Extinct Birds

by Errol Fuller

A fascinating tour of extinct birds uses more than three hundred illustrations in full color and black and white to introduce readers to more than eighty species of birds that have disappeared since 1600, including the passenger pigeon and dodo.

Genres: Birds, Nature, Natural History, Nonfiction, Ornithology, Evolution

398 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1988

About the author

Errol Fuller is an English writer and artist who lives in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. He was born in Blackpool, Lancashire, grew up in South London, and was educated at Addey and Stanhope School. He is the author of a series of books on extinction and extinct creatures.

Reviews

[Z. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A library find that I intended to flip through but--as is often my way with these things--ended up reading or at least skimming all the way through.

Fuller is apparently an author/artist by trade, not an ornithologist, so while he doesn't skimp on the zoological detail his real talent is for telling the sad tales of these birds with a novelist's knack for illustrative and memorable details. Despite the vague title his focus is only actually on birds which have gone extinct since ca. 1600 (though he does try to account for all of these), so there's a great deal in here about the often colorful ways in which these species were initially "discovered" by Europeans, the generally spotty physical and documentary evidence of their existence left to us, and their subsequent eradication almost invariably at the hands of those same Europeans or at least the claws and teeth of their imported pets and vermin. Naturally it's pretty heartbreaking/infuriating stuff, and all the more so since nearly 40 years of extinctions have occured since its writing. ("[T]his is perhaps the last time that this subject will be approached both comprehensively and in a single volume," Fuller writes ominously in his preface. "In 15 or 20 years ... [t]here will be just too many extinct species!") Interestingly, though, the tone isn't nearly as gloomy as more recent books on the topic of extinction tend (understandably) to be, and in fact Fuller is often grimly funny:

[The Stephen Island wren] was both discovered and exterminated by a lighthouse keeper's cat. This single feline brought in some individuals that proved to belong to a hitherto undescribed species. After a while, the supply of birds apparently failed--at any rate the cat ceased to deliver its little victims into the lighthouse keeper's hands. Since no further examples have been seen or taken, it is assumed that Tibbles destroyed the entire population very shortly after finding it.

Likewise, he's skilled at selecting striking and sometimes surprisingly beautiful quotations from eyewitnesses themselves, such as a mid-17th-century description of a captive dodo observed in London, or this account of a roosting flock of passenger pigeons from John James Audubon:

The noise which they made, though yet distant, reminded me of a hard gale at sea passing through the rigging of a close-reefed vessel. As the birds arrived, and passed over me, I felt a current of air that surprised me. Thousands were soon knocked down by the pole men. The birds continued to pour in. The fires were lighted, and a magnificent, as well as wonderful and almost terrifying sight presented itself. The pigeons, arriving by thousands, alighted everywhere, one above another, until solid masses as large as hogsheads, were formed on the branches all round. Here and there the perches gave way under the weight with a crash, and falling to the ground, destroyed hundreds of the birds beneath, forcing down the dense groups with which every stick was loaded.

Eighty-three years later, the last passenger pigeon on earth would die, alone, in a zoo.

[pattrice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elegiac. Moving. Maddening. Fuller's litany of lost birds is almost unbearable to read all the way through. The images alone (well chosen paintings, drawings, and photos) leave you reeling. The low-key yet often poetic verbal depictions of the birds and the reasons for their extinction--human depredation of one sort or another, usually--simultaneously convey the glory of biodiversity and the similarly boundless scope of human rapacity.

[Tanyadee Reyes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know why I developed an interest in moas, but I did. Maybe it was that strange Nickelodeon cartoon in the 80's where all the little koalas get sucked up in a space ship in the last episode. Who knows?
I found this book to be highly informative. The writing was fine, and the illustrations were wonderful.

[Royce Ratterman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most books are rated related to their usefulness and contributions to my research.
Overall, a good book for the researcher and enthusiast.
Read for personal research
- found this book's contents helpful and inspiring - number rating relates to the book's contribution to my needs.

[Nate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. A Gap in Nature was better. It was crazy to read about the Takahe, once thought to be extinct, because I fucking saw one when I was in New Zealand!

[Apostate · Rating 4 out of 5]

An informative, though depressing book with gorgeous illustrations by artists who in many cases observed living specimens.