Down and Dirty Birding: From the Sublime to the Ridiculous, Here's All the Outrageous but True Stuff You've Ever Wanted to Know About North American Birds [Paperback]

Joey Slinger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 3, 1996

Combining useful facts with humorous advice, a witty guide to birding covers how to watch birds without leaving home, collecting the proper equipment, identifying birds, and understanding bird behavior. 20, 000 first printing.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Fiction Reprints
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Most natural history books provide information in a straightforward, expository style. This work is circuitous, humorous, and often profane. (For example, the distraction display, when birds slink away faking a broken wing to try to lead an intruder from their nest, is described as the "crippled bird act, or giving the big bad wolf the old WAZOO.") Because of Slinger's informal (to say the least) style, readers may not realize that his ribald, rambling book actually contains a pretty solid overview of birding, albeit often in rather hit-or-miss fashion. Chapters touch on birders, bird behavior, bird parts, identification, and ten prime birding locations; a miscellaneous chapter called "Deep Background" defies categorization. Anyone who would enjoy reading about nature as it might be related by a standup comedian or glib talk-show host will enjoy this often hilarious book, but for most it would seem an optional purchase.?Henry T. Armistead, Free Lib. of Philadelphia
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone; Original edition (July 3, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 068480459X
• ISBN-13: 978-0684804590
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #618,234 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Informational as well as funny!, June 16, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Down and Dirty Birding: From the Sublime to the Ridiculous, Here's All the Outrageous but True Stuff You've Ever Wanted to Know About North American Birds (Paperback)

This book made me laugh so hard. Its amazing how something filled with so many interesting facts can be so funny too! This book can actually function as a reference on birding. I plan on reading it more than once! One more thing - this book is rated PG13 just in case you are sensitive to a little colorful language here and there :)

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's about time!, September 4, 1997

By 

T. Birrer "Kingfisher" (Succasunna, New Jersey, U.S.A.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Down and Dirty Birding: From the Sublime to the Ridiculous, Here's All the Outrageous but True Stuff You've Ever Wanted to Know About North American Birds (Paperback)

I laughed out loud numerous times and shared choice sections (and laughs) with my (also bird-loving) wife. It was refreshing to read a serious (and obviously knowledgable) birder making light of some of the more ridiculous aspects of birding. The content was exceptional. I learned quite a few new bird facts and realized how often I fall into the trap of assigning a species name to a whizzing blur of feathers. At least I'm not alone! From now on, I think I will always describe bird details in terms of getting a "hit". As in, "I got a hit of Grashopper Sparrow".

As an American, I didn't even mind the occasional tweek delivered by this witty Canadian author. Indeed, some were well deserved. All in all the author made me proud to have seen a real live Grasshopper Sparrow

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not your Aunt Matilda's bird book., December 12, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Down and Dirty Birding: From the Sublime to the Ridiculous, Here's All the Outrageous but True Stuff You've Ever Wanted to Know About North American Birds (Paperback)

With a highly irreverent attitude and a finely-honed sense of humor, Joey Slinger does for birdwatching what "Click & Clack, the Tappett Brothers" do to auto maintainance. In between the laughs is solid information on many subjects of interest to birders, such as choosing and using binoculars, bird physiology, identifying birds by flight patterns, bird behavior, and much more.

Early in the book, Slinger does a funny riff on why nowadays the preferred term for those who watch birds is "birder", as opposed to "bird-watcher", which he says "...brings to some minds the image of spinster ladies in tweed underwear bounding through the woods calling 'Halloo! Halloo!' They lacked machismo. When bird-watching -- one hesitates to say, 'When birdwatching comes out of the closet,' but there are so many metaphors around and some have to do double duty -- and moved to the forefront of human activity, it wanted to be known as something that sounded less like 'flower arranger' and more like 'biker.' " You can see this is not your Aunt Matlida's bird book.

It is this perspective, however, that leads to what I consider a drawback to the book's over-all appeal. The occasional use of the lesser profanities seems to be Slinger's way of nudging the reader in the ribs and telling us he is not one of the stuffy tweed-underwear wearing Aunt Matildas. Thankfully, these instances are few.

It seems to be fashionable for humor writers today (Dave Barry, who the author is compared to on a front-cover blurb, is an example) to attempt to multi-layer jokes by use of footnotes. A good number of Slinger's footnoted asides hit the mark comedically and informational-wise, but some do no more than break the reader's reading rythym, lying on the bottom of the page like -- well, like the proverbial dead duck.

These complaints aside, "Down & Dirty Birding" is well worth reading. Mr. Slinger not only knows a lot about birds, but he enjoys them with a passion. He delightfully shares both with the reader.