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The Curse of the Labrador Duck: My Obsessive Quest to the Edge of Extinction
The Curse of the Labrador Duck follows bird biologist Glen Chilton in his obsessive attempt to uncover the mysteries of one of the world's most enigmatic birds. In an unexpectedly zany adventure that took the author the equivalent of 3.3 times around the world, the result is a tale of theft, wartime atrocities, insane millionaires, intrigue in the Middle East, and skinny dipping.
The Labrador Duck is often mentioned in the same breath as the Passenger Pigeon, the Dodo, and the Great Auk—great species that once roamed the planet. The Labrador Duck became extinct somewhere around 1875. It is the most enigmatic bird in North America, partially because it bred so far north that no record exists of its breeding, and partially because it became extinct almsot before we noted it was in decline. The Curse of the Labrador Duck chronicles Chilton's adventures while attempting to examine every stuffed specimen of the species, do genetic analysis of every Labrador Duck egg, and visit every North American site where the duck was shot.
When Chilton began his investigation, there were thought to be about fifty specimens scattered amongst the museums of Europe, North America, and the Middle East. However, as his study advanced, it was clear that some specimens had been lost to war and theft, and others were secreted away in far-flung collections overseen by miserly curators. After travelling the equivalent of more than three times around the world, Chilton was able to examine what amounted to fifty-five specimens in total, although one turned out to be a forgery and several others had been tampered with by unscrupulous taxidermists. Regrettably, genetic analysis showed that none of the eggs attributed to the Labrador Duck were genuine, even those that had escaped the bombing of Dresden. On the positive side, the author earned numerous hangovers, swam naked in a glacier-fed stream, dined with Russian gangsters, and was able to narrowly avoid arrest in New York City.
The Labrador Duck is often mentioned in the same breath as the Passenger Pigeon, the Dodo, and the Great Auk—great species that once roamed the planet. The Labrador Duck became extinct somewhere around 1875. It is the most enigmatic bird in North America, partially because it bred so far north that no record exists of its breeding, and partially because it became extinct almsot before we noted it was in decline. The Curse of the Labrador Duck chronicles Chilton's adventures while attempting to examine every stuffed specimen of the species, do genetic analysis of every Labrador Duck egg, and visit every North American site where the duck was shot.
When Chilton began his investigation, there were thought to be about fifty specimens scattered amongst the museums of Europe, North America, and the Middle East. However, as his study advanced, it was clear that some specimens had been lost to war and theft, and others were secreted away in far-flung collections overseen by miserly curators. After travelling the equivalent of more than three times around the world, Chilton was able to examine what amounted to fifty-five specimens in total, although one turned out to be a forgery and several others had been tampered with by unscrupulous taxidermists. Regrettably, genetic analysis showed that none of the eggs attributed to the Labrador Duck were genuine, even those that had escaped the bombing of Dresden. On the positive side, the author earned numerous hangovers, swam naked in a glacier-fed stream, dined with Russian gangsters, and was able to narrowly avoid arrest in New York City.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
March 30, 2014
This book is a strange mash-up between travel writing and nature writing (keeping in mind that all the birds in it are dead), so it won't appeal to everyone, but I thought it was great. With humour and an eye for the odd, Chilton recounts his adventures travelling around the world to see Labrador Duck specimens, including historical notes and his own impressions of the cities, the museums, the ducks themselves, and the various people who have been connected to each specimen of the extinct bird. I was entertained, learned a lot of very random things, and have now expanded both my Places-to-Go list and my Places-NOT-to-Go list.
March 29, 2016
The places and ducks were interesting . The author seems obsessed not so much withtheducks as with the idea of scenarios which will end in his sharing hotel rooms with women other than his wife. Bit odd.
January 21, 2016
Couldn't resist the title, and it started off well - written with a great deal of humour, and I loved the concept as a vehicle for a bigger story. Only - there wasn't a bigger story - just a bunch of fairly ordinary travelogue stiched together around the premise of seeing every Labrador Duck remains in the museums of the world. And his constant protestation that he was faithful to his wide despite travelling with various beautiful companions wore thin.
June 25, 2025
DNF, quit after page 96/300.
I'm interested in extinct birds and have always wanted to know more about Labrador ducks. This book is part travelogue, part description of the Labrador ducks the author visits. The travelogue parts can be funny but they're often too long and frequently mock the places the author visits.
