Around the World in 80 Birds

From Madagascar and the helmet vanga to the Galapagos Islands and the courtship rituals of the male blue-footed booby (think dad dancing, but with big, blue, webbed feet), Unwin introduces a dazzling array of our feathered friends. I’m very taken with Australia’s southern cassowary, a ‘living dinosaur’, weighing 154lb and not to be trifled with. Ryuto Miyake’s illustrations bring it all alive * SAGA magazine *Wildlife author Mike Unwin takes a world tour of 80 birds with exquisite illustrations from Tokyo-based Ryuto Miyake. Inspiring myth, national pride or scientific revelation, each bird has a story to tell, from the sociable weaver bird that constructs towering multi-nest ‘apartment blocks’ in the Namibian desert to the bar-headed goose, whose epic, twice-yearly trans-Himalayan journey makes it one of the world’s highest-flying migrants * NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC *So engagingly written that, by bird two, I was absorbed … The book is full of nuggets about birds’ places in the human psyche … Japanese artist Ryuto Miyake’s illustrations are a delight * COUNTRY LIFE *

Mike Unwin is an award-winning writer of popular natural history books for adults and children. He writes for The Daily Telegraph, The Times, BBC Wildlife, Travel Africa, as well as the RSPB and WWF. Also a widely published photographer, his travels have taken him to every continent in search of its birds and other wildlife.

Ryuto Miyake is an illustrator and graphic designer based in Tokyo. Miyake prefers traditional drawing styles, using acrylic gouache applied with a thin brush on stretched-out watercolour paper, but his detailed illustrations have a contemporary look. His clients include Gucci, Toyota, Frieze and Bottega Veneta.

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