Customer Reviews

Vulture: Nature's Ghastly Gourmet

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As long as it sticks to New World vultures, this is a good reference. When it comes to Old World vultures, though, this guy simply doesn't know what he's writing about. He claims, for example, that the Bearded Vulture is incapable of carrying tortoises aloft (which it does regularly), and that the Asian Black Vulture is the largest vulture in Africa (it is the second smallest, out of nine species). I find it disturbing (if not surprising) that the Sierra Club would fund such a poorly researched and blatantly inaccurate volume. Anyone looking for an excellent reference on Old World vultures should check out The Vultures of Africa, by the South African Vulture Study Group.

Why judge a book by the standards of something it is evidently not? 'Vulture' is the most gorgeous collection of photos of these birds that I know. The book itself is beautifully laid out and designed. This is an ode to vultures rather than a comprehensive work of reference about them, and although it is regrettable that there are some errors in the text, they are few in number and are compensated by Grady's obvious love for his subject and his writing skills. But buy this book for what it is: a celebration of the beauty of a much-misunderstood group of birds.

I'm disappointed in the recently published book "Vulture: Nature's Ghastly Gourmets," and must say that I'm even more disappointed that the Sierra Club Books was associated with the books publication in the USA. The format of the book is wasteful although it might be a book designers delight; but regardless of the attempt to disguise a magaszine length article as a book, it fails and demeans an interesting and worthy and important subject by essentially making the book a miniature "coffee table" book (although its weight might fully qualify it as such). The design would perhaps be more appropriate for a magazinw article than a serious book about vultures. The paper and the binding of the book is heavy and cumbersome in the hand and makes it hard to thumb through the book to find things easily. The book contains 33 color pictures of many of the Old and New Worlds vultures with additional 14 line drawings, maps and other illustrations. These illustrations are good and appropriate (where the figure of 60 dramatic illustrations came from that's mentioned in one of the reviews, I don't know). However, the illustration on page 36 is of a turkey vulture, rather than the black vulture the picture caption indicates. A fifteen kilogram lappet-faced vulture, on page 25, would not be a 10 pound vulture but rather a 33 pound one.

With the wealth of material available, both from the scientific literature and anecdotal observations, Grady could have woven together a most needed and welcome natural history of both the New and the Old World vultures. However, that's not the case with "Vulture: Nature's Ghastly Gourmet." Instead we get short glimses of some of the vultures, through mostly second hand descriptions of a few words or few lines. The book lacks an in-dephth look at these much maligned and misunderstood birds, which are some of the greatest flyers the worlds has ever known. Occasionally, when the author is most successful in his presentation, he uses personal observations and descriptions as of the vultures near his home in eastern Ontario.

Farley Mowat is not the only or the first human who has wanted to return to his next incarnation as a vulture; it was also the dream of Edward Abbey, the iconoclast and writer of the Southwest.

In spite of many shortcomings of "Vulture: Nature's Ghastly Gormet" I enjoyed reading the book and, becoming again acquainted with the marvelous sailplanes of the birdworld. And I recommend the book.

Well, I must say that I do have mixed emotions about this work. First, it must be understood that I am one of those people that are actually fond of vultures. I find them fascinating both in flight and habit. They are a bird, a very old bird that really bothers no one; they just do their thing...what nature intended them to do, but people are repulsed by them and I have even known people who will go out of their way to destroy them; shooting and poisoning seems to be the preferred method of these sick puppies. These are usually the same dolts that swerve all over the highway trying to run over turtles. Very few birds have the beautiful flight pattern and ability these birds have. They are a marvel to watch. They are also an extremely useful bird and a very important part of our ecosystem. Historically, they are found in literature right from the beginning of the written word.

I suppose my objections to this work began with the mere title of the book, "Vulture: Nature's Ghastly Gourmet." The word "Ghastly" rather put me off. When you think about it, what is really so ghastly about them? They eat dead things...wow! As I entered a local steakhouse a few days ago and saw all those people eating dead cows (and a few were eating dead pig and chicken), I hardly thought "how ghastly." Vultures have a bad rap anyway and to title a work as such just seems to me to start the entire thing off wrong. I cannot wait for a book to be titled "Proctologist: The Ghastly Health Care Provider." Be that as it may.....

I have no problem with this author's photographs. These are actually some of the most amazing, well done and professional photographs of vultures I have ever seen. My summer project is observing and attempting to photograph Turkey Vultures, and let me tell you folks, taking a picture of these critters as they go about their daily business in not an easy task. I admire the photographer here.

Now I like bird book. I have many bird books of all sorts. For the most part I like these books to be rather compartmentalized, depending upon what I want to use them for. I use and need good field guides. This book does not fit that need for me. I need and use books with very boring but detailed scientific text. This book does not meet that need for me. I like very well crafted picture books of birds with full page plates and very little if any text. This does not really meet my needs in this area either. This is a coffee table book and as a personal preference, I do not like coffee table books of any genre.

We also have a problem here with facts, or in this case, errors. There are indeed errors in the text and captions of this work, as has been pointed out so well by a number of reviewers here. Some of these errors may not seem like much, indeed for those with only a casual interest they are not much, but for someone like me that is in the need of cold hard and extremely accurate facts, then this book does not deliver. I am sorry, but an error is an error and some of these errors are rather major. A good example of this is one error that has already been pointed out, i.e. the size of the Asian Black Vulture. Saying it is the largest vulture in Africa is like referring to Henry VIII of England as the "second Czar of Russia." It is just wrong and it does not work. Errors such as this cast doubt on the rest of the work. This is one of several "major" errors.

I also found that the text simply was not detailed enough to be of any use to me. There is a vast gold mine of literature on this species of bird and I feel the author should probably have tapped into it a bit better.

On the other hand, I actually enjoyed this work and loved the photographs...they are true pieces of art and we should be grateful to the author for presenting them to us. I just feel the author blew a great chance to truly create something magnificent here. Pity.

Bottom line would be that if you are interested in vultures and want to see some very, very good photographs, well you should check this one out from the library for a week rather than laying out your hard earned cash.

Don Blankenship
The Ozarks

This is a well-written, entertaining book on a subject for which there are very few books out there. The illustrations and photographs are stunning, if a bit distracting from the text at times. Not only does Mr. Grady present vulture facts, but also he places vultures in a cultural context. I would highly recommend this book.

This is a gorgeous coffee table book. The photos in this book are the most beautiful I've ever seen of vultures. I really enjoyed the book despite its shortcomings. There's much useful information, but this is emphatically not a reference book.

This book covers everything about the vultures from around the globe!!! My favorite is the Lappet Faced!!! Featured in this book and on the cover!!!

I learned much about my favorite bird-of-prey. Giving information about Of both types of vulture (Genus Accitciprid and Cathardiae). Many people have discouraged vultures, not knowing that there smaller cousins had the same habit. Mr. Grady gives plenty of detail for these large scaengers of the air.

I learned much about my favorite bird-of-prey. Giving information about Of both types of vulture (Genus Accitciprid and Cathardiae). Many people have discouraged vultures, not knowing that there smaller cousins had the same habit. Mr. Grady gives plenty of detail for these large scaengers of the air.