The human side of birding comes to the fore in The Reluctant Twitcher, a serious yet humorous account of birds and birding and the art of chasing rarities. Richard Pope, a lifelong birder, had successfully avoided this latter pursuit for many years but capitulated in 2007 when he embarked on his "Big Year," the object being to record at least three hundred birds in Ontario within that calendar period.

Almost instantly, a relatively normal birdwatcher morphed into a "twitcher," albeit reluctantly, pursuing rare species of birds from Rainy River to the Ottawa and well beyond...