“Utterly captivating and beautifully written, this book is a hugely entertaining and enlightening exploration of a bird so wickedly smart, curious, and social, it boggles the mind.”-Jennifer Ackerman, author of The Bird Way “Deftly intertwine natural history and human history, with insights and lessons that go far beyond the subject birds.”-David Sibley, author of What It's Like to Be a Bird Hudson, who is now largely forgotten he was one of the first to write appreciatively about caracaras.An enthralling account of a modern voyage of discovery as we meet the clever, social birds of prey called caracaras, which puzzled Darwin, fascinate modern-day falconers, and carry secrets of our planet's deep past in their family history. A fascinating subtheme concerns Victorian naturalist and novelist W. H.
Readers follow Meiburg as he stalks Johnny rook relatives in the jungles of Guyana and the Andes mountain range he also travels to English falconry parks to see captive birds show off their brainy side. That question is the point of departure for this book, and the author blends natural history, scientific inquiry, and travelogue in an attempt to better understand the species, including its past and future. Charles Darwin, in 1834, noted the birds’ mischievous behavior and wondered why they had chosen the Falklands as their habitat. Striated caracaras, though technically falcons, are more like crows or parrots: intelligent, curious, and sociable. Meiburg himself is a rare bird not just a writer, but also front man for the acclaimed band Shearwater. Found there and on Tierra del Fuego’s outermost islands, only 500 pairs are thought to exist.
From his first visit to the Falklands, Meiburg felt a kinship with its striated caracaras-raptors known locally as Johnny rooks.
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