I bought this because it was pretty. The author takes us on a whirlwind tour across the world, highlighting one bird in each major city that has, despite all the odds, thrived. Each gets one page, and the facing page is a watercolour of the bird, done by Marc Martin, and each is astonishingly wonderful in its simplicity and detail.
As a bonus to the eye-candy, I learned quite a bit about a range of birds; even the ones I'd already heard of had facts that were new to me, so it's a win all around.