Return of the Crazy Bird: The Sad, Strange Tale of the Dodo

by Clara Pinto Correia

The Dodo went from being newly discovered to extinction in less than a hundred years. The flightless, odd-looking bird was seen for the first time by Europeans and then annihilated by Europeans in the course of the seventeenth century. And by the end of the nineteenth century, all that remained of what Portuguese explorers called the ?crazy bird? was a patchwork of tall tales, contradictory reports, incompatible illustrations, and fragments of feather and bone. The dodo had become, in short, an unsolvable puzzle, but a puzzle that persisted in art, literature, and scientific speculation.]Best-selling author Clara Pinto-Correia, in following the bird's re-creation, shows in this remarkable book how the human intellect and the human imagination prey on sketchy facts and images, how missing pieces and incomplete lines are merged and fused to make a cohesive whole. By considering the incredibly strong hold of this bumbling, ungainly, and ill-fated creature on our collective scientific and literary imagination, Pinto-Correia teaches us not just about the ill-fated bird from the island paradise of Mauritius, but about our own abiding need to make sense of the world around us.]Clara Pinto-Correia is the author of the best-selling The Ovary of Eve. She has taught in the Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst; served as a research assistant at Harvard University in the Museum of Comparative Zoology; and is currently Professor and Director of the Masters Degree Program in Developmental Biology at the Universidade Lusofona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, Lisbon, Portugal.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

231 pages, NOOKstudy eTextbook

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

CLARA PINTO CORREIA nasceu em Lisboa, a 30 de Janeiro de 1960. Licenciada em Biologia pela Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa e doutorada em Biologia do Desenvolvimento pela Universidade de Buffalo (EUA). Foi jornalista no semanário O Jornal e coordenadora da secção de ciência do JL. Estreou-se com Agrião! (1983), seguindo-se entre outras Adeus, Princesa (1985), O Sapo Francisquinho (Prémio “O Ambiente na Literatura Infantil”, 1986), Anda Uma Mãe a Criar Filhos para Isto e Não Podemos Obrigá-los a Amarem-se, E Se Me Tivesse a Bondade de Dizer Porquê? (1986), crónicas de parceria com Mário de Carvalho, Campos de Morangos para sempre (1987), Portugal Animal (1991), Ponto Pé de Flor (Prémio Máxima de Literatura, 1990), Domingo de Ramos (1994), Mais Marés Que Marinheiros (1996), Mais que Perfeito (1997), Mensageiros Secundários (2000), A Arma dos Juízes (2002), A Primeira Luz da Madrugada (2006) e Não Podemos Ver o Vento (2011). Morreu a 9 de Dezembro de 2025, em Estremoz.

Reviews

[Kusaimamekirai · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is something about the dodo that has always fascinated me. Maybe it is the absurd shape. Or that despite having wings it was unable to fly due to its enormous girth. Or that when humans first landed on Mauritius and laid eyes on it, it couldn’t get away and was thus driven to extinction in under a century.
There is however very little information about the dodo. There a few drawings, some bones, some written descriptions, but other than that not much.
So I was excited to find Clara Pinto-Correia’s “Return of the Crazy Bird”. Sadly however, there isn’t much about the dodo within its pages. A lot about the history of Mauritius and two nearby islands where the dodo and its closest relatives lived, European colonization of African and the East Indies, and some lengthy chapters about the man who drew the dodo that were among the least interesting in the book.
She does discuss human interaction with the dodo and how it was alternately hunted for food and sent to Europe to be a prize for the rich and powerful to show off. These are by far the most interesting parts of the book but they are sadly few and far between. It felt like the author wanted to write more about the dodo but for lack of source material padded out the book with a European history lesson and the biography of a minor artist with a relatively uninteresting life. This book could have been so much more but ultimately was a disappointment.

[Amy]

Return of the Crazy Bird started out promisingly enough. The author's style was engaging, and how many books are there about the dodo bird? Also, the cover was cool. That's it. The book got boring really quickly, and I got to about page 75 or 80, and the dodo really hadn't yet made much of an appearance. I decided to abandon the book when I fell asleep while reading it on the bus. Not only did it put me to sleep, it put me under, because I woke myself up snoring! Yes, something a little more interesting is clearly in order.

[Anthony Robson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this romp through history, piecing together the scant records of the Dodo, reasons for its extinction, and reverberation into the modern world. I read one review that was troubled by the ‘lack’ of Dodo through a lot of the book, but the reasons for that become evident. We simply don’t actually know that much about the birds (there effectively being three different types from Mauritius, Réunion and Rodrigues).

But the reaction to it is fascinating, including the ‘we were too late’ reaction, and the passing of the species into barely believed folklore. Man’s attitude to these animals still, hundreds of years later, annoyed me, testament to the warmth of the writing. And I truly loved the chapter on the disagreements over the classification of the by-then extinct Dodo.

More history book than anything else, but centred around a truly amazing, and sadly departed, star.

[Irina Podgurskaya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Несмотря на некоторую избирательность автора в выборе материалов для исследования* (о чем справедливо сказано русским переводчиком в послесловии), это офигенный исторический остросюжетный роман про дронта, его долгую счастливую жизнь на затерянных островах и смерть от рук человека.

*(На месте автора я бы тоже увлеклась подробностями истории великих открытий новых земель. И увы, глобально все равно тут не о чем спорить - человек истребил уникальных животных, уничтожил среду их обитания и сделал это меньше чем за 100 лет - и поэтому как бы кто об этом ни писал, факт остаётся фактом в любом обрамлении)

Отличный научпоп для любителей истории и биологии - и никогда не лишнее напоминание о том, как хрупко все живое.

[Tolenteeno · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book makes me feel sad because humans destroy and extinguish fascinating species.

[dejah_thoris · Rating 3 out of 5]

An excellent micro-history of a bird we've all heard about but probably don't know the real story behind. The book opens with a chapter on the Age of Exploration and the quest for more unusual flora and fauna to be shipped home to Europe for zoos, collections, etc. Then it follows with an early history of Mauritius, Reunion, and Rodrigues where the three varieties of dodo were discovered first by the Portuguese, who thought they were tasty, and then by the Dutch who found them less so. Unfortunately, because none of these islands were previously inhabited, the dodo was easy prey for hungry sailors and the invasive species they left behind. Fortunately, some were shipped back to Europe for further study, which is the basis for the third chapter on the dodo's representation in period art by Hoefnagel and Savery. These artistic representations are important because they are re-visited in the sixth chapter after the dodo becomes extinct as a basis for scientific analysis. Between these two chapters, however, are two on the settling of all three islands and the extinction of three fabulous creatures. I found the last two chapters the most interesting though because the dodo was used to discuss evolution and inform the budding science of taxonomy despite the fact that Ashmolean Museum at Oxford destroyed the last stuffed specimen in 1755, only retaining the head and foot for future analysis. Thus, the period paintings, allegedly done from life, become almost the only evidence of the dodo's stance, plumage, etc. until a cache of bones was found under the Mauritius delta. Of course, the dodo hasn't died from our imagination, which is what the last chapter discusses though I believe it could've included more modern references. Overall, a fun read about exploration, popular science, art, and culture though a very sad end for a possibly interesting species.

[♥♣Mary♦♠ If She So Pleases]

I just started reading this book and so far I don't like it very much. The sentences are constructed in strange ways and there are typos. I'm reading from the hardcover book and it is very annoying how the words keep cutting off at the end of the page. The author, obviously inexperienced, tries too hard. She gives us half a5%ed info in the preface and half-truths in the first chapter. In the first chapter, she does a great deal of Christian bashing. She tries to show how the early Christians lied in every way possible about their travels and how they were incredibly wrong at every turn. Many may have exaggerated but we cannot dismiss all evidence because some turn out false or exaggerated. Not only that, she focuses solely on the Christians, not the Hindu, not Celts or anyone else for that matter. The Christians weren't the only ones to have wrong information about the beasts of this planet. Everyone at that time and before had incorrect info and many myths. Oh, oh, and all the Indians discovered later had very "peaceful" people. I believe that after I took anthropology, ethnology, and archaeology, it is safe to say that she has no idea how clueless she sounds. The American Indians were always at war, sacrificing others, and even committed inhuman acts such as; cutting off women's breasts and even gutting them while pregnant. China and Africa was no piece of cake either. Of course she describes how well off and civilized they were before the horrible white people discovered them. Let us see where this goes. I'll keep you posted...