This is a chronicle of encounters with a lot of bird books, in fact a lifetime of such encounters.

The world of bird books is vast and varied, defying coherent description. The author’s qualification

for making this attempt to describe it is that he owns several hundred of them, gathered over more

than 70 years. To help make sense of this obsession, the describing of the books is linked to a life in

which traditional birdwatching (and book hunting) went on, in different places, and in between

other things.