British Columbia Birds 
4 
Volume 19, 2009 
Book Reviews 
Book reviews 
Central Park in the Dark, by Marie Winn. Farrar, Strauss 
and Giroux, New York, 2008. 304 pages. Hardcover. 
$27.50. ISBN 978-0-374-12011-5. 
New York’s Central Park may not be a destination for 
most British Columbia birders but it has a surprising amount 
to offer. This 843-acre oasis of green in the midst of Manhattan 
is a powerful magnet for 
birds migrating on the Atlantic 
flyway. It is designated as an 
Important Bird Area and considered 
one of the top birding 
destinations in the USA. One 
mid-May morning a few years 
ago, on a walk led by renowned 
birder Starr Saphir, we recorded 
over 60 species of birds: a not 
unusual total for that time of 
year, yet quite incredible for the 
centre of the densest metropolitan 
area in North America. Not 
only migrants but a surprising 
variety of resident birds can be found in the park, including 
the famous Red-tailed Hawks and a group of re-introduced 
Eastern Screech Owls. 
The hawks were the subject of Marie Winn’s earlier book, 
Red-Tails in Love, based on a series of articles she wrote for 
The Wall Street Journal chronicling the story of Pale Male 
and his nest high on an apartment building overlooking the 
park. So much public interest in hawks was generated by 
Pale Male that when the nest was removed as unsightly, it 
led to “car horns honking on Fifth Avenue in support of 
Hawks’ Rights”, and eventual restoration of the nest. Redtailed 
Hawks now nest all over Manhattan and with the future 
of the birds assured, Winn and friends tackled a new 
quest: understanding the natural history of the park when 
darkness falls and night time creatures emerge. 
Central Park in the Dark is a delightful, lively account 
of an extraordinary group of naturalists and their adventures 
in nature discovery—eleven years of night time exploration 
among the trees, ponds, bluffs and lawns, watching 
owls, grackles, bats, raccoons, moths, cicadas and slugs. 
They brave the scary darkness to carefully record the time 
of owl “fly-outs”, identify colourful but confusing moths 
feeding on an oak tree’s sap, and watch for hours as two 
mating slugs tenderly caress, dangling “on a long rubbery 
slime string, a gastropodal bungee cord of sorts”. Winn’s 
enthusiasm for her subjects, accurate scientific descriptions 
and witty style, make for an exceptionally well-written nature 
book. She inspires the reader with the richness of knowledge 
that can be gained by consistent, regular, careful observation 
of the minutiae of nature, carried out systematically 
over months or years. The group’s understandable fear 
of the dark is overcome as that “powerful inhibitor of fear, 
curiosity” comes to the fore. “You go into Central Park at 
night?” people ask, upturn and crescendo on the last word 
and “their eyes widen in horror”! 
Birders will enjoy the stories of the Screech Owl reintroduction 
and pick up on the subtle undercurrent of tension 
that this event created in the late 1990s and early 2000s. As 
members of the Woodlands Advisory Board, a group set up 
by the Central Park Conservancy, Winn and friends were 
greatly taken aback to learn from an Urban Park Ranger 
that not only had some spring peepers, a species of tiny tree 
frog, been released into a park stream without their knowledge, 
but a full scale release of Eastern Screech Owl was 
underway, part of Project X to reintroduce ten plant and ten 
animal species into city parks. This turned out to be a pet 
project of the Parks Commissioner and despite the Woodlands 
Advisory Board’s objections the project advanced, with 
very mixed results. Winn documents the ups, downs, and 
surprising results of this experiment, which reveals valuable 
lessons for everyone with an interest in the human “management” 
of nature. 
There is much for the birding reader besides the birds, 
and it should encourage the broadening of interests and observations 
towards a wider range of species and to all hours 
of the day and night. The language is accurate (scientific 
names are given) yet not technically overwhelming, descriptive 
and rich yet not sentimental. Despite the vocal disputes 
that New Yorkers love to engage in, birders and naturalists 
included, Winn is discrete in her criticisms and warm in her 
enthusiasm for her friends and fellow “mothers” (to rhyme 
with “authors”—think New York accent). 
Chapter opening line drawings by Lee Stinchcomb add 
to the visual appeal of the book. As someone who visits 
Central Park regularly, I would have liked a map included 
in the book, to help find the many enticing destinations 
mentioned in the text. However, Cal Vornberger, photographer 
and author of The Birds of Central Park and one of the 
cast of characters mentioned and indexed by Winn, includes 
a good map on his website that shows most of the locations 
(www.birdsofcentralpark.com/birdingmap.htm). Marie 
Winn also has a website (http://mariewin.server304.com/) 
and her blog continues the story of many of the creatures 
and people in Central Park in the Dark. 
I would strongly recommend this book to birders and 
naturalists, whether or not they plan a trip to Central Park. It 
will delight with its detailed observations, fluent commentary 
and lively character portrayal. Anyone who has dealt 
with conflicting park jurisdictions will sympathise with the 
struggles around the Screech Owl issue and share with Winn

British Columbia Birds 
5 
Volume 19, 2009 
Book Reviews 
and friends the hope of a successful outcome. Most of all, 
we should all be inspired to explore nature in the dark, wherever 
we live, for who knows what delights await us? 
