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

by Dan Koeppel Narrated by John McDonough

Overview

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.

Editorial Reviews

Dan Koeppel is a renowned nature, outdoors, and adventure writer; but his credentials for this book about obsessed birders goes far beyond his contributions to Outside and Audubon magazines. His father, Richard Koeppel, is a certified Big Lister, one of only ten people to have ever sighted more than 7,000 species of birds. (There are fewer than 10,000 known bird species, and only 900 of them frequent the United States.) To fulfill his dream, the elder Koeppel has scaled down his medical practice, abandoned any thought of a personal life, and spent a fortune tracking down birds in over 60 countries. To See Every Bird on Earth is both a testimonial to an astonishing addiction and an unforgettable memoir about a father-son relationship surviving at the extremes.

Publishers Weekly

For some people, bird watching is a compulsion that can become more important than friends, family or career. Richard Koeppel is one of those obsessive birders, and in this candid book, his son shares his story, painting his father as a tragic figure who passionately wanted to become an ornithologist but became the doctor his parents wanted him to be instead. Not surprisingly, Richard's medical career never satisfied him, and he gave it up to become a Big Lister, one of a group of highly competitive birders who travel the world making lists of their sightings. Over the years he spotted more than 7,000 different species, a number achieved by fewer than a dozen others. Nature writer Koeppel fleshes out his account of Richard's 50-year bird-watching odyssey with facts about this ritualized, expensive sport, including its history, the rules and technicalities of listing, the people and organizations devoted to making the lists, and questions of taxonomy. His hope, he writes, was to forge a closer relationship with his father and understand the nearly unquenchable drive that ruled Richard's life, ruined his marriage and made it impossible for him to be close to his children. But in the end, despite trekking alongside his father on birding expeditions, he still can't quite understand it. His book, then, is more poignant than revelatory. Agent, Laurie Liss. (June) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Dan Koeppel, a successful author, journalist, and outdoorsman, has written an absorbing story about his father's obsession-to see as many species of birds as possible. Richard Koeppel is one of only a dozen or so people among the top world bird "listers," that is, those who have spotted more than 7000 species, an enterprise requiring great effort, time, strategy, money, knowledge, and endurance, including dozens of guided tours to scores of countries. Koeppel knowledgeably analyzes such quests, showing they have much in common with other collection-driven pursuits and addictive hobbies, sometimes to the detriment of family, finances, and health. Part of the author's charm derives from his good mix of psychology, self-analysis, travel tales, and overview of the development of natural history fieldwork, both by professionals and amateurs. Good reading; a pleasure to recommend.-Henry T. Armistead, Free Lib. of Philadelphia Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

An affecting story of a son's efforts to understand his father's obsession with bird listing-as well as a pleasurable journey through the astonishing world of birders who measure their counts in the thousands. It all started in 1974, in Queens, with a brown thrasher. The author's father, then 11 years old, was inexplicably smitten. Richard Koeppel would go on from there to tally more than 7,000 species. His family suffered from his abstraction, but it would be unfair to blame the birds, for Richard was a withdrawn man with demons from his childhood. His marriage ended in divorce when his son was quite young, and that in turn bestowed upon Dan his own demons. But the first-time author does not invite our pity, even though his writing is brushed with sorrow; indeed, readers will admire his courage in keeping after his father and take pleasure in the heart-gladdening connection they have made over the past few years. Although Dan never really puts a finger squarely on Richard's birding mania (somehow, the comment that "it's all about the numbers" doesn't fill the bill), he does explore a few possibilities. The thirst for gaining perspective on our place in the world drives some birders, since the sheer number of species makes one think long and hard about evolution and the complexity of ecosystems, and of course birding is a good place to hide from life's many miseries. In addition, the author recounts with descriptive ease trips he took with his father to bird-pretty interesting, once he got past the point where his father looked at birds and he looked at his father. Among his vest-pocket biographies of legendary listers, especially good are those of the few who traced a Zen-like evolutionfrom looker to lister to purely curious, a state of combined emptiness and fullness. Certainly not the happiest of lives, though it makes an irresistible story rich with idiosyncrasy-not to mention all those glorious birds.

From the Publisher

Marvelous. I loved just about everything about this book.”—Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman 

“A lovingly told story . . . helps you understand what moves humans to seek escape in seemingly strange other worlds.”—Stefan Fatsis, author of Word Freak 

“Everyone has his or her addiction, and birdwatching is the drug of choice for the father of author Dan Koeppel, who writes affectionately but honestly about his father’s obsession.”—Audubon Magazine (editor’s choice) 

“As a glimpse into human behavior and family relationships, To See Every Bird on Earth is a rarity: a book about birding that nonbirders will find just as rewarding.”—Chicago Tribune

OCT/NOV 05 - AudioFile

John McDonough's well-known scholarly voice has less than stellar material to work with in Koeppel's relentless memoir of his unsatisfying relationship with his father. Although ornithology and bird-watching make up some of the text, most of the content focuses on the dysfunctional marriage of Koeppel's parents. McDonough ably recites passages on birding, but his usually reassuring voice is noticeably discomfited when having to read narrative on Richard Koeppel's post-divorce "encounters." McDonough gives a solid performance, but the repetitive nature of the text does not allow him to display the full range of his talents. R.F. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170614240
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	03/11/2008
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Prologue
But itÆs all about the numbers.

