Book review of “Birder on Berry Lane: Three Acres, Twelve Months, Thousands of Birds” by Robert Tougias, published 2020 by Imagine! Books (an imprint of Penguin Random House)

Birder on Berry Lane by Robert Tougias

You’ll find here a naturalist’s keen eye merged with a poet’s golden pen and a philosopher’s soulful wisdom.

At first glance, “Birder on Berry Lane” may appear to be merely a How-To book, but it is equally a Why-To book. It presents both the how and why to look for birds. More than just a backyard field guide, it is also equal parts a naturalist’s memoir and in some parts a reverie about life.

This book will spark wonderment in the natural world that can be found right in front of your nose. No need to travel far from your home. There is nothing magical or remarkable about Tougias’ own home. His neighborhood is a typical suburban American subdivision dotted with a few remaining cherished tracts of forest. His oversize backyard merges with a small woodland that runs parallel to a parkway. Yet, Tougias has discovered and cultivated an avian paradise around his home. Surely you, too, can wing it right in your own backyard or nearby park. Should you already find joy in the winged and feathered fauna near at hand, Tougias will deepen your appreciation. If birding is a sport, this book is a game changer.

As though this were a Birds of the Month Club, each chapter chronicles the backyard birds of each month of the year, so twelve chapters in all. Tougias has condensed here his lifetime of birding into a single year. Thoreau did the same when he compressed his two years while residing at Walden Pond into a single year in his magnum opus, “Walden.” Same as Edward Abbey did with his experiences as a park ranger for two years in Utah in his cult classic, “Desert Solitaire.”

When we read books, three separate time spans coexist at once. First is the month when Tougias was writing, second what month he was writing about, and third what month during which you are reading the book. Ideally, you could savor each monthly chapter by reading it contemporaneous month-by-month with your own month of the year, thereby stretching reading the book over the course of an entire year. This might provide you with new clues to experiencing the seasons and to seeing each season’s emblematic birdlife. But who of us possesses such patience and persistence? I must confess, not I, who can never eat only half an avocado, but must devour the whole dang thing. So rather than taking twelve months to read the book, I read it in twelve days. I can’t say that I couldn’t put the book down. I can say that when I did put the book down, I often found myself thinking about it. Go ahead, call me a birdbrain.

For example, the thought-provoking “May” chapter about the seasonal miracle of migration boggled my mind for hours. Many experiments and hypotheses have attempted to unravel migration’s mysteries. Tougias even tossed around some of the theories that have been proven unfounded. About one disproven theory in particular, he concluded, “This theory had many dead ends.” That theories can have dead ends left me wondering about his theory about dead-end theories.

A few rare passages did descend into tedium, as when the author observes the daily weather. For instance, when he gave an account of his efforts to dig out his car after a blizzard, he lost me in the snowdrift. But elsewhere, as when he reminisces about his childhood or about his own child’s childhood, those memories deftly serve as seamless transitions into discussions of the birds of the month. His reminiscences are infrequent and are recounted only in relationship to the birds.

The subject of the book remains the wonderous lives of birds, not the life of the author. Thus, “Birder on Berry Lane” is sorely mistitled. Rather, this heavenly conceived and eloquently written book more appropriately should have been titled, “Birdlife on Berry Lane.”

( Reviewed by Mark Mathew Braunstein www.MarkBraunstein.Org )