Caracaras are really interesting birds, and the few places in this book where the author actually wrote about them were interesting. But even then, he could hardly go a page without mentioning Darwin and Hudson and going off on tangents. We learn how Darwin was afraid of Cape Horn, what Hudson's favorite smells were, how Mark Twain, who thought Hudson was a good writer, described a rain storm ... and on and on and on. He also referred to natives, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, as "Amerindians," a term that appeared over and over and over again and lumped very different groups under one heading. We also are warned about global warming and ... He also took several shots at the Bible. Enough. The author was much more concerned with proving he was a woke secular-humanist than with informing readers about caracaras.