10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 1, 2020

It was a pleasure to make these observations at the same time I was reading The Bird Way: A New Look at How Birds Talk, Work, Play, Parent, and Think , Jennifer Ackerman’s new book about the diversity and complexity of bird behavior. Superb Lyrebird by John Burgoyne ©2020 .

Science 262

Science Birds Costa Rica Research 262

10,000 Birds

JUNE 4, 2024

It’s a decidedly different direction for the author of Kingbird Highway (1997), Kaufman Field Guide to Birds of North America (2005), and A Season on the Wind: Inside the World of Spring Migration (2019), to cite just three of his books, and one that I thoroughly enjoyed, underlined with energy, and am still thinking about.

Philadelphia 246

Philadelphia Birds Investigation North America 246

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

This, 2022, has been a curious year for books about birds and birding. Despite the absence of two major publishers—Lynx and HMH–from the new title publishing scene (hopefully not permanently), we were happily surprised to read and peruse many excellent books. But this is more than a coffee table book. Highly recommended.

Sri Lanka 262

Sri Lanka Malaysia Suriname Malawi 262

10,000 Birds

JULY 7, 2020

Fortunately, with a prescience that’s a little scary, David Allen Sibley has created a book perfect for beginning birders (and the rest of us): What It’s Like to Be a Bird: From Flying to Nesting, Eating to Singing–What Birds Are Doing, and Why. copyright @2020 by David A llen Sibley. copyright @2020 by David A llen Sibley.

2020 264

2020 Birds North America Sparrows 264

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 3, 2021

It’s a big subject that has been embraced by biologists Barbara Ballentine and Jeremy Hyman in Bird Talk: An Exploration of Avian Communication, a largish, book recently published by Comstock Publishing Associates, an imprint of Cornell University Press. © 2021 Barbara Ballentine and Jeremy Hyman & Quarto Publishing.

North America 279

North America Research Birds America 279

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 5, 2024

Not just the Common Cuckoo or the Yellow-billed Cuckoo, you must love the whole family Cuculidae, all 32 general and 148 species of them, from Anis to Roadrunners to Coucals to Lizard Cuckoos to Koels to Malkohas to Drongo-Cuckoos to Hawk-Cuckoos.* You gotta love Cuckoos.

Family 244

Family Species 244

10,000 Birds

JULY 6, 2021

If you had your choice of one bird family to pursue, to seek out and observe and photograph and kvell over, which one would you choose? A passion for one bird family is also very useful. It provides goals and a definite direction for your birding travels and thoughts; sometimes it even becomes the basis of a book!

Costa Rica 264

Costa Rica Brazil Bolivia Ecuador 264

10,000 Birds

JULY 1, 2014

I love reading children’s books, even though my child is well over the age when she asks to have them read at bedtime and my nephews fall asleep all too easily after playing lacrosse all day. Here are three excellent but very different children’s books I enjoyed this year (two were published in 2013, one in 2011).

Puerto Rico 247

Puerto Rico Parrots New York City 2013 247

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 3, 2015

Each species account starts with names–family name at the top of the page, followed below by English name of the species, alpha code, scientific name, local name in Cuba and the standard name as accepted by the Sociedad Española de Ornitología (SEO). The book includes lots of space for Notes. There is even room for notes.

Cuba 244

Cuba Birds 2000 United States 244

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 5, 2013

Steve, another member of our birding group, also had a field guide by Kenefick, Restall, and Hayes, but his was bordered in GREEN, had a slightly different title, and, to my extreme chagrin, was much more recent, showing the recently split Trinidad Motmot instead of the Blue-crowned Motmot on my book’s cover. I was confused.

Trinidad 234

Trinidad South America Birds 2011 234

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 9, 2011

Be warned, The Atlas of Birds is not a map book, though it does contain maps, lovely orange and purple and green bird distribution maps. And, it is not a coffee table book, though it is on the large size (11 x 8.5) It is pretty amazing how much information Mike Unwin compresses into the book’s 144 pages.

Albatross 234

Albatross Campaign Protection Birds 234

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 4, 2018

In a birding world that celebrates identification, there are surprisingly few articles and books on gull identification.** There’s been a lot of excitement about this book. Pete Dunne has written and co-written 21 books (by my count, Wikipedia needs to update its entry!) This is their second co-authored book.

North America 214

North America El Salvador America Nicaragua 214

10,000 Birds

MAY 4, 2021

This is the charm of Lima’s book. Marybeth learns as she birds, embraces listing goals as a means of engaging with community, unabashedly enjoys a little competition, struggles to balance her absolute joy in birding with unexpected, life-and-death family obligations. But, in Chapter Three the book takes on more shape.

Louisiana 264

Louisiana Species Mississippi Alabama 264

10,000 Birds

MAY 5, 2015

Karlson and Dale Rosselet in Birding by Impression: A Different Approach to Knowing and Identifying Birds, the latest addition to the Peterson Reference Guide series and a book likely to revive the continuing discussion about the merits of GISS (the term used in the book, as opposed to the popular jizz ) versus traditional bird identification.