He also writes about women in an offputting, sexist way:
"I was met at Gare du Nord by Julie holding a placard with my name on it. Julie was the most precious of commoditirs - a beautiful woman who doesn't seem to know she's beautiful. She has large and sparkly eyes capped with razor-thin eyebrows. The right eyebrow has a narrow break, the result of an emdeating unconcious nervois habit of touching it repestedly in one place. Her pouty lips are just the sort that keeps Julia Roberts salivsting in ency. Her hair is the color of Cadbiry's chocolate milk." Come on, dude. You can describe how she looks without the needless sexual undertones.
I'm interested in extinct birds and have always wanted to know more about Labrador ducks. This book is part travelogue, part description of the Labrador ducks the author visits. The travelogue parts can be funny but they're often too long and frequently mock the places the author visits.
He also writes about women in an offputting, sexist way:
"I was met at Gare du Nord by Julie holding a placard with my name on it. Julie was the most precious of commoditirs - a beautiful woman who doesn't seem to know she's beautiful. She has large and sparkly eyes capped with razor-thin eyebrows. The right eyebrow has a narrow break, the result of an emdeating unconcious nervois habit of touching it repestedly in one place. Her pouty lips are just the sort that keeps Julia Roberts salivsting in ency. Her hair is the color of Cadbiry's chocolate milk." Come on, dude. You can describe how she looks without the needless sexual undertones.
December 19, 2019
Sort of a strange book in some ways, stranger than I thought it might be, but not unenjoyable once I settled into the style of the author’s writings. This book, in a nutshell, is the author’s quest to see every preserved specimen of the extinct Labrador Duck (Camptorhynchus labradorius, a sea duck native to North America last known from 1878 in Elmira, New York). The author wanted to see every known Labrador Duck in the world along with any preserved eggs, a mission to see 55 stuffed ducks and 9 eggs said to belong to the Labrador Duck and took “four years, nine months, and eighteen days” and involved trips to over 30 cities (including in the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Russia, Canada, and the United States). Chilton also visited a number of sites associated with the duck, such as where one of Audubon’s expeditions observed nests attributed to the Labrador Duck (in Canada and also in detail as to whether they ever actually saw a Labrador Duck nest, something poorly known to science as there are debates as to where the species even nested in the first place), at least one place that stuffed and sold Labrador Ducks for museums and other collectors, and the site where the last known duck was sighted (and of course shot).
And that’s pretty much the book. I thought there would be some chapters devoted to the life habits of the duck, theories discussed as to why the duck went extinct but there really weren’t (it was hunted but not subject to much pressure owing to how bad tasting the meat was; the leading theories, only mentioned in passing in various chapters in a paragraph or so, is that its wintering grounds were near New York City and in nearby areas of the American East Coast and its diet of mussels was wiped out by pollution and run off from the city; “I contend that my ducks were polluted into oblivion”). It is a travel book connected by the link of Chilton looking for every specimen and egg in the world, chapter after chapter of journeying to a particular museum, whatever struggle there was to see a specimen in person (he examined them in hand, measuring them and sometimes photographing them; there are several black and white photographs in the text), and then the adventures he had in the city seeing tourist sites, eating, drinking (sometimes quite a bit), and the companions he was with (usually female, not always his wife, though no suggestion that anything inappropriate happened, though Chilton never failed to point out random things like topless female bathers in St. Petersburg or the brassiere of a waitress one time or some nude female art at some of the museums). I did like some of the tourist details and descriptions, particularly of Canada (doing a good job with describing the maritime scenery), Germany (good, vivid descriptions), Vienna (weaving in descriptions of places associated with The Third Man, I liked the Vienna section) and St. Petersburg (an altogether different experience than the other places he traveled to and fairly interesting) but after a while there was a great deal of sameness to the experiences associated with the duck itself (describing the entrance to the museum, how often ill prepared whoever on the museum staff was to meet him despite previous correspondence, or quite the opposite, a wonderful human being who was wonderfully accommodating met him or him and his companion, measuring the bird and describing again and again a greasy spot in the feathers or the tail feathers being especially worn or a bad job of stuffing the specimen). Some of the efforts to track down the provenance of some of the specimens were interesting (most of the time the author had very little to work with and basically amounted to “bought from so and so”) and the final chapter before the epilogue was his tale of a 9 year quest to find a particular specimen that ended up in the possession of Sheikh Saud of Qatar and that had some good mystery to it (though didn’t quite compare to the intrigue of The Maltese Falcon, which the author compared it to). There was some interesting information discussing the differences between study skins (“the skin of a bird, cleaned and treated with a preservative to discourage pests; the body is stuffed to the proportions of the original specimen”) and taxidermic mounts (taking up much more space than a study skin, “it is meant to depict the individual as it might have appeared in life, much like a trophy fish”), the apparent arbitrary choices in what color glass eyes and what color to paint the bills and legs of specimens made by preparators (and the fact that bills and legs were even painted which was news to me), how close so many specimens came to being destroyed in World War II, and what efforts museum staff went to protect specimens from bombers and artillery (and how one for a time was a prize of war, taken from Germany to Russia). I also liked how the author did some real science with the eggs and tested to see if they in fact belong to the Labrador Duck by harvesting DNA from them and sending it off to be tested (I was amazed at how he always got permission to do this, but then upon reflection it makes sense a natural history museum would support actual scientific research and this was research). It was also interesting to learn that is a breed of domestic duck sometimes called the Labrador Duck, more commonly known today as Black East Indies (Chilton doesn’t see one in person, but has an adventure with a retired woman who saved him some eggs to examine, eggs “that had been sitting in her kitchen beside the stove in a Tupperware contained for two months since she collected them”, bobbing “slightly in half an inch of evil green ooze”).
