The Rarest Bird in the World: The Search for the Nechisar Nightjar

Vernon R L Head

ISBN 10: 1605989630 / ISBN 13: 9781605989631

Published by Pegasus Books, 2016

About this Item

First Pegasus hardcover printing. This is an ex-lib book, with the usual stamps and markings. There are no marks internally, and the pages are clean.the binding is solid. Library name stamped across the top of the text block. DJ is not price-clipped, and has no folds or tears, there is a darkening stain at the top of the rear panel.

Seller Inventory # D8202226

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Rarest Bird in the World: The Search for the Nechisar Nightjar
• Publisher: Pegasus Books
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1605989630
• ISBN 13: 9781605989631
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Thus
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

Part detective story, part love affair, and pure adventure storytelling at its best, a celebration of the thrill of exploration and the lure of wild places during the search for the elusive Nechisar Nightjar.

In 1990, a group of Cambridge scientists arrived at the Plains of Nechisar in Ethiopia. On that expedition, they collected more than two dozen specimens, saw more than three hundred species of birds, and a plethora of rare butterflies, dragonflies, reptiles, mammals, and plants. As they were gathering up their findings, a wing of an unidentified bird was packed into a brown paper bag. It was to become the most famous wing in the world.

This wing would set the world of science aflutter. Experts were mystified. The wing was entirely unique. It was like nothing they had ever seem before. Could a new species be named based on just one wing? After much discussion, a new species was announced: Nechisar Nightjar, or Camprimulgus Solala, which means "only wing." And so birdwatchers like Vernon began to dream.

Twenty-two years later, he joins an expedition of four to find this rarest bird in the world. In this gem of nature writing, Vernon captivates and enchants as he recounts the searches by spotlight through the Ethiopian plains, and allows the reader to mediate on nature, exploration, our need for wild places, and the human compulsion to name things. Rarest Bird is a celebration of a certain way of seeing the world, and will bring out the explorer in in everyone who reads it.

About the Author

Vernon R.L. Head was born in Cape Town, South Africa. He is an award winning architecture and the Chairman of BirdLife South Africa, one of Africa's biggest and most influential conservation organizations. When not working on environmental matters, he is either designing special buildings or traveling the world looking for the rare birds. This is his first book.