A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World's Smartest Birds of Prey

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About A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life And

Product Description “A fascinating, entertaining, and totally engrossing story.”—David Sibley, author of What It's Like to Be a Bird “Utterly captivating and beautifully written, this book is a hugely entertaining and enlightening exploration of a bird so wickedly smart, curious, and social, it boggles the mind.”—Jennifer Ackerman, author of The Bird Way “As curious, wide-ranging, gregarious, and intelligent as its subject.”—Charles C. Mann, author of 1491 An enthralling account of a modern voyage of discovery as we meet the clever, social birds of prey called caracaras, which puzzled Darwin, fascinate modern-day falconers, and carry secrets of our planet's deep past in their family history. In 1833, Charles Darwin was astonished by an animal he met in the Falkland Islands: handsome, social, and oddly crow-like falcons that were "tame and inquisitive . . . quarrelsome and passionate," and so insatiably curious that they stole hats, compasses, and other valuables from the crew of the Beagle. Darwin wondered why these birds were confined to remote islands at the tip of South America, sensing a larger story, but he set this mystery aside and never returned to it.   Almost two hundred years later, Jonathan Meiburg takes up this chase. He takes us through South America, from the fog-bound coasts of Tierra del Fuego to the tropical forests of Guyana, in search of these birds: striated caracaras, which still exist, though they're very rare. He reveals the wild, fascinating story of their history, origins, and possible futures. And along the way, he draws us into the life and work of William Henry Hudson, the Victorian writer and naturalist who championed caracaras as an unsung wonder of the natural world, and to falconry parks in the English countryside, where captive caracaras perform incredible feats of memory and problem-solving. A Most Remarkable Creature is a hybrid of science writing, travelogue, and biography, as generous and accessible as it is sophisticated, and absolutely riveting. Review “If caracaras were able to read—and immersing myself in Mr. Meiburg’s vivid prose I sometimes fancied they just might be—this book would give them a lot of information about that exceptional creature named Jonathan Meiburg.” —Christoph Irmscher, Wall Street Journal“Like travel itself, A Most Remarkable Creature is more journey than destination. While Meiburg seems disinclined toward environmental preaching, he does want to ignite our curiosity. The book elegantly reminds us that we cheat ourselves when we underestimate creatures we have deemed low, annoying or common.” —Karen Sandstrom, The Washington Post “Meiburg's voice is poetic; where other nature writers are known for the images they paint of landscapes, here are presented impressions, concepts as complex as species' movements over geologic time, in a way that is at once clear and beautiful.” —Anna Morris, NPR.org “To call this a bird book would be like calling Moby-Dick a whaling manual. . . Meiburg’s book is full of good seeing and the good writing that comes from it.” —Sam Hodges, Dallas Morning News  “Meiburg is an enormously skilled writer, and even if you've never heard of striated caracaras, you're likely to be drawn in by his enthusiasm and elegant prose.” —Michael Schaub, Star Tribune “ A Most Remarkable Creature is much more than a scientific profile. It is a grand intellectual adventure involving dinosaurs, DNA, naturalists, exploration and survival. Meiburg is a gifted storyteller, and one can't help but fall under the same spell he did.” —Lauren O’Brien, Shelf Awareness “Meiburg lodges the caracara so deeply in readers’ hearts that by the end of the book, they will feel ready to participate in whatever scheme he proposes to save this peculiar dinosaur-descendant.” —Anna Spydell, BookPage (starred review) “Meiburg elevates himself to the top ranks of science writers with this enthralling debut . . . Meiburg’s evocative prose will bring armchair n