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David Gessner’s new book is not just a bird book, like his previous one: Soaring with Fidel: An Osprey Odyssey from Cape Cod to Cuba and Beyond is quite definitely a travel book too, and not something that only bird lovers will appreciate. His journey follows the migration of the osprey he knows from Cape Cod all the way down to Venezuela.

A great hand-drawn map opens this book with a neat warning: “This map is for literary, not navigational, purposes”. This is followed by a note to the reader, explaining that the story is not simply one about birds but it is about human nature too, and especially the forces of migration and freedom. When he went on this trip, Gessner had just moved house and started a new job and with these themes on his mind, he decided to follow osprey south.

The “Fidel” of the title is one of the osprey that Gessner particularly tries to follow, but this story is not just a tale of seeing birds. It’s also about not seeing birds, and meeting all kinds of interesting people in the process, through parts of North, Central and South America. Fighting a self-proclaimed battle with the British Broadcasting Corporation who also happened to be filming a documentary on the topic, Gessner tries to make his journey unique, while surreptitiously using some of the information the BBC gathered to help him track the birds on their migration path. It’s a journey worth following.