Dad and I had been travelingùup the river in creaky boats, along mud-packed roads, and through deep, wet forestùfor nearly two weeks. I was on the verge of my fortieth birthday. It was the first extended period IÆd spent with Dad since I was a teenager. Throughout my childhood, as well as now, our time together was focused on birds: Dad watching them, and me watching Dad watch them.

The group my father, Richard Koeppel, joined in Brazil is made up of people just like him: intensely dedicated, highly competitive bird watchers (or birders, as they prefer to be called) known as ôBig Listers.ö Approximately 9,600 bird species are found on earth. About 250 people have seen 5,000 of them; about 100 birders have reached 6,000. Several of the twelve or so birders at the seven-thousand level are racing toward eight thousand, a mark only two birdersùonly one now livingùhave reached.
If any air at all gets into the Big ListerÆs hunt, itÆs a compulsive need to count everything. My father counts books heÆs read and cheeses heÆs sampled. IÆve met Listers who tally the number of planes theyÆve flown on, the states in which theyÆve had Starbucks coffee, or their sexual conquests. Seeing every bird on earth is an eccentric pursuit. It can also be a tragic one. Phoebe Snetsinger, one of the two people to see more than eight thousand birds, became a Big Lister after receiving a cancer diagnosis. Given six months to live, she decided to forgo treatment and chase birds. She thrived and counted for seventeen years, and then was killed in a car accident on a remote road in Madagascar as she approached her 8,500th species. SheÆd talked about quitting because reaching numbers that high requires travel to distant and dangerous places, but she admitted that she was unable to stop. To my father, the only thing more important than his quest was cigarettes; despite the fact that he was a doctor, he couldnÆt shake the addiction until, just after seeing his seven thousandth bird, he was stricken with both cancer and heart failure. As he recovered, he took comfort in his list, reordering it, putting a half-century of bird sightings into cohesive form.

As I packed away the champagne in BrazilÆs Jßu National Park, the elation of the moment tempered, and I once again found myselfùas I had all my lifeùbecoming curious, trying to understand my fatherÆs consuming passion. Why? Why count? For the past ten years, IÆve been trying to find the answer. The search has led to more questions, about science, personality, and desire. My father is a brilliant man who has lived a life that, in so many respects, didnÆt turn out the way he wanted. He buried the sadness of his disappointments by watching birds, by tending his logbooks and checklists the way a gardener nurtures his blooms. On our trip, Dad and I connected in ways that were both lovely and difficult. I saw his self-destructive side, a part of him that for years has shut out family and love. And I saw his best qualities, a man with a gentle heart, hidden by pain, but not hard to detect upon careful inspection. The triumph of the list is the triumph of that hidden heart because it is proof not just of obsession, but also grace, and glory.
To see every bird on earth isnÆt easy. It requires strategy, money, and time; it is sometimes dull, and sometimes dangerous, and very often absurd. The underlying ôgameö of birding is a labyrinth of mechanics, rules, and rivalries. There are birders whoÆve been shunned for cheating, internecine fights over what truly constitutes a sighting (seeing is not the only form of believing in modern birdingùcurrently, many birders consider a ôheardö bird countable). BirdersÆ lists themselves are often moving targets, subject to frequent revision and categorization: You donÆt just start at one; instead, you create multiple tallies, delineated by year, region, species, genus, and just about any other category a person could think of.

My father says his listing is ôan addiction, just like any other addiction.ö Though he spent a considerable portion of his medical career attempting to cure those with physical dependencies, I wasnÆt surprised that he didnÆt care to engage in analysis of his motivations: ôI canÆt explain it. I canÆt even say it ever gave me a sense of euphoria. ItÆs just what I do.ö

But I want to explain it. I want to understand. I know Dad wonÆt agree with everything IÆve said in this book. I know he wonÆt share many of my conclusions about what drives him. He wonÆt be completely happy with some of the things IÆve revealed here. But thatÆs the nature of love, especially between father and son. What Dad has given me, through all the trouble and pain, and finally through triumph, is his legacy. I didnÆt want it to be burnished and idealized. DadÆs story is so much more beautiful when it follows the alternately tragic and elating course of a real life.

As I was writing this book, I spent hours on the phone with Dad. I accumulated hundreds of pages of transcribed interviews with him. I was, of course, using birds as a way to find out about him, as a door into his life. Sometimes the interviews were tedious. They were occasionally fun; often they were painful. Dad was in a big hurry to get them done. At first, I thought this was because of his typical impatience for introspection. But then he let it slip. He was nearing his seventieth birthday: ôI was worried,ö he says, ôthat something would happen to me before you got the whole story. I wanted to get this done, so youÆd have it.ö

He wanted me to get through the list, as well, he wanted to pass it on. Once it was safely in my hands, it was up to me to determine what, exactly, IÆd been given. It was only when I began to read between the seemingly dry and formal lines of the tally itself that I realized what such a lifetime of counting contains: the desire to find oneÆs own place in creation, pursued with a single-mindedness that so far has evolved only in humans. Seeing every bird is a way of seeing everything, of attempting to know everything. Such attempts mark human history, in religion and art as well as in science; theyÆre seductive, and sometimes dangerous. The story told here is about finding a way into that seductionùand finding a way back."
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "To See Every Bird on Earth"
by .
Copyright © 2006 Dan Koeppel.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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