I don’t seem to have nearly enough time these days to read books (and I apologise profusely to those publishers who’ve sent me books recently - I will read and review them all I promise) and ‘Birding from the Hip’ has been sat on a shelf in its wrapper for almost a month. Sometimes it’s just difficult to lay everything else aside and read a book knowing that you’re doing so primarily because you’ve agreed to review it. But then again, sometimes, you find yourself opening a book that reminds you exactly why you need to find the time to read more.

I’ve never met Anthony McGeehan but like many British birders of a ‘certain generation’ I feel as if I know him anyway. He’s been writing genial, entertaining columns about birds and birdwatchers for a number of birding magazines since the mid-1990s, and he is - seemingly like so many of his fellow Irishmen - a born storyteller. (As apparently is his long-suffering wife, Mairead, as she occasionally - with a wink - pens scathing columns about her oft-absent husband, some of which are included here too). This new book is a compilation of his (and her) best texts, updated with comment in some cases, and I should have known that once opened I’d end up reading it virtually from cover to cover as outside my hotel window (I’m in Sao Paulo, Brazil at the moment) life rolls on by without me…

Life and Sao Paulo can roll on all it wants though: I don’t feel I’ve missed out on anything as I’ve sat and read this wonderful book. And ‘Birding from the Hip’ is wonderful. Mostly funny, warm, and gentle, full of birding advice delivered in lyrical tones, and sometimes - as in for example ‘Enlightment, not epitaphs‘ - razor-sharp and just as cutting, each of the almost fifty essays are beautifully-written gems. I would imagine many bloggers (myself included) are aiming for this kind of precision of thought and quality of vocabulary, but many of us (myself included) will usually fall short. They remind me of many years ago reading a music critic writing about New Order (the Manchester group formed from the remains of Joy Division), who said that many other groups would ’scratch their own eyes out’ to write songs as good. I know what he meant…

Open almost any page and - if you’re anything like me anyway - there is a sentence, paragraph, or analogy that you just wish you’d thought of yourself. How about this description of a Collared Pratincole, “In the strange blue light, their red bill bases sparkled like lipstick and breast plumage had the tawny glow of a single malt whisky”. Has the highs and lows of twitching in October ever been better summed up than in these eighteen words, “Autumn is a pressure cooker that, when it recedes into winter, leaves you relieved to look at gulls”? And how about this couplet to the soul-lifting effect of birdsong, the closing lines on listening to a Hermit Thrush: “I refuse to succumb to euphemisms to describe what we’d heard. It was such a song that, when then the bird stopped singing, you felt like whispering Amen”.

And - dammit - the writer is also a superb photographer! His photographs leap out page after page, sharp, in focus and - thanks to the diagnostic “Sound Approach” format of pages the size of a flatscreen TV - almost life-size. Few images of a Black-tailed Godwit are as good as the one on page 153. When he doesn’t have the right image he apparently knows people that do: Bruce Mactavish supplies a rather gorgeous Ivory Gull, Ran Schols a usually unphotographable Dupont’s Lark, and Michel Geven a sublime Long-tailed Skua. You could buy this book even if you didn’t speak English and not be disappointed.

If this wasn’t enough, this being a product of the ‘Sound Approach’ team who first got into the publishing game with 2006’s superb and highly-recommended “Sound Approach to Birding” there are also two CDs included. These, it turns out, are a selection of the stories in the book read by Anthony and Mairead McGeehan themselves, with a few relevant bird calls and local music layered (mainly) into the background. A review of this book copied (rather bravely) in full on the Sound Approach website includes some unfavourable comments made by the reviewer about the CDs and Anthony’s reading voice, but I have to say I totally disagree. I really like the CDs, and as far as I’m concerned they’re a lovely addition. Okay, perhaps neither of the McGeehans will be remembered as great voice talents along the lines of Garrison Keiler or Richard Burton (which is hardy surprising really), but the stories are their’s and they ‘own’ them well enough to make listening to the CDs an enjoyable and involving experience. (I may be wrong of course, but I’m betting that many purchasers of ‘Birding from the Hip’ will download the sixteen tracks (or a selection of them anyway) onto an mp3 player and use them as great way to relax and fall asleep to - and that’s not a comment in any way at all on the tonal qualities of the narrators, just a guess that its only at bedtime that most people will allow themselves the time to listen to stories like these. Its what I’m going to do anyway…)

So, Anthony McGeehan - who in a self-deprecating introduction worries that we may not enjoy his tales, “which is why they are in a book whose dimensions double as a draught-excluder fitting most back doors” - is a talented writer, photographer, and narrator. He’s also a darn good birder who’s well-respected by his peers, and has managed to remain married through years of dropping everything to go chasing rarities. And now I’m suggesting you go buy his book as well.

It would be possible for me to get a little resentful at so much good fortune being bestowed on one man at this point, but - you know - I just can’t. Like I say I’ve never met Anthony McGeehan but I reckon if I did I’d really like him. That may not be enough of a reason for you to buy his book of course, but I’ll bet if you do you’ll end up feeling the same way too.

Summary:
Hardback, 196 pages, 2 CDs, and numerous superb photographs. The ‘Sound Approach‘ team should - if there’s any justice in the world - have another superbly-produced, birder-friendly hit on their hands with ‘Birding from the Hip’ and I can’t imagine a birder anywhere (not if they’re being really honest) begrudging one iota of their success. I can’t wait for the next in what will hopefully be a long, long series…(oh, and if the publishers would like to send me a copy of ‘Petrels’ to review I promise I’ll get down to reading it as soon as it arrives)