The Bird Next Door

Forest and Bird, Issue 293, 1 August 1999, Page 48

The Bird Next Door

by Piers Hayman, 160pp, New Holland, Auckland, 1999, RRP$19.95. No book could live up to this one’s subtitle of ‘Everything you wanted to know about your avian neighbours in New Zealand’ but it’s certainly full of interesting gossip. Piers Hayman, artist and writer, long contributed a column of information about birds to the New Zealand Herald during the 1980s and the kind of subjects he featured appear again here. The book is basically a selection of tales built around commonly asked questions about birds. A section, "Trouble with the neighbours, answers frequently asked questions such as ‘How can I keep the birds off my building?’ "Why do birds keep crashing into my windows?’ and ‘Why can’t I let my dog run in the park? "UFOs, freaks and strangers’ picks up on blackbirds with white feathers, ‘Is that a sparrow with a strange looking beak?’ and ‘Are all white herons, white herons?’ Other sections of the book deal with bird features (why birds have feathers, why some migrate), threats (disasters), bird-watching tips, and a section on helping wild birds, (Piers Hayman was a founder of Bird Rescue). Purposely, there is little science. Piers Hayman’s black and white scraperboard illustrations (72 in this book) are a particularly attractive complement to the 64 questions answered.