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A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World's Smartest Birds of Prey
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97/99
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79/99
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About This Book
An enthralling account of a modern voyage of discovery as we meet the clever, social birds of prey called caracaras, which puzzled Darwin, fascinate modern-day falconers, and carry secrets of our planet's deep past in their family history. In 1833, Charles Darwin was astonished by an animal he met in the Falkland Islands: handsome, social, and oddly crow-like falcons that were "tame and inquisitive…quarrelsome and passionate," and so insatiably curious that they stole hats, compasses, and other valuables from the crew of the Beagle. Darwin wondered why these birds were confined to remote islands at the tip of South America, sensing a larger story, but he set this mystery aside and never returned to it. Almost two hundred years later, Jonathan Meiburg takes up this chase. He takes us through South America, from the fog-bound coasts of Tierra del Fuego to the tropical forests of Guyana, in search of these birds: striated caracaras, which still exist, though they're very rare. He reveals the wild, fascinating story of their history, origins, and possible futures. And along the way, he draws us into the life and work of William Henry Hudson, the Victorian writer and naturalist who championed caracaras as an unsung wonder of the natural world, and to falconry parks in the English countryside, where captive caracaras perform incredible feats of memory and problem-solving. A Most Remarkable Creature is a hybrid of science writing, travelogue, and biography, as generous and accessible as it is sophisticated, and absolutely riveting.
Reviews
"With the curious trust and approachability often found in remote island species, the striated caracaras are truly the most mischievous of all feathered creation."
"more than just a love letter to the striated caracaras, although it's definitely that; it's also a fascinating look at history, evolution and how humans interact with the creatures that we share the planet with ..."
"Not only a fine writer, the author is clearly an adventurer, and he devotes other entertaining chapters to treks into the high Andes and South American jungles in search of other caracara species ..."
"The book elegantly reminds us that we cheat ourselves when we underestimate creatures we have deemed low, annoying or common."
"Hudson, who is now largely forgotten; he was one of the first to write appreciatively about caracaras ..."
"Fans of literary nature narratives will be thrilled by his lyrical account, and eager to see where Meiburg goes next."
"But perhaps the most important idea provoked by A Most Remarkable Creature is that we have a lot to learn from the caracaras."
"A master of descriptive nuance, Mr."
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