New Jersey 185

New Jersey Birds Science New York City 185

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 2, 2012

It’s my fantasy and it’s yours: Quit the job, say good-bye to the family, and bird. This is the birding adventure book supreme. I’m reading a book about a man who is doing a Pitta Big Year,” I say. The Jewel Hunter belongs to a singular niche, the Big Year/Big Lifelist book. It’s what I dream of every Monday morning.

Hunters 231

Hunters Sri Lanka Asia Solomon Islands 231

10,000 Birds

MAY 23, 2021

In six or seven months, the “best books of the year” features will come out in the important print and web publications. A few people share parts of this story and this book with the author – Ph.D. Even more curiously, that book has, it appears, little or nothing to do with Shearwaters. Stay tuned.]

West Virginia 254

West Virginia Rats Albatross Georgia 254

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 6, 2012

This is what happens when you read a book like Frogs and Toads of the World , by Chris Mattison. A book about all the frogs and toads of the world is an ambitious undertaking. This seemingly boundless diversity comes through in every chapter of this book, and is both its strength and its weakness. These are terms of usage.

Reptiles 211

Reptiles Madagascar Family New York City 211

10,000 Birds

MARCH 3, 2020

” The book in question is Birds of Bolivia: Field Guide , edited and written by Sebastian K. The guide covers 1,433 species, the number of birds documented at the end of 2014, the cutoff point for the book. The downside of the size (and quality of paper) is that this is a fairly heavy book, about 2.5

Bolivia 214

Bolivia Birds Brazil Switzerland 214

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 2, 2014

So, when Redgannet asked me if I was interested in reviewing Phillipps’ Field Guide to the Birds of Borneo: Sabah, Sarawak, Brunei and Kalimantan, Third Edition , by Quentin Phillipps and Karen Phillipps, a book he had acquired at Birdfair, I hesitated. Not a great place for a family vacation, though I think Duncan will disagree.

Brunei 198

Brunei Asia Birds China 198

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 7, 2014

The second edition of the National Geographic Complete Birds of North America, 2nd Edition has one of the longest book names in bird bookdom: National Geographic Complete Birds of North America, 2nd Edition: Now Covering More Than 1,000 Species With the Most-Detailed Information Found in a Single Volume. Karlson, and Brian E.

North America 184

North America America Family Falcons 184

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 6, 2022

The book is chiefly about how people have conceptualized and studied birds, but there is an underlying theme, the changing ways in which our Western culture has viewed animals, nature and God. It’s a huge scope for a 338-page book. With Birkhead, you never know what’s going to come next.

Dissection 261

Dissection Birds Europe Eggs 261

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 2, 2021

This shouldn’t have to be stated, especially in a book on bird evolution by an evolutionary biologist with a Ph.D. But, ‘synthesis’ is a dry word, and this is a book with a quiet yet firm personality underlying its words. The book is smartly organized into 12 chapters. This is a book that requires attention.

Science 245

Science Albatross Owls Research 245

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 5, 2019

The full title of this exceptional book by Marie Read is Mastering Bird Photography: The Art, Craft, and Technique of Photographing Birds and Their Behavior. In this new book, she puts everything she has learned in over 30 years of wildlife photography down in writing.

Birds 203

Birds Ethics 2019 Puffins 203

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 6, 2019

It’s never too late or too early to buy a children’s book about birds. It’s been a few years since my last roundup of children’s bird books, and children’s book writers, illustrators and publishers continue to produce picture books that feature avian protagonists. First, the board books.

New York City 188

New York City Pelicans Penguins New York 188

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 6, 2016

This book is a field guide treat for traveling birders and birders who love to fantasize about travel, answering that age-old question, “I’m going on a trip to [fill in the blank—Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras], what field guide should I use?”. Of course, this is an identification guide, not a coffee table book.

El Salvador 235

El Salvador America Costa Rica Honduras 235

10,000 Birds

JULY 20, 2019

The last time a Julie Zickefoose book was reviewed on this blogsite, the piece began by saying “This is going to be a rave review.” That sentence will do for this review and this book, too: it’s unavoidable. On a couple of different levels, this is a wonderful story and a terrific book.

Ohio 178

Ohio Adoptable Emotional 2019 178

10,000 Birds

JULY 4, 2017

The guide presents 69 species and 1 subspecies, from “NEW WORLD VULTURES: Cathartiformes” to “OSPREY: Pandioninae” to “FAMILY: Accipitridae” (Kites, Hawks, Eagles, Hawk-Eagles), to “FALONIDS: Falconidae” (Falcons, Forest-Falcons, Caracaras, Kestrels, Merlin). The book’s bio is not exaggerating when it says that author William S.

Mexico 188

Mexico America North America Falcons 188

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 7, 2020

Everyone is looking back on their best birds of 2019, so I thought it would be a good idea to look at a book that looks back a little further: Urban Ornithology: 150 Years of Birds in New York City , by P. Because, as this book demonstrates so well, it is sometimes important to look back in order to move forward. “Wait!”

New York City 185

New York City New York Birds Breeding 185

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 2, 2016

It’s time for some short book reviews. Two books are part of series I’ve reviewed previously (and you may want to reread those posts for more detailed info), one is a handbook that I