This book serves as both a guide and a warning - a bit like a hand book on drugs (I imagine). Don't do it! But if you must do it, you'll need the following clothing, equipment, mentality and so on. If there was ever any danger of my drifting towards a life of birding, then degenerating into a mad twitcher, this book has saved me. Who would want to be "gripped off" by some smug neurotic in a grubby anorak? What bird lovers would mercilessly chase rare (in this country at least) birds that have been blown off course and accidentally landed in Britain, when all the poor little beggars want, is to catch their breath and get their bearings? No, I'll stick with watching my garden birds and recording what I see on the garden bird survey form. Thanks Bill.


A brilliant expose of the seedy underbelly of birding.   October 23, 2000
 34 out of 36 found this review helpful

There are few books that we can truly say affect us throughout our life. My personal list include Lolita, Heart of Darkness, Quo Vadis .... and Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book. To say that it rocked my life's foundations would be an understatement. It unashamedly ripped me away from being a young impressionable young man perfectly content at watching a flock of "waders" wheel dramatically against a winter skyline, to now cursing the low sun because I can't get any feather detail on the end one that looks a "bit small for a Dunlin". This book is about birds and birders, but if you want to look for philosophical debate it will also tell you a lot about why certain people spot trains, collect Toby Mugs, or never miss a match neither home nor away for 23 years. But it's really about birds.

If you're a bird-watcher you must read this book. If you're a birder, you already have. And if you're neither it'll turn you off bird-watching for ever, which as Bill says is no bad thing because there's too many of us already.