Vagrancy in Birds

Avian vagrancy is a phenomenon that has fascinated natural historians for centuries. From Victorian collectors willing to spend fortunes on a rare specimen, to today’s high-octane bird-chasing ‘twitchers’, the enigma of vagrancy has become a lifelong obsession for countless ornithologists worldwide. This book will explore both pattern and process in avian vagrancy, drawing on recent research to answer a suite of fundamental questions concerning the occurrence of rare birds: What causes vagrancy? Why do some places attract so many vagrant birds? Why are some species more predisposed to long-range vagrancy than others? The book will synthesize everything that is known about the subject, and draw together different lines of evidence to make the case for vagrancy as a biological phenomenon with important implications for avian ecology and evolution.