Birds of Paradise: Revealing the World's Most Extraordinary Birds

by Tim Laman (Photographer), Edwin Scholes (Text)

"You’ll initially find it hard to believe that these pictures are real—but they are. These are the most beautiful photographs of the world’s most beautiful birds. The birds’ behavior, richly described in the text, is as remarkable as their appearance. This is a book like no other book."
--Jared Diamond, ornithologist and author of  Guns, Germs, and Steel

Eight years. Eighteen expeditions. Fifty-one field sites. Thirty-nine unique species of birds-of-paradise, all photographed in the wild for the first time in history.

“We turned our passion for science, photography, and media documentation into a comprehensive vision to share an unparalleled treasure of Earth’s biodiversity with the world,” write biologists and explorers Tim Laman and Edwin Scholes.

These treasures are the spectacular birds-of-paradise, native only to the remote New Guinea region but known the world around for their brilliant colors, otherworldly plumes, and elaborate courtship dances. Now, for the first and perhaps only time, all 39 species of these extraordinary birds are showcased together through the revealing words and exclusive photographs in this landmark book.

Genres: Birds, Nonfiction, Photography, Science, Nature, Reference, Biology

228 pages, Hardcover

First published November 6, 2012

Reviews

[Mark]

Absolutely beautiful pictures taken by clambering up some enormous magnificent trees and constructing hides made from locally harvested materials. Or the two blokes sat for hours on end waiting for these ridiculously elaborate birds to turn up and strut their more than funky stuff.

The essays are short and easy to read, it is informative and fascinating and, unusually for such nature books, most of the birds are not in riotous danger of 'popping their clogs' or whatever the avian equivalent. Logging is, of course, wreaking its damage but the people of the New Guinea area are gradually recognizing the incredible resource they have or perhaps more wonderfully they are recognizing their stewardship for these amazing birds.

39 species, each wonderful in their own way, each with their own particular flair. Sexual selection on an isolated land mass with no predators beyond man and enormous amounts of food has enabled these animals to develop into the most unbelievable constructs.

The one place beyond Machu Pichu that i need to visit before i fall off my perch is New Guinea. It is too stupendous to be missed.

This is a coffee table book that must be read with a lovely glass of something exotic, its only fair.

[Cody · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a triumph of science and exploration. To see the setups they had to construct! The hardships they endured! All in service of a fantastic exploration of the strangest birds on earth!!!!

The photos alone make this book worth it, but the authors supplement the photos with amazing science and history. I strongly recommend a read.

Humans have long decorated themselves with BoP feathers, and we aren’t the only ones!!! Male Archibold bowerbirds love to adorn their bower with flag feathers from the king of Saxon’s bird bird-of-paradise.

Mars fastidiously clear areas of the forest floor to serve as their stages, which sometimes can be maintained for five or more years running! They like to include seating for female observers too. Carola’s parotia select spots with a branch that spans the court so females can watch in comfort. In this species, males also sometimes carry yellow leaves as props to accentuate their displays!!

Ribbon-tailed Astrapia : “ Incredibly, on more than one occasion, we've seen a male pause to turn back and use his beak to pull his looped tail toward him before flying away.”

[Natasha Glerup · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a beautiful book. 4 stars :)

[Wei Kwan Ng · Rating 5 out of 5]

I told myself that i need to get this after reading about project in a National Geographic mag.

The Bird of Paradise project came into existence when Tim was assigned by NatGeo to do a article, and he found Ed who was doing his PhD thesis on the parotias. After completing that, the team made a "why not?" decision to continue until all 39 species are captured on camera and video.

And what a spectacular result - this is one book where you not only see excellent photos but great writing (it's a PhD thesis after all) as well with excepts from other authors such as Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwin's contemporary (and friendly rival). The most wonderful thing is you get introduced to birds to parotia, astrapias, sicklebills...birds that one would never have known existed with weird (and wonderful) mannerisms such as shape shifting (you have to see it to believe it).

This book is a keeper...

http://www.birdsofparadiseproject.org...

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful coffee table-style book on the birds in the Paradisaea family, the “Birds of Paradise” that are largely endemic to New Guinea and adjacent islands.  The authors embarked on a decade long mission (largely supported by the National Geographic Society and Cornell University) to view and photograph all 39 species in this family in their natural habitat, preferably including their legendarily elaborate and colorful breeding displays.  They did ultimately manage to photograph them all, and I think only lacked the displays of a couple.  Many of these species are only found on a few small offshore islands or on a couple remote mountains, and access to many of their field sites was extremely challenging.  Thus, in some cases the photographs and videos they obtained were the first ever taken of these species in the wild.  In others, the breeding displays had never been witnessed by non-New Guineans before, and the pair’s work added a lot of new information to the body of science around this group of birds.  The book describes the origins of the project, the history and legends of how people have viewed and interacted with bird sof paradise, the taxonomy, evolutionary history, and biology of many of the species, and a number of interesting technical descriptions of how the authors managed to get such great images of what are often shy and retiring birds.  The book concludes with a brief account of each species (range, habitat, conservation status, behavior, where the authors found them, etc.)  The real joy of this book though is the amazing high quality color photographs with which it has been liberally illustrated, often covering an entire pair of oversized pages.  The book is worth acquiring just to be able to leaf through the pictures again and again. 

Another facet of this project was a companion National Geographic TV special called “Winged Seduction” that is worth a watch.  It mostly focuses on the authors themselves and what they had to do to travel to their field sites and successfully operate a vast array of high tech camera equipment in the jungle, although of course there are great videos of some of the birds in it too.  It is currently streaming on Disney +. 

[Aatman Thaker · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book available on birds of paradise without doubt! The photographs are brilliantly colourful that give a virtual experience of "encountering" one. The descriptions and write-up are informative, engaging, and enjoyable. Not only does it cover the species of birds of paradise but also their evolutionary history, ecological significance, and the experiences of Tim Laman and Edwin Scholes during their journey to document these avians extraordinaire. This gives a narrative context to the photographs, making it am almost "perfect" coffee table book.

I have spent numerous hours gazing at this coffee table size book and would certainly recommend it to nature lovers, birding enthusiasts, and just about anyone who appreciates looking at photographs of the most colourful and unearthly winged species on earth.

[Woody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Coffee table books with beautiful photographs are sometimes lacking in content but not this one. In this case, the photos are world class and so is the writing, the adventure, the history, the science and inspirational quality of the book. To make it even better, the authors are not macho, chest-beaters on some kind of conquest. Instead they discuss candidly and humbly the personal and professional challenges associated with this 8-year effort. Bravo to the authors and National Geographic for a great piece of work.

[Tweller83 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I completely geek-ed out with this book. I love birds and this book is about the most beautiful and crazy birds in the world. Honestly, I thought this was mostly a picture book, but it has a huge amount of detail on all the various species and how the two authors went about getting the pictures. Incredible and beautiful if you love birds. Probably much too much detail if you don't.

(Tara would completely and utterly tease me forever if she knew I read this book cover to cover. It would replace the Tom Brady book for sure.)

[Andrew Rhomberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, beautifully illustrated with some glimpses into the history and unique evolutionof this extraordinairy group of birds that - oh surprise of surprises - descended from the common crow (which in one of evolution's ironic twists is one of the very reasons for why they evolved into such a diverse and magnificent group...)

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

These birds are in the crow family!

I found that amazing. The picture are huge and lovely in this book - with a clarity that almost makes them seem unreal. Fans of science, birds and the art of nature will enjoy this book.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do you like birds? Well then holy smokes are you in luck. This book contains birds so spectacular I had to sit in the shade and fan myself like a Victorian woman receiving bad news. A must buy for anyone who doesn't absolutely hate birds.

[Melody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely magnificent. Of course the photographs and bird according nuts are phenomenal but I also very much enjoyed reading about the labor and techniques involved in this project. Great gift for any bird or photography fan.

[Tauriel89 · Rating 5 out of 5]

breathtaking photography!