Confessions of a Bird Guide By Rick Simpson | Paperback 188 Pages | April 2013 | ISBN: 9781291338195 | Lulu £7.99p
Author/Publisher View: Confessions of a Bird Guide is a witty, candid account of Rick Simpson’s adventures in birding and a life that has taken him from England to Brazil and back again. This book charts Rick’s journey from young boy in a makeshift hide, through the twitching years to becoming a bird guide in Brazil and eventually setting up the Ubatuba Birdwatching Centre, where all was not quite as idyllic as it at first seemed…
Fatbirder View: Confessions of a Bird Guide is an engaging and easy read which mostly covers the birding life of the author. There are references here and there to the rest of his life but I found the most engaging sections those about some of the special birding places in Brazil. In fact a couple of chapters could stand alone as a ‘Where to watch…” guide to Brazil’s Atlantic forest and I’d recommend it to a travelling birder on those grounds alone!
Many of us have been guided, especially when birding overseas and will have been treated to excellent birding and people skills from some guides and a distinct lack of either in others as well as everything in between. We will too, I am sure, have sometimes found ourselves in the company of fellow birders that have become lifelong friends and others that we cannot wait to walk away from in the airport lounge before the flight home. Its obvious, of course, that birding guides will guide terrific birders who are great human beings, and terrible birders who are beyond the pale in every other way too… obvious that is when a guide points it out… otherwise I doubt most of us would have put ourselves in their shoes. So here is an opportunity to see ourselves as others see us and learn that we too can be great company or a right royal pain in the derriere! At £7.99p I’d say that is a lesson well worth learning.
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