Charming, informative, touching, and full of riveting photographs.
Wildlife photographers Emery and Lei tell the true story of a Eurasian eagle-owl that escaped from New York City’s Central Park Zoo and became a local celebrity.
Flaco hatched in a South Carolina bird park in March 2010. Two months later, when he was barely a fledgling, he was transferred to the Central Park Zoo, where he would spend almost 13 years. On the night of February 2, 2023, Flaco’s enclosure was vandalized by an unknown perpetrator who cut open the protective wire mesh, allowing Flaco to leave the zoo behind. Although he’d never had a chance to hone his flying skills in his small housing (he had a six-foot wingspan), he made his way to a sidewalk at 60th Street and Fifth Avenue. Pedestrians gathered to look at him, and police were called in case the bird was injured. Officers placed a pet carrier near him, but Flaco flew off to a tree by the nearby Plaza Hotel and evaded rescue. New Yorkers largely broke into two camps: those who felt that Flaco should be captured to ensure his safety, and those who believed that he should roam free: “Some saw him as an underdog, others, as an immigrant, still others saw an outlaw. More than a few, I imagine, saw him as all those things rolled into one.” Meanwhile, the bird strengthened his flying skills and learned to hunt New York’s abundant rat population. He also won the hearts of birders, wildlife photographers, and many others. Emery and Lei document Flaco’s remarkable adventures in text and in many magnificent photos, taken by the authors and other enthusiastic followers. It’s packed with details about the physiology and habits of owls, as well as delightful vignettes of Flaco’s antics (including fun images of him peering into apartment windows). This ode to Flaco is also effectively a tribute to the community he brought together—a diverse collection of city folk who shared real-time sightings and formed new friendships. Despite Flaco’s eventual sad demise, this is an inspirational tale of a valiant, curious escapee.
Charming, informative, touching, and full of riveting photographs.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9798991510509
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Owls of New York
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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