Armchair Birding: A Siege of Bitterns, by Steve Burrows
~ Anne Kilgannon
The bright red and black cover of the book with a startling white outline of two birds toe-to-toe caught my eye, but what was this? It’s a story in which bitterns play an important role despite their secretive nature. (This is a bird I have seen only once, out at Nisqually, but it was certainly notable, standing in a ditch doing its best to resemble an old dead tree stump.) The book’s subtitle was alluring: “A Birder Murder Mystery.” They had me at “Mystery.” And the best part, according to the store proprietor, was that it was the first in a series. If I liked it, a long line of books followed like ripe fruit dropping into my hand.
Having only seen one lone Bittern, I was not familiar with the collective noun for a multitude, but whoever comes up with these words has wry sense of humor. The mystery series advances from its titular Bitterns to “A Pitying of Doves” (Can’t you just hear their soft cries!) and then “A Cast of Falcons” and “A Shimmer of Hummingbirds” (Bringing to mind that iridescent flash at the feeder!). I pondered “A Tiding of Magpies,” imagining the stylish black-and-white birds drifting in and out and yet still watchful and secretive, while “A Dance of Cranes” seemed raucous and not to be missed. “A Foreboding of Petrels” seemed the perfect name for a murder mystery, while “A Nye of Pheasants” was simply mystifying. The titles alone already had me thinking about birds in a whole new way. But what did they have to do with murders?
Rest assured, no Bitterns were murdered or committed any harm in “A Siege.” Yet, without giving away any plot lines, they played an important role in the story. I will go so far as to say that other birds were also essential characters and your knowledge of birds, if you are an astute reader, will definitely get you watching for more clues. This may be a police procedural but all the usual breadcrumbs are supplemented—more than that, enriched—by bird lore and the peculiar culture of avid birders. If you count yourself one of these, you will be rewarded, and if you are not yet—and yet aspiring to be an expert watcher of bird behavior—you will still be rewarded with salient observations to add to your store of knowledge.
In certain places as I read, I had felt a stirring, a prickling of attention, realizing that here was part of the answer to the mystery, but being a mere novice birder, had to read to the end to understand the author’s gift. I found myself going back over the places in the story where birds had appeared, even glancingly, and marveling at how the author had handed me a clue. His deep knowledge of bird life and those who study it illuminated his plot. I don’t want to say any more than that and hope I haven’t said too much here. Have fun reading this one!
