★ 01/25/2021
Natural history writer Dunn (Orchid Summer) takes readers on a wondrous globe-trotting pilgrimage to seek out hummingbirds as their populations are threatened. He stops in Alaska to check on “the most northerly hummingbirds in the world” whose population is in decline (as are birds at the southernmost tip of South America), and visits Patagonia, Ariz., to see “a species at best scarce in the United States.” Dunn points to climate change, habitat loss, and hunting as reasons “the clock of extinction is ticking loudly for them.” Along the way, Dunn shares odd facts about the birds’ physiognomy and behavior—their tongues are so long “that, when retracted, they coil inside the birds’ heads around their skulls and eyes,” and male Anna’s Hummingbirds court prospective mates by making music with their tails. As in the best nature writing, Dunn paints striking pictures: he describes a bird “clad in an impossibly rich and overpowering imperial purple that, as traces of golden light from the lodge struck his breast, exploded into myriad sparks of palatinate life, each feather coruscating and glittering.” Dunn’s vivid prose, balanced with just the right amount of detail, will captivate birders and non-birders alike. (Apr.)
Fantastically informative… The Glitter in the Green braids the cultural history and daunting needs and feats of these wondrous birds with vivid accounts of the author’s sometimes hazardous, far-flung mountain, forest and island expeditions… Exceedingly well-researched and packed with fascinating lore, it should appeal to avid birders and general readers alike.”—Wall Street Journal
“Dunn combines an intense emotional response to the radiant appearance of each transfixing bird… [He] fuses vivid metaphor and close observation.”—New York Review of Books
“Natural history writer, photographer and hummingbird obsessive (within the first hundred pages he crosses both a bear and a puma in pursuit of this tiny, glimmering bird) Jon Dunn has written a book that is both an ode to hummingbirds and a remarkable piece of travel literature.”—BookPage
“Hummingbirds must be among the most beautiful organisms on Earth. Yet for anyone who has never seen one in the flesh, it is difficult to convey the psychological effects of a first encounter… A good place to begin to understand the birds’ dramatic pleasures is with this entertaining book. One of Jon Dunn’s real achievements is his ability to conjure the plastic form and astonishing chromatic architecture of many hummingbird species.”—The Spectator
“Full of natural history, quotes from early explorers, local history, and adventure, Dunn’s chronicle of his hummingbird quests will make readers just as obsessed with these small, quick birds dipped in rainbows.”—Booklist
“The Glitter In The Green contains astonishing photographs and stories about these rare and beautiful birds.”—The Herald (Scotland)
“At times a thriller, the history of hummingbirds in art, religion, and superstition—past and present—is fascinating, enlightening, and entertainingly informative to those of us who are smitten with them.”—Bird Watcher’s Digest
“Natural history writer Dunn takes readers on a wondrous globe-trotting pilgrimage to seek out hummingbirds as their populations are threatened... Dunn’s vivid prose, balanced with just the right amount of detail, will captivate birders and non-birders alike.”—Publishers Weekly
“Dunn chronicles his travels from his home in the Shetland Islands to the Americas in search of this alluring bird.... A mesmerizing, wonder-filled nature study that also serves as a cautionary tale about wildlife conservation.”—Kirkus
“An engaging history of the species… This inviting narrative describes the author’s search for the rare Mangrove Hummingbird in Costa Rica, as well as others threatened with habitat loss in Cuba and Mexico… Notably, the author takes care to consider the place of hummingbirds in the history, literature, and cultures of their locales. Dunn writes passionately…”—Library Journal
“Jon Dunn’s book is an adventure-filled, continent-spanning travelogue. It is also meticulously researched. By carefully peeling back layers of history to find shimmering hummingbirds hidden within, Dunn has created essential reading to understand human obsession—past and present—with these remarkable creatures.”—Jonathan C. Slaght, author of Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World’s Largest Owl
