Review
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"This hard-to-put-down, charming blend of science, biography, and memoir illuminating the little-known
story of the composer and his beloved bird is enlivened by the immediacy of Haupt's tales of Carmen, and brimming with
starling information, travelogues, and historical details about Mozart's Vienna."―Booklist (Starred Review)
"Weaving together cheerful memoir, natural history, and biography, the author celebrates her 'insatiably social' pet
starling, Carmen; investigates Mozart's experience with his avian companion... and offers intriguing details about
starling behavior."―Kirkus Reviews
"Stories of [Carmen's] upbringing interspersed with details about Mozart, his family and career are both delightful and
interesting."―Seattle Times
"Charming and highly readable."―St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"Mozart's Starling is a delightful, enlightening, breathless flight through the worlds of Carmen and Star, two European
starlings who join their human counterparts in exploring life and music and nature, helping to shed light on the
connection between humans and birds -- those of us bound to terra firma, and those who are free to soar."―Garth Stein,
author of The Art of Racing in the Rain and A Sudden Light
"Mozart's Starling sparkles with imagination, emotion, and in. Common birds, who too many consider vermin, have
great gifts to share. Thank you, Lyanda Lynn Haupt, for showing us the delight and magic of a starling."―Sy Montgomery,
author of Birdology and The Soul of an Octopus
"Lyanda Lynn Haupt raised a starling of her own to see if the tale of Mozart and his starling could be true. Her
experience brings the legend of musician and bird into our present world where science rules. Yet even today, the song
of the starling, but a minute in length, lies at the very limits of human comprehension. Read the book and you will
learn why."―David Rothenberg, author of Why Birds Sing and Survival of the Beautiful
"A brave thing it is to write a love-song to starlings, in a conservation culture inclined not only to struggle with
exotic species, but to demonize them. But Lyanda Haupt has done just that--not as apologist for wildlings in North
America, but as celebrant of an utterly extraordinary, beautiful, and deeply engaging animal in and of itself. In prose
as lovely as birdsong and as clear and sharp as the cool air itself, she has given starlings--hers, Mozart's, the whole
species--the kind of loving and rigorous Life that every kind of creature deserves but very few get. I thought of Gerald
Durrell, Konrad Lorenz, and Jane Goodall, none of whom I loved reading more. The story of Carmen, Star, and their humans
is as riveting as a good novel, and I learned as much about Mozart as about birdsong and birdbrains. I enjoyed Mozart's
Starling immensely, and I challenge anyone to read it and still treat starlings inhumanely. Lucky is the bird that finds
its Papagena."―Robert Michael Pyle, author of Through a Green Lens and Mariposa Road
"By raising up her own pet starling, Lyanda Lynn Haupt reveals something that music historians have missed -- how daily
life with a bird impacted Mozart during his most productive period. By sharing this delightful tale with the rest of us,
she also reveals the unexpected quirks and charms of a species too often dismissed as a pest. Mozart's Starling is pure
pleasure."―Thor Hanson, author of The Triumph of
"Haupt's is an informative and entertaining book of a well-versed ornithologist/ naturalist who adopted a five-day old
starling chick into the family. Starlings are well known for their vocal ingenuity that had entranced not only Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart, but also biologists and linguists. The bird that had entranced Mozart entranced Haupt as well, and in
part for the same reasons. Starlings and humans are both highly social and vocal, providing an rtunity for mutual
bonding and cross-species communication. Indeed, there is debate whether Mozart was influenced by his starling or vice
versa. Haupt's adventure with the starling that became a companion and bond-mate prompted a classic adventure into the
nature of the bird, music, and Mozart's relationships. This highly readable account is a success at several levels, and
is bound to become a classic."―Bernd Heinrich, author of Mind of the Raven and One Wild Bird at a Time
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About the Author
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Lyanda Lynn Haupt is an ecophilosopher, naturalist, and author of several books, including The Urban
Bestiary, Crow Planet, Pilgrim on the Great Bird Continent, and Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds. A winner of the
Washington State Book Award and the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award, she lives in Seattle with her husband and
daughter.
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