The one thing that bothered me the most about the book was the author’s sense of humor. It was never really offensive, but often cringey and corny and eye-rolling, sometimes funny, but usually in the way. I would be reading a section, say involved in some good scenery description or historical information about a particular city in say Germany, and out would come corny jokes. As the book went on the humor was less and less seen and that was a good thing. If I were the author I would have cut a good bit of that out. It is entirely possibly to have a light and popular tone without all the dumb jokes (or at least, humor isn’t really the author’s great skill, though overall he was a more than decent travel writer and as professional ornithologist, his knowledge on birds was very good and well conveyed).
The quest to see every specimen and egg in the world was interesting and as the author noted several times at the end, he is probably the only person who has ever done this and will do it. I would have liked more natural history, even just a chapter, but in the end this was really a travel book and that’s ok too.
And that’s pretty much the book. I thought there would be some chapters devoted to the life habits of the duck, theories discussed as to why the duck went extinct but there really weren’t (it was hunted but not subject to much pressure owing to how bad tasting the meat was; the leading theories, only mentioned in passing in various chapters in a paragraph or so, is that its wintering grounds were near New York City and in nearby areas of the American East Coast and its diet of mussels was wiped out by pollution and run off from the city; “I contend that my ducks were polluted into oblivion”). It is a travel book connected by the link of Chilton looking for every specimen and egg in the world, chapter after chapter of journeying to a particular museum, whatever struggle there was to see a specimen in person (he examined them in hand, measuring them and sometimes photographing them; there are several black and white photographs in the text), and then the adventures he had in the city seeing tourist sites, eating, drinking (sometimes quite a bit), and the companions he was with (usually female, not always his wife, though no suggestion that anything inappropriate happened, though Chilton never failed to point out random things like topless female bathers in St. Petersburg or the brassiere of a waitress one time or some nude female art at some of the museums). I did like some of the tourist details and descriptions, particularly of Canada (doing a good job with describing the maritime scenery), Germany (good, vivid descriptions), Vienna (weaving in descriptions of places associated with The Third Man, I liked the Vienna section) and St. Petersburg (an altogether different experience than the other places he traveled to and fairly interesting) but after a while there was a great deal of sameness to the experiences associated with the duck itself (describing the entrance to the museum, how often ill prepared whoever on the museum staff was to meet him despite previous correspondence, or quite the opposite, a wonderful human being who was wonderfully accommodating met him or him and his companion, measuring the bird and describing again and again a greasy spot in the feathers or the tail feathers being especially worn or a bad job of stuffing the specimen). Some of the efforts to track down the provenance of some of the specimens were interesting (most of the time the author had very little to work with and basically amounted to “bought from so and so”) and the final chapter before the epilogue was his tale of a 9 year quest to find a particular specimen that ended up in the possession of Sheikh Saud of Qatar and that had some good mystery to it (though didn’t quite compare to the intrigue of The Maltese Falcon, which the author compared it to). There was some interesting information discussing the differences between study skins (“the skin of a bird, cleaned and treated with a preservative to discourage pests; the body is stuffed to the proportions of the original specimen”) and taxidermic mounts (taking up much more space than a study skin, “it is meant to depict the individual as it might have appeared in life, much like a trophy fish”), the apparent arbitrary choices in what color glass eyes and what color to paint the bills and legs of specimens made by preparators (and the fact that bills and legs were even painted which was news to me), how close so many specimens came to being destroyed in World War II, and what efforts museum staff went to protect specimens from bombers and artillery (and how one for a time was a prize of war, taken from Germany to Russia). I also liked how the author did some real science with the eggs and tested to see if they in fact belong to the Labrador Duck by harvesting DNA from them and sending it off to be tested (I was amazed at how he always got permission to do this, but then upon reflection it makes sense a natural history museum would support actual scientific research and this was research). It was also interesting to learn that is a breed of domestic duck sometimes called the Labrador Duck, more commonly known today as Black East Indies (Chilton doesn’t see one in person, but has an adventure with a retired woman who saved him some eggs to examine, eggs “that had been sitting in her kitchen beside the stove in a Tupperware contained for two months since she collected them”, bobbing “slightly in half an inch of evil green ooze”).