“Glittering gems of the Americas and nowhere else on Earth, hummingbirds lure Jon Dunn from Alaska to Chile in this whizzing travelogue of hummer natural history. In an adventure replete with pop culture and literary references, Dunn treks deserts and jungles, investigates a slaughter of hummingbirds for love potions, unmasks the real James Bond, and in Colombia sees an otherworldly hummer, ‘like some enameled god fallen to earth.’ The book is that exquisite.”—Dan Flores, author of the New York Times bestseller Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History
“More than just an observant birdwatcher, Jon Dunn is a talented traveler and writer, capturing just the right details of people and place to make his hummingbird odyssey come alive. The Glitter in the Green is a vivid exploration of a dazzling subject.” —Thor Hanson, author of Buzz: The Nature and Necessity of Bees
“This is more than a bird book, but still, it is. It combines one person’s adventure with arguably the most spectacular group of birds in the world: hummingbirds! The immensely talented writer Jon Dunn follows these highly diverse jewels from Alaska, down the Americas to Tierra del Fuego, and weaves an environmental and cultural dialogue around these hummers and the human-dominated world they live in.” —Joel Cracraft, Curator in Charge, Ornithology, American Museum of Natural History
02/01/2021
Natural history writer Dunn (Orchid Summer) has been drawn to hummingbirds since childhood. With this latest work, he has written an engaging history of the species while also shedding insight into why people, such as John James Audubon and Henry David Thoreau, have been astonished by them. Over a number of years, Dunn traveled from the Arctic Circle to the southern tip of South America in order to observe, discover, and learn more about hummingbirds, a unique and colorful species only found in the Americas. This inviting narrative describes the author's search for the rare Mangrove Hummingbird in Costa Rica, as well as others threatened with habitat loss in Cuba and Mexico. Along the way, he also details the rise and fall of the fake Harlequin Hummingbird, and the history of bird fraud. Notably, the author takes care to consider the place of hummingbirds in the history, literature, and cultures of their locales. Dunn writes passionately about climate change, habitat loss, invasive species, and unchecked development—all the work of humans—on hummingbird populations. For Dunn, mankind is inextricably linked to hummingbirds and their fate. VERDICT An essential book for bird watchers, especially hummingbird lovers, as well as anyone interested in natural history.—Mark Jones, Mercantile Lib., Cincinnati
★ 2021-01-19
An acclaimed natural history writer and wildlife guide explores the Americas in search of hummingbirds.
As Dunn notes, storytellers have always held hummingbirds in “high regard,” from pre-Columbian oral mythologists to 20th-century writers like Gabriel García Márquez. In his latest, the author chronicles his travels from his home in the Shetland Islands to the Americas in search of this alluring bird. Fittingly, Dunn’s journey begins in Alaska, where, tens of millions of years ago, hummingbirds arrived after crossing over the land bridge from Siberia. Here, the author introduces us to the “sombre green and white plumage” of the Rufous hummingbird, a species that, in 2010, was documented traveling 3,500 miles, the longest known migration ever recorded by a hummingbird.” Among Dunn’s numerous vividly recounted adventures, we visit gardens and lush areas in the Sonoran Desert that have become magnets for bird-watchers; a market in Mexico City where we learn about a macabre secret; the Zapata Peninsula in Cuba, home to the bee hummingbird, the smallest in the world; and Tierra del Fuego, in Argentina, where the author spotted the Green-backed Firecrown, a species that Darwin encountered in 1832 “flitting about in a snowstorm.” All of these marvelous voyages are only part of what makes this book so enchanting. Along the way, Dunn compassionately shares his extensive knowledge of the species endemic to each location, including their aesthetics, mechanics, habitats, and related regional culture and folklore, and he discusses factors contributing to the decline of hummingbirds, including pesticides, climate change, and habitat loss. Encouragingly, he “encountered examples of where human intervention had come just in time and, locally at least, had pulled a hummingbird back from the brink.” However, he also discovered that hummingbirds continue to be seen by some as a “commodity to be consumed and manipulated for their own ends, regardless of the birds’ welfare.”
A mesmerizing, wonder-filled nature study that also serves as a cautionary tale about wildlife conservation.
