The preface alone was a nice read, and shows the passion of the author for his beloved hobby, and it was nice to learn more about names I have seen over the years but not realised their connection - Audobon and Goatsucker to name a few, and to learn exactly what things such as crepuscular mean. The book keeps giving and giving. I have heard of animals being drunk but never realised that drunkenness could occur in birds too. What I also like is that the books dips into topics such as Archeopteryx and the fossil birds with enough information to be interesting and to the point, thus keeping your attention span going. This book covers so many topics, from anting to flightless-ness, to smell and vocal mimicry.

Nice little sketches by sketch biologist Abby McBride accompany many pages, and it was so interesting reading about a bird that stood 7ft tall and I now know what the Bergmann's rule is along with lumping, ornithicnite and torpidity. Did you know that a Storm Petrel could detect emanations form Krill up to 25km away, because I certainly didn't. And that's what I liked about this book, there was something fascinating to read on every page.

To sum up, just when I thought I knew a lot, from reading this book I soon realised there is still much to learn, my eyes have certainly been  opened and I regularly found myself saying out loud 'I never knew that'. If you want to broaden your knowledge and learn about the facts of the avian world and its wonders, then this is definitely the book for you.