The one thing that bothered me the most about the book was the author’s sense of humor. It was never really offensive, but often cringey and corny and eye-rolling, sometimes funny, but usually in the way. I would be reading a section, say involved in some good scenery description or historical information about a particular city in say Germany, and out would come corny jokes. As the book went on the humor was less and less seen and that was a good thing. If I were the author I would have cut a good bit of that out. It is entirely possibly to have a light and popular tone without all the dumb jokes (or at least, humor isn’t really the author’s great skill, though overall he was a more than decent travel writer and as professional ornithologist, his knowledge on birds was very good and well conveyed).
The quest to see every specimen and egg in the world was interesting and as the author noted several times at the end, he is probably the only person who has ever done this and will do it. I would have liked more natural history, even just a chapter, but in the end this was really a travel book and that’s ok too.
April 23, 2017
This was potentially a really interesting read, and although it started out quite well the writing deteriorated markedly in the second half. I've heard Glen Chilton interviewed and he is much better as an interviewee than as a writer. It he had just stuck to the topic and maybe given a lot more scientific detail it would have boosted the quality of the book. Unfortunately his tone tended towards flippancy and he started to pad out the narration with pointless and boring details about his meals, and similarly irrelevant things.
January 31, 2011
By and large this is a fascinating account of one ornithologist's effort to see and measure every surviving Labrador Duck (stuffed or specimen skins) on Earth. Along the way we learn a fair amount about this extinct species and the world of museums. The scavenger hunt (as described) is surprisingly hilarious, although Chilton tries too hard to be funny and falls short regularly. A fine book for anyone -- fills a role as travelogue, general science, and detective story.
August 25, 2017
I loved bits of this book, and hated others, and I can't think of a concrete reason why. I think all the science and histories of the duck discoveries were awesome, but at the same time I'm not sure why the author felt that we needed to know that every female scientist encountered was attractive. And every city was apparently rather foreign and gloomy, rather than exciting and different.
September 18, 2024
"In an obsessive 82,000-mile quest for dead birds, how much trouble can one scientist get into?
"Finally, the world's leading authority on the extinct Labrador Duck, Dr. Glen Chilton, shares the story of his frenzied obsession to reveal the histories behind the mysterious bird -- a saga wherein he sets out to examine the remains of every Labrador Dick, conduct genetic analysis on every Labrador Duck egg, and visit every site where the duck was shot ... with many a (mis)adventure along the way.
"More elusive that the Passenger Pigeon, the Dodo, or the Great Auk and breeding in places so obscure that no certain records exist of its nests, the Labrador Duck succumbed to extinction almost before anyone realized it was in decline. When Chilton began his travels, there were thought to be approximately fifty stuffed specimens, scattered among the museums of Europe and North America. However, as his search progressed, it became clear that some specimens had been lost to war and theft, while others lay hidden in far-flung collections, overseen by secretive curators. After traveling the equivalent of 3.3 times around the world with a series of oddball companions, Chilton finally began to close in on every known specimen ... but not before he risked heavy-metal poisoning in Russia, swam naked in a glacier-fed stream, corresponded with a millionaire murderer, and narrowly avoided arrest in New York City.
"A magnificent blend of travel writing, science, detective work, and mishap, The Curse of the Labrador Duck is the zany adventure of one biologist's obsessive quest to uncover the mysteries of one 9of the world's most enigmatic birds."
~~front flap
This book started out to be grand. The author has a marvelous, dry sense of humor and we were off to an auspicious start in the Canadian Maritime Provinces. Labrador Ducks were located and investigated, in various cities and countries.
Unfortunately, if you've traveled to one town, sought out the museum, looked at the duck (or taken samples for DNA testing), eventually the thrill becomes gone and it's just another tale about travel misadventures, wandering aimlessly about a foreign town, meeting the museum person in charge of the duck(s) -- who may either be welcoming or not, and the moving on to the next destination.
I gave up at Duck #54, on page 274.
"Finally, the world's leading authority on the extinct Labrador Duck, Dr. Glen Chilton, shares the story of his frenzied obsession to reveal the histories behind the mysterious bird -- a saga wherein he sets out to examine the remains of every Labrador Dick, conduct genetic analysis on every Labrador Duck egg, and visit every site where the duck was shot ... with many a (mis)adventure along the way.
"More elusive that the Passenger Pigeon, the Dodo, or the Great Auk and breeding in places so obscure that no certain records exist of its nests, the Labrador Duck succumbed to extinction almost before anyone realized it was in decline. When Chilton began his travels, there were thought to be approximately fifty stuffed specimens, scattered among the museums of Europe and North America. However, as his search progressed, it became clear that some specimens had been lost to war and theft, while others lay hidden in far-flung collections, overseen by secretive curators. After traveling the equivalent of 3.3 times around the world with a series of oddball companions, Chilton finally began to close in on every known specimen ... but not before he risked heavy-metal poisoning in Russia, swam naked in a glacier-fed stream, corresponded with a millionaire murderer, and narrowly avoided arrest in New York City.
"A magnificent blend of travel writing, science, detective work, and mishap, The Curse of the Labrador Duck is the zany adventure of one biologist's obsessive quest to uncover the mysteries of one 9of the world's most enigmatic birds."
~~front flap
This book started out to be grand. The author has a marvelous, dry sense of humor and we were off to an auspicious start in the Canadian Maritime Provinces. Labrador Ducks were located and investigated, in various cities and countries.
Unfortunately, if you've traveled to one town, sought out the museum, looked at the duck (or taken samples for DNA testing), eventually the thrill becomes gone and it's just another tale about travel misadventures, wandering aimlessly about a foreign town, meeting the museum person in charge of the duck(s) -- who may either be welcoming or not, and the moving on to the next destination.
I gave up at Duck #54, on page 274.
January 11, 2021
This book belongs in a very unique category: part research, part travel, part history, unique humor, part drinking in various locations of the world while on a quest to 30 cities on the search for specimens of the extinct Labrador Duck. I would not have any idea of how many copies of this book was published or sold, but it belongs in the category of "odd things people write about." I fear that this book is not a best seller. By the time Chilton got to his last bird (# 55), and described it in detail from it's history, who owned it, their history, who that person sold it to, how he found it - I was glad that there was not a Labrador Duck # 56. I actually found this book for free, and it had been sitting on my Kindle for years, so I finally decided to tackle it. I surprised myself that I finished it. This author is probably a very interesting fellow, and probably quite funny, and is an expert in his field. He even has his own website! One of the most unique aspects of his writing is that one understands the devastation that human kind has done to nature and wildlife of all kind throughout the century, as evidenced by the fact that the latest know living Labrador Duck dates back to the 1870's. This devastation continues to this day in even more accelerated manner, with pollution, drilling for oil in the Arctic, the burning of the Amazon, and even the burning of forests here in Canada to make more valuable farmland for cash crops. Chilton details each duck's history in meticulous, microscopic detail, and it does appear from his writing that the real fun in a Natural History Museum goes on behind the locked doors, in the dimly lit areas where unique creatures are stored for future reference, and from which mere mortals are barred.
February 25, 2018
I've had this book sitting on my shelf for quite a while and decided to finally give it a shot, I am glad I did and sorry that I waited this long. The book chronicles Chilton's travels to scientifically document every known stuffed Labrador Duck specimen and egg in the world. The quest leads him to some interesting places and people. The book is more a travelogue than a book about birds. It has a distinct Bill Bryson-esque tone to it. Chilly on can be just as observant and caustic as Bryson, perhaps not quite as funny as Bryson, but certainly funny enough to be extremely enjoyable to read. Chilly on takes a shot or two at historians, which as a historian made me furrow my brow a bit, but soon moved past. As a heritage professional and museum staffer, I found his observations about museums, standards and exhibits to be more interesting than the average person might. I only question whether Chilton's decision to publicly call out museum curators who were somewhat lax in their duties and correspondence with him was a wise one. For me, there was something informative and entertaining in every chapter. A nice surprise for a book I bought on a lark and had pretty low expectations for. I will read Chilton's other offerings with pleasure.
May 28, 2021
Very enjoyable. A unique sense of humour that surprised me a few times. Also as other reviewers have noted (and some complained, so I feel compelled to review), the author gives the impression - currently outdated but as it’s not egregious, so may become charming again - of being a lecherous gentleman: one who notices too much of a certain slant, but behaves beyond the conspicuousness of noticing. The thing I got the most out of in this book are the mostly muted stories of persistance in chasing down the details to get to the source. Add to this the off-the-beaten-track destinations, and it gives me a sense of the worthiness of pursuit and the endurance of the world that continues to exist outside of the bonfires of our vanity.
March 9, 2019
Interesting following museum 55 specimens of the Labrador Duck, but too much drinking in cities the author visited. Why would an ornithologist want his senses dulled and to be inebriated in a new environment with different birds???
January 7, 2019
More a travelogue than a scientific book. That being said, Dr. Chilton is no Bill Bryson. It prompted me to rent the DVD "A Birders Guide to Everything", so that was a point in its favor..
January 12, 2021
Collection of funny anecdotes spanning a life and career, searching the world for stuffed labrador ducks. Inspiring and sweet. A life well spent.
July 11, 2016
I enjoyed this book, but I am not sure it is for everyone. As much a travelogue as a book about Chilton's quest to see every Labrador duck, it contains descriptions of Chilton's ramblings in various locations around the world. This is not a Rick Steves' adventure - Chilton has some rather odd ideas of what to see when in major tourist destinations (and this coming from someone who spent a couple of hours tracking down Mendeleev's periodic table in St. Petersburg). I almost thought he wasn't even going to mention the Hermitage in St. Petersburg! I rather enjoyed the part about Leiden, the Netherlands because I spent time working there and I am pretty sure he stayed at the Holiday Inn a block or two from the natural history museum because I stayed in a Euro-style hotel near the train station and walked a couple blocks to the industrial park next to the Holiday Inn, passing that same museum every day. The scathing review of Philadelphia was deserved - this is the city that killed HitchBOT, afterall. Ultimately a couple of questions I had were never answered. Exactly what color were the feet/legs and bill of the Labrador duck supposed to be? And, more importantly, since most were "collected" on their winter breeding grounds, are we sure that the plumage of the drakes is not eclipse and that they didn't look entirely different in their breeding plumage? Does anyone know?
Don't forget to read the epilogue because it could be worth $10k. I know I'll be checking out my small city's natural history museum bird collection looking, hopefully, for a Labrador duck.
Don't forget to read the epilogue because it could be worth $10k. I know I'll be checking out my small city's natural history museum bird collection looking, hopefully, for a Labrador duck.
April 13, 2013
A book by a genial, obsessive Canadian ornithologist, recounting his multi-year, multi-continent quest to see and examine every taxidermic specimen in the world of a long-extinct duck species. Really. And, yes, I actually did give a week of my life to reading it. Chilton—who is up-front about his dog-with-a-bone compulsivity—travels hither and yon, visiting natural history museums to measure bird carcasses (between bouts of heavy drinking) with fellow bird-nuts, his wife, a variety of travel buddies, and in one case his mother, taking in various sights and adventures in the exotic (and not) locales he visits. There’s a pleasant, breezy quality to the prose, and Chilton can be quite funny (if a little bristly at times), but in the end I didn’t feel entirely invested in his peculiar quest, so it got to be a bit of and-then-I-went-to-Boston-and-looked-at-a-duck-and-then-I-went-to-Moscow-and-looked-at-a-duck... And there are 54 of these ducks. I mostly enjoyed the book. I just wish it had been shorter.
February 13, 2015
I read this because I am a science nerd and a natural history museum nerd and a general fan of anyone who is passionate about quirky, obscure things. This book has all of that, though I'd really call it a travelogue, first and foremost. Chilton's humor helps to carry the story, and I found myself rooting for him for a good part of the book. My hometown natural history museum is the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, and I dutifully read through 7/8ths of this book, duck by stinking duck, eagerly anticipating Chilton's Philly arrival...only to have him trash my city AND my museum. I'm trying not to hold a grudge (though my fair city DID boo Santa, so...), but after the bashing we received from Mr. Chilton, I'm glad my hometown ducks proved to be more of a challenge for him than he bargained for. I've since visited the specimens-in-question at the academy...they are there, full of Philly pride, and so, ultimately, I'm rooting for the ducks.
