- Earthflight by John Downer, Firefly Books, 240 pages, $49.95.
In this companion book to the BBC series, John Downer takes us into the air to witness the Earth from a bird's perspective. The project was five years in the making and covered every continent and the birds native to them.
Using incredible ingenuity and the latest technology, not to forget the patience that is necessary with wildlife photography, Downer and his team have brought us closer to experiencing the bird's world than ever before.
The book presents some of the migratory patterns of birds from Europe, Africa, North America, South America, Australia and Asia. Through those examples we are brought into the connections between various birds and the other creatures who populate their environment. Downer reflects on the interaction the birds share and how it facilitates migration and offers some fascinating examples. When the Cape gannets nesting on Bird Island at the tip of South Africa witness their food supply of sardines move offshore, the birds follow the dolphins who find the now deeper schools of sardines and their feeding signals to the diving birds where the fish have moved to.
The photography is breathtaking throughout the book and provides a view that is unlike anything ever seen before. At the end of the book Downer shares some of the experiences the crew had in the filming of the project, which makes for both entertaining reading and insight into the hours upon hours of devoted preparation to make such photography possible.
