A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds Hardcover – March 30, 2021

This is an amazing book on the migration and brilliance of birds. The most depressing aspect is what we have done to mess up migration and have essentially destroyed nearly a 1/3 of the bird species in the world over last several decades. So many simple measures could be done to ensure survival of a very important part of of our ecosystem, yet we are focused on us as humans only, and not the gestalt of our entire ecosystem. Our life on this planet is truly heading to collapse. We will survive longer than many species of birds, mammals, insects for a bit, but what we are doing is so dismal for long term survival as us as a species. I am older in age, but I suspect by 2100’s we will be gone due to our stupidity and relentless destruction the ecosystem and life we never realized that we dependent on. We have been so smart to poison the earth that insects birds need for food are in short supply. We relentless hunt and kill birds for feathers and heads as some strange solace to bri g future fortunes. There needs to be some understanding that we are all connected to the natural world. Something needs to give, otherwise we will not be around in a few hundred years. The study of birds, is the canary in the coal mine story of what we are doing environmentally around the world. Surprisingly, there is such resiliency if we can only offer some rather simple measures.The book is brilliant and the writing is outstanding. The science provided is outstanding. It seems that it’s up to us as a species to bring about a solution to a mess that we have created. I fear we have become our own ticket to our own distinction by our doing. A few birds, mammals, insects will survive, but we will be gone. The measures we need to take are rather minor is the scope of economics, it just takes a concerted will to make all happen.Great, but lengthy read. Outstanding book!

LOVED this book! Bought the book initially in audible format, and loved it so much that I wanted it in written form also so I could look up information again in order to better retain it. Fascinating!

This is a thoroughly-researched, well written, well-presented and illustrated book about the migratory habits of birds and the environmental threats they now face: loss of stopover sites, navigational confusion caused by light pollution, global warming and its effect on weather patterns, human bird hunters, human bird eaters….As a twitcher-light I found the book too detailed in some places to hold my attention when it dived deep into the issues faced by a specific species of bird. However, it’s easy to skip the bits that don’t interest you without losing the plot.Especially interesting to me was information on the tracking devices now used to trace the migratory habits of birds, the ways in which birds prepare physically for migration and recover from its debilitating effects, and the descriptions of where migratory researchers end up in their quest to find the birds they are monitoring.I thought reading this book was time well-spent.

There are four important reasons to read Weidensaul's latest book about migratory birds. The author, a life- long birder and nature writer, details the wonder of the behavior and structure of birds. Using the latest nano-tracking devices, the reader follows along on migratory routes in spring and fall. Both form and function enable birds to genetically know how and where to fly thousands of miles to winter and breed in warmer climes and return to points of origin for the next season's flight. Doppler radar also can track the sounds birds make during migration. This is no random trip, but one repeated generation after generation.Second, the reader gets a chance literally to "fly" around the world as the author and teams of ornithologists track the migratory routes. Read about feeding sites from western Alaska to the Yellow Sea of China, northern Michigan to the Bahamas and northern Canada to Central and South America as well as northern India to South Africa. There are maps and photographs to compliment both the landscape and the different bird species.As a third point, there are, unfortunately fewer migratory birds across the globe. Destruction of forest land, industrial development along coastlines, hunting of birds as a food source among the world's poorest populations and climate change have threatened the lives of birds. Conservationists have brought some species back from the brink of extinction, but will these efforts be enough to save the birds who form such an important component in food webs? This book gives stark examples of how the actions of man effect the global bird populations.Finally, Weidensaul's writing is compelling. The reader feels as though he/she is in the field observing the wonder and glory of thousands of birds in flight. There are moments when the author's prose verges on poetry. Here is a sample from his experiences with falcons in northwest India. "About 45 minutes after sunset, falcons began streaming in - first hundreds of birds a minute, then thousands, a sheet of movement against the shrinking band of orange and purple light on the western horizon." Such descriptions, certainly create flights of fancy in both the mind and the heart.

I really enjoyed reading this book for one of my classes. It had so much cool and interesting information about birds. It is a little dense but there is a Spotify audiobook that helped me get through the book. I’m a slow reader so this saved me. Would definitely recommend if you are interested in learning more about birds and read a scientist’s adventures.