To See Every Bird on Earth: A Father, a Son, and a Lifelong Obsession

by Dan Koeppel

What drives a man to travel to sixty countries and spend a fortune to count birds? And what if that man is your father? 

Richard Koeppel’s obsession began at age twelve, in Queens, New York, when he first spotted a Brown Thrasher, and jotted the sighting in a notebook. Several decades, one failed marriage, and two sons later, he set out to see every bird on earth, becoming a member of a subculture of competitive bird watchers worldwide all pursuing the same goal. Over twenty-five years, he collected over seven thousand species, becoming one of about ten people ever to do so.

To See Every Bird on Earth explores the thrill of this chase, a crusade at the expense of all else—for the sake of making a check in a notebook. A riveting glimpse into a fascinating subculture, the book traces the love, loss, and reconnection between a father and son, and explains why birds are so critical to the human search for our place in the world. 

• ISBN10: 1594630011
• ISBN13: 9781594630019
• Publish Date: 5 May 2005
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 16 June 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Hudson Street Press
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 278
• Language: English

Reviews

[MurderByDeath]

To See Every Bird on Earth is meant to be, if you believe what it says on the wrapper, a book that explores the thrill of the chase across the world to witness as many of the earth's birds as possible in a lifetime.   There's some of that, but mostly, it's the culmination of what I'm guessing was a lot of therapy for the author; a psychological catharsis of his family's dysfunction, written and published.  In many ways, this book was marketed to the wrong demographic; those that find personal substance in others' stories about personal journeys would find a lot to like in this book.  Needless to say, it's not my jam.

BUT having said that, in between the family drama being laid bare, there was a lot of interesting insight into the world of Big Listers.  Big Listers are those that have seen thousands of the known species of birds in the world.  Known species is a moving target, and is currently around 10 thousand.  The biggest Big Lister has seen over 8 thousand.  This is about big numbers, big money, and big obsessions - and very little about the birds.  Koeppel, when he focuses on these people, does a better than credible job getting into their heads and their world and it was fascinating for me, in a rubber-necking kind of way.  The chance to see the birds these people have seen is tantalising; how they go about it, like a military invasion, isn't.

But the book helped solidify in my mind my motivations for why I go out looking for birds, and that made it a book I'm glad to have read.