April 13, 2010
The Labrador Duck has the dubious distinction of being the first North Amrican bird species to go extinct - the last known bird was shot in 1875. "The Curse of the Labrador Duck" is an account by Glen Chilton, a professional ornithologist, of his efforts to examine every extant Lbarador Duck museum specimen. The book is more of a travelogue than technical or even semi-technical work. It is entertaining,and in places funny, but also a bit tedious. I decided to read the book because it was the subject of a vitriolic, nasty review by Storrs Olson in a recent issue of an ornithological journal (Wilson Journal of Ornithology), and I wanted to find out if it was as bad as Olson made it out to be. Answer: no. Olsoon was completely out of line, as he has been in other book reviews. The man needs to relax.
November 24, 2010
Ornithologist and professor Glen Chilton spends years (and lots of money) tracking down every last mounted/stuffed Labrador Duck in existence, which sadly is not impossible since there are only about 50 in the entire world. Chilton's quest takes him throughout Europe and North America, from big museums like the Smithsonian and American Museum of Natural History to smaller, out of the way collections like one in Halberstadt, Germany. Along the way he met some disappointments when specimens or eggs optimistically labeled "Labrador" turn out not to be. This is a fascinating account of one man's obsession (always interesting to me) and also a history of natural science, a travelogue, and a tribute to extinct and nearly extinct species.
April 9, 2016
Glen Chilton, ornithologist and biology professor, took on a quest to examine every known specimen in the world (in the form of a taxidermic mount or study skin) of the now-extinct Labrador Duck, which went extinct in the late 1800s. This book tells of his quest, his travels, and the ducks.
I really enjoyed this book. It was part humour, part travel and part duck. Even if you aren't as interested in the ducks themselves, I thought there was plenty of humourous travel writing in the book to entertain.
I really enjoyed this book. It was part humour, part travel and part duck. Even if you aren't as interested in the ducks themselves, I thought there was plenty of humourous travel writing in the book to entertain.
Read
April 25, 2016An interesting topic which makes me wish I had my own collecting obsession to give me an excuse to travel and a feeling of satisfaction that I am the ranking expert. Amusingly written.
I would have liked a bit more information about the bird itself, rather than just the stuffed specimens, and perhaps the history of specimen collection and extinctions but I'm probably being picky.
Strangely, when I read on the bio that the author is no longer a professor in Canada but moved to Australia I was disappointed in him.
I would have liked a bit more information about the bird itself, rather than just the stuffed specimens, and perhaps the history of specimen collection and extinctions but I'm probably being picky.
Strangely, when I read on the bio that the author is no longer a professor in Canada but moved to Australia I was disappointed in him.
December 14, 2015
This isn't a bad book, but it wasn't what I was looking for. It's more travelogue than pop sci exploration. In short, we learn more about what Chilton had for lunch and the history of European cities than the duck at the heart of his quest. It's not a bad place to start if you want to pinpoint museums for an ornithological journey of your own, but I wish this book's destination had justified following Chilton's journey.
August 8, 2010
This was a cute little book. The book jacket hyped it up far more than it should have but there were definitely parts where I laughed out loud. If you come across this book, you should definitely give it a try.
March 7, 2012
This is by far the silliest thing I have read this year. A delightful romp through the archives of the world following Glen's pithy observations. A good twist in the tale make this an interesting adventure.
July 11, 2013
What a fun adventure! I kept thinking about this book all day long and couldn't wait to see what happened next . Duck 1, Duck 2, Duck 3.... I was sad when there were no more ducks! It is about taking a dream and making it happen!
September 20, 2013
A bit of natural history, travelling the world via museums and behind the scenes views of museums kept me reading to the end. I got there with a certain grim satisfaction.
September 7, 2012
This was a good but not great book. I liked the author's sense of humor. Definitely pretty interesting to a birder like me.
June 25, 2014
Fun, silly but probably not of much interest to most people, even birders.
March 4, 2015
I really enjoyed this book. Very funny and gives a great account of the goings on behind the scenes at Natural History Museums.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews