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Adventures of a Louisiana Birder: One Year, Two Wings, Three Hundred Species
This candid and humorous chronicle shows how one woman goes from casual observer to obsessive bird nerd as she traverses Louisiana’s avian paradise. In Adventures of a Louisiana Birder, readers follow Marybeth Lima across her adopted state in search of 300 species of birds. Bisected by the Mississippi flyway and home to 400 miles of coast, Louisiana has a variety of habitats, which serve as a beautiful backdrop to this remarkable journey.
In birding circles, some devotees attempt what is known as a “big year,” a bird-sighting challenge to identify as many bird species as possible in a particular geographical area over the course of one year. Lima’s initial effort amounted to 11,626 miles in sixty-one road trips to log an impressive 280 species. But on a subsequent quest to exceed her record, she endures elusive birds, embarrassing misidentifications, and hungry insects in an effort to reach her goal. In the midst of these obstacles, Lima celebrates the camaraderie and friendly competition among fellow birders, from novices to a world-renown ornithologist. Requiring both mental focus and physical agility, birdwatching becomes an active sport through Lima’s narration. She vividly conveys the elation over a rare species seen or heard and the disappointment when one is narrowly missed. An appendix provides the location and date of every species she identifies.
Lima’s personal experiences are interwoven with the excitement of tracking down one intriguing species after another. She faces a near-fatal burn accident to her spouse, end-of-life care for her mother-in-law, and Louisiana’s great flood of 2016. In the midst of these situations, her devotion to birding provides a much-needed outlet.
“Somewhere in the roiling confluence of birds, locales, and human personalities,” writes Lima, “the center of my heart sings with utter abandon.” Adventures of a Louisiana Birder is the author’s call to a deeper passion for and awareness of Louisiana’s unique natural beauty and vulnerability.
In birding circles, some devotees attempt what is known as a “big year,” a bird-sighting challenge to identify as many bird species as possible in a particular geographical area over the course of one year. Lima’s initial effort amounted to 11,626 miles in sixty-one road trips to log an impressive 280 species. But on a subsequent quest to exceed her record, she endures elusive birds, embarrassing misidentifications, and hungry insects in an effort to reach her goal. In the midst of these obstacles, Lima celebrates the camaraderie and friendly competition among fellow birders, from novices to a world-renown ornithologist. Requiring both mental focus and physical agility, birdwatching becomes an active sport through Lima’s narration. She vividly conveys the elation over a rare species seen or heard and the disappointment when one is narrowly missed. An appendix provides the location and date of every species she identifies.
Lima’s personal experiences are interwoven with the excitement of tracking down one intriguing species after another. She faces a near-fatal burn accident to her spouse, end-of-life care for her mother-in-law, and Louisiana’s great flood of 2016. In the midst of these situations, her devotion to birding provides a much-needed outlet.
“Somewhere in the roiling confluence of birds, locales, and human personalities,” writes Lima, “the center of my heart sings with utter abandon.” Adventures of a Louisiana Birder is the author’s call to a deeper passion for and awareness of Louisiana’s unique natural beauty and vulnerability.
- GenresBirdsNonfictionMemoir
272 pages, Hardcover
Published May 8, 2019
8 people are currently reading
56 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 6, 2020
I originally bought this book because it's part of a sub-sub genre of birding books that I have always been fascinated by: the Big Year! That's when a person (or persons) attempts to see as many bird species as possible during a single year, and in a specific geographic locale, be it state, country, continent, or recently, the entire world. Anyway, I figured since I had spent a good part of my life in next-door Texas, and thus birded Louisiana a bit, this book would be of some interest. And, it was! But not, as it turns out, just for the great birding stories. Marybeth Lima has managed to write a beautiful story about how coping with the challenges of relationships, whether with partners, dogs, or an aging parent, can be understood, and more easily coped with, through a love of the natural world, and most especially...birds! I look forward (hopefully) to her next book!
June 17, 2019
One of my favorite books this year! I am not a birder but I have friends who are. I keep feeders at my house and a healthy portion of my retirement buys seed and feeder accoutrements. Marybeth’s enthusiasm for birding is infectious! Please read this book. It is about way more than birding including loving where you live, caring for people and place, and surviving trauma and loss. There’s humor and friendship and fangirling! It is a great read!
January 18, 2022
3.5/5
I do like a good Big Year book. I’ve read at least five others. This one had received some very good reviews so I didn’t think the focus on the state of Louisiana would be a problem.
Marybeth Lima is a professor who has written several non-birding books. This overcomes the problem with some Big Year accounts that are written by people who aren’t writers by training, and fail to get the excitement they experienced across on paper to the reader.
Big Year accounts fall into two main camps – people who set out in advance with a masterplan and people who fall into it almost by accident. This one is in the latter category, year listing creeps up on the author in stages.
The best Big Year books are those that aren’t just a straight list of places visited and birds seen on given dates. This is firmly in that camp, Marybeth’s partner is seriously injured in an accident and there is a backdrop of somebody close to them declining and passing away.
I felt that the book could have made more of the psychology at play in undertaking a Big Year. At one point whilst her partner is convalescing Lima relates that she gets as much pleasure from watching pigeons at the hospital as she would chasing year ticks. That clearly isn’t the case however, and it would have been interesting to explore more why.
The book is sparsely illustrated with vignettes. These felt a little basic to me, and I assumed that they were drawn by the author. When I checked they were in fact done by an illustrator, given that I felt they could have been a little more polished.
That said ‘Adventures Of A Louisiana Birder’ is generally an entertaining and absorbing read. It also avoids an obvious problem with a Big Year account that they can sometimes run out of steam and get repetitive. This book goes out on a high, with a well crafted and inspiring epilogue.
I do like a good Big Year book. I’ve read at least five others. This one had received some very good reviews so I didn’t think the focus on the state of Louisiana would be a problem.
Marybeth Lima is a professor who has written several non-birding books. This overcomes the problem with some Big Year accounts that are written by people who aren’t writers by training, and fail to get the excitement they experienced across on paper to the reader.
Big Year accounts fall into two main camps – people who set out in advance with a masterplan and people who fall into it almost by accident. This one is in the latter category, year listing creeps up on the author in stages.
The best Big Year books are those that aren’t just a straight list of places visited and birds seen on given dates. This is firmly in that camp, Marybeth’s partner is seriously injured in an accident and there is a backdrop of somebody close to them declining and passing away.
I felt that the book could have made more of the psychology at play in undertaking a Big Year. At one point whilst her partner is convalescing Lima relates that she gets as much pleasure from watching pigeons at the hospital as she would chasing year ticks. That clearly isn’t the case however, and it would have been interesting to explore more why.
The book is sparsely illustrated with vignettes. These felt a little basic to me, and I assumed that they were drawn by the author. When I checked they were in fact done by an illustrator, given that I felt they could have been a little more polished.
That said ‘Adventures Of A Louisiana Birder’ is generally an entertaining and absorbing read. It also avoids an obvious problem with a Big Year account that they can sometimes run out of steam and get repetitive. This book goes out on a high, with a well crafted and inspiring epilogue.
January 16, 2020
I am a very part time birder and I really enjoyed this book. She describes the frustration of finding birds you want to see, as well as the excitement when you do! I also like the human and relationship aspect of the book that is about so much more than just finding birds. All of our lives are more than just one aspect and are more complicated than that. So much is woven together to make up our days and life. This book makes me want to do more birding than I have been recently. Thank you Marybeth!
April 18, 2020
I really enjoyed reading this book. It inspired me want to get better at birding and to go birding more often. Her personal stories really added to the narrative and made it even more enjoyable to read. My favorite part was the epilogue. It is so beautifully written and so touching that it made me cry. Really. I’m not always proud to be from this backward state, but this book helped to remind me of the reasons why I should be.
March 17, 2023
Sparky lent this to me when he heard that I am from Louisiana, and I eagerly read it for tips on some primo birding spots in my home state. I appreciated the author’s thoughtfulness and deliberateness in explaining her love for birds and quest to find them as she lived her regular life. She clearly loves and understands Louisiana, which makes me like her and her story.
January 28, 2023
Great book about birding Louisiana. I learned so many good birding tips and places to bird in the state, many right in my own city. I read this in earnest because my next Louisiana Master Naturalist meeting will have the author as a guest speaker and I wanted to be prepared for her talk.
August 31, 2023
This is a good resource for birding locations in Louisiana.
February 16, 2025
Life, birds, familiar faces, familiar places
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews