriage, and his family. In trying to understand his father's birding, he also investigates the history of competitive birding, the show more current state of this unique and eccentric subculture, the methods and motivations of several other Big Listers, and the root of the desire that drives humans to attempt to count and categorize the natural world.

Review: Speaking from the point of view of a biologist who is not a birder - and while there is some overlap, being one does not require the other - it was eye-opening to read about the other side of things. I learned a lot of things about birding and birders that I didn't know - most strikingly the fact that there are so few Big Listers. I also agree with Koeppel's general thesis about the craze for birding (or similar pastimes) springing from a need to create a place of order for ourselves in a wide world that seems chaotic. So, viewing this book as a work of factual non-fiction, it was definitely a success: I was interested throughout, and I learned some new things, although I wish there had been more about the birds themselves.

Viewing this book as a biography/memoir, however, I'm not so sure. Koeppel states his theories about why his dad is a compulsive birder pretty early on, and then describes his dad's life such that it supports those theories. However, he doesn't really present any alternative explanations, and I was never entirely convinced, never sure that there wasn't some piece to the puzzle that Koeppel was standing too close to see.

Speaking of standing too close, I also have to evaluate this book from a scientist's perspective. Birding relies on several scientific principles, and while for the most part Koeppel does an okay job explaining them, there were a few places where I thought the science aspect of things could have used beefing up. For example, the definition of what is a "species" is critical to birders - for those with large lists, revisions of the taxonomy can gain or lose them tens if not hundreds of species at a time, which is critical in a game where numbers are the main thing that matter. Among biologists, species concepts are often hotly debated at extensive length; in TSEBoE, Koeppel dispatches with the issue in less than a paragraph. There are other instances throughout the book where a misplaced word or strange phrasing belied a similar lack of in-depth scientific understanding.

I don't mean to sound overly down on this book. It's highly likely that the amount of science Koeppel introduces is more than adequate for the lay reader, and I'm just being an egghead. Overall, I did enjoy reading it, I just think that it didn't quite reach everything it was aiming for. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: Worth reading for an interesting look into a subculture that most people probably know very little about. show less

I'm figuring that I've consciously seen about 50 birds in my backyard, and maybe 150 more on walks, hikes, and various trips. Two hundred. That's not bad. (It also doesn't count because I don't keep a list.) Serious birders have well-documented lists that are 400 to 1000 species long. Then there are the superstar birders (known as Big Listers) that make up the obsession-analysing To See Every Bird on Earth.

This book was Dan Koeppel's description, in terms of both admiration and amazement, of his father's drive to see and list birds. It was kind of a loving way to rhetorically ask "what the heck are you doing with your life, Dad?" I found it much easier to relate to the author, a mountain biking magazine writer, than to his father, a New show more York doctor who planned most of his entire adult life around where the birds were. His life list -- one term among many in this rich subculture of birding -- is over 7000 species.

There are others ahead of him in the lofty perches of birddom (two or three have topped 8000) but the author's best descriptions lie with his father. Other birders, famous within the community, flit into his text: Roger Tory Peterson, David Allen Sibley, Phoebe Snetsinger (the TOP top lister who was once given six months to live, skipped out on chemo, and did nothing but see birds for the next twenty years!), and Peter Kaestner (a diplomat who is destined to be the new top lister eventually). The book's center stage is the big listing obsession itself which Koeppel presents with appreciation, awe, and a little head-scratching. It was an enjoyable read.

I read a similar book by a British author a few years back: Birders: Tales of a Tribe by Mark Cocker. It focused more on the community of birders (twitchers, as they say in England) than on the Big Listers.

And I won't sign off without telling you how big a birding list can actually get. Bird classification is ever changing as researchers decide that this forest variety is no different than that mountain variety or that those two species are really three. The total number of bird species is currently somewhere near 10,000. You might have to travel to every tiny island in every country to see all 10,000, but that's how obsessive the Big Listers become in their quest. (If you want to list the Sangihe Shrike-Thrush, for instance, you've got to go to Sangihe Island, north of Sulawesi. Sheesh!)

Want to see the whole list? I did after reading this book. My library doesn't own it but I interlibrary loaned Birds of the World: A Checklist by James F Clements. It's the Big Lister bible showing the names and native homes of every bird species in the world AND all of their subspecies! No pictures, mind you. It's just a list. A heavy one. My jaw dropped just paging through it. How can anyone possibly see every bird on Earth?

Find more of my reviews at Mostly NF. show less

I could have done with a little less of the I-didn't-get-enough-attention-from-my-parents narratives, but all the ornithological, taxonomy, naturalist, and travel stuff was fantastic. Sure to be a big hit with any Big List or backyard birder.

The author, Dan Koeppel has certainly given us quite a ride with this work, To See Every Bird on Earth. Within the covers of this book we have a biography, autobiography, a study of a very dysfunctional family, an environmental history of different parts of the world, a cathartic work by a young man deeply troubled and hurt by parents who were not all that good at their job, a history of one Jewish family and their coming to the “new world,” a look at the psychology of the obsessive birder, i.e. what drives them; what motivates them and above all we receive quite an interesting lesson on birds and birding. To write such a book would be a daunting task, and I must say that Koeppel has pulled it off in grand style. We also get the show more added benefit of a very nice short history, mixed into the story, of the history of birding in America.
The author’s father, Richard Koeppel is a Big Lister; that is he is one of those individuals who has dedicated a good portion of his life to searching out, identifying and listing as many different bird species as possible. The total species world wide is probably around 10,000 right now, although this grand total changes quite frequently and will in all likelihood increase over the next several years until we have been able to wipe many of the species off the face of the earth. Richard Koeppel has identified more that 7,000 birds in his life time. This is of course is not an individual world records, but it certainly puts him in the top one percent of the Big Listers.

This is the story of Richard Koeppels life and his life long obsession, or quest, if you will. The author takes us back to his father’s childhood; the son of immigrant Jews who settle in New York. The story the author presents is a story of neglect on some levels and parental demands on another; happiness and extreme dissatisfaction. Richard Koeppel becomes a physician purely via pressure from his parents, marries as he is suppose to and follows a career in medicine that he really did not want any part of.

The author takes us through the failed marriage of his parents and his completely dysfunctional life with a mother who was really not cut out to be a mother and a father who, while his heart was in the right place, should never have sired children. The author had a rather rough time growing up in a very confusing world for a young child.

In seeking answers as to “why” the Dan Koeppel has told the story of his family, with the main focus being on his father. Linking everything thing together we have the world of birding, or to be more specific, the world of “listing,” which is quite different from the world of the average backyard hobbyist or casual birding who does it for pure pleasure. These people, the Big Listers are not like most people; they are completely obsessed and will go to about any lengths to identify just one more bird; to add one more check mark on their Life List.

This is the story of a son getting to know his father as well as he might possible get to know one. As I mentioned in the first paragraph, this was probably as much of a cathartic work for the author as anything else. He has obvious issues; justifiable issues and he want answers.

Again though, heavily woven throughout the work are birds; the central theme that holds the work together. I found the world of these obsessive people quite fascinating and loved reading their story. I have an obsessive personality myself (I have focused on birds from time to time, high mileage running and books, although nothing near the magnitude recorded on the pages of this book. For one thing I have never had the money to do so, nor a wife that is willing to put up with my “going over the edge again” which probably have been saving graces for me).

Do not expect a travel log type book here, although in a way it is one. I note from other reviews that some were disappointed that the author told so much of his family story; the good, the bad and the ugly. I personally had no problem with that as I took the time to read the dusk jacket and pretty well knew from that what to expect. I really do not feel that the obsession of this man, Richard Koeppel could possible be understood without knowing the personal histories of the family member the author has included in this book. Bottom line is that if you are looking for a pure Jungle Jim Birder book, one filled with deep dark birding tips and high adventure, then this probably is not for you. Goodness knows there are hundreds of wonderful works out there of that type to choose from. If you are looking for a very well written read addressing the life, the full life, of an individual, his family and his obsession, then you will be quiet happy with this one.

I do highly recommend this one. It was a very enjoyable and informative read for me. Again though, read the reviews, read the dust jacket and make your own mind up as to if it is your cup of tea. I do give this one five deserving stars. show less