Anne Murray, 4992 Stevens Lane, Delta, B.C. V4M 1P1 
Choosing wildness: my life among the ospreys, by Claude 
Arbour, translated by Joan Irving. Greystone Books, 
Douglas and McIntyre Publishing Group, Vancouver, 
B.C. 2008. 242 pages. Soft cover. $24.95. ISBN 978-1- 
55365-297-7. (Originally published as Sentiers sauvages. 
Les Éditions Michel Quintin, Waterloo, Que. 2000. 312 
pages. Couverture souple. $22,95. ISBN 2-89435-159-3.) 
Claude Arbour was a well known Quebec naturalist, selftaught 
and highly respected ornithologist, ecologist and conservationist. 
This is an account of his life in the boreal forest of 
Quebec at Lac Villiers, about 
40 km NE of Mont Tremblant 
provincial park. He lived here 
in relative isolation from 1987 
to 2006, most of the time with 
his wife and young family, and 
traveled extensively by canoe 
in summer and by dog team 
in winter. He financed his life 
in the wilderness by seeking 
subscriptions from a wide circle 
of friends and well-wishers 
who, in return, received an 
annual “Letter from Lac 
Villiers”. In the letters he described 
his observations of the 
natural world and his journeys, thereby allowing others to share 
his experiences. These journals form the basis of this book. 
There are 60 short chapters, the majority undated, most 
of them just 3 or 4 pages, and each one describing a day or 
an event in Arbour’s life–a journey, an encounter with a 
particular bird or animal, a project. The writing style is 
friendly and conversational, easy to read, and in translation 
retains its distinctively French flavour1. 
For me, some of the most engaging parts of this book 
were the 12 chapters (scattered throughout the book) on 
Arbour’s interactions with Ospreys. He was an official rehabilitator 
for this species, which is notoriously hard to 
keep alive in captivity. He describes his efforts—mostly 
successes but some failures—to care for orphaned chicks 
or injured birds, and to maintain rehabilitated birds through 
the long winter until they could be released when lake ice 
melted. He also did a great deal of what must have been 
strenuous and dangerous work installing nesting platforms 
for Ospreys at the top of living trees; in one season, with 
some assistance, he installed 100 platforms. 
1 Thanks to Vancouver Public Library for obtaining Sentiers Sauvages by a special order, and to Michael Church for translations. 
There are also chapters on Common Ravens, Common 
Loons (for which he built some not-very-successful floating 
nest-platforms), a Golden Eagle, Pileated Woodpeckers 
and a few other birds, as well as accounts of beavers, otters, 
wolves, and various other animals. Some remarkable pieces 
of information are embedded in these accounts. For example, 
he discovered the reason why otters appear to “play” 
by sliding down snowbanks; this is an effective way of drying-
off after emerging from the water because the cold, finegrained 
snow readily absorbs moisture from fur. There is 
also mention, here and there, of the threats to the natural 
world arising from ever closer logging operations and increasing 
tourism. Several chapters are devoted to the management 
of his sled dogs, and a few to the human aspects of 
life in the bush. 
Of current interest to birders is Arbour’s account of his 
work for the Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Québec. He was 
fairly new to Lac Villiers when atlas work started, and anxious 
to know about not only the birds, but “all the plants, 
mammals, fish, reptiles and amphibians … not to mention 
the soil types and minerals found there” (p.14). So he enthusiastically 
volunteered to do 10 sections (squares)—1000 
sq km! He admits that he had bitten off a rather large chunk 
of territory. But he persevered, and by making observations 
as he traveled more or less continuously for two summers, 
he succeeded in compiling a landmark inventory that was 
later published. 
The downside of this book, at least in my opinion (perhaps 
not everyone’s), is the shortness of the chapters and 
each chapter’s narrow focus, which together result in a narrative 
that often seems choppy and discontinuous; in lots of 
places I was left wanting more connections, more context. 
On the whole, the translator has done a good job, although 
there are some minor mis-translations—mostly literal translations 
where a colloquial term should have been substituted; 
the term “ornithologist” (a literal translation) is used 
where “bird watcher” would have been more appropriate. I 
found very few minor errors, e.g., a 10x10 km atlas square 
described as “10 sq km”, and an unduly large (length 1 m) 
raven. 
In general, the target audience for this book appears to 
be the general public, Arbour’s objective probably being to 
raise interest in natural history thereby, in the long run, promoting 
conservation. For birders and other already-committed 
naturalists, the book will be interesting, but one to borrow 
from the library rather than ordering your own copy. 
Letters from Lac Villiers ceased in 2006 when Claude 
Arbour was forced to leave his beloved wilderness due to 
poor health and, with his wife, moved to Joliette to be close 
to his doctors. Sadly, while browsing the web for background 
information for this review, I found news of his death in 
July of this year. He was 53 years old. 
J.M.Ryder, 3415 West 24th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. V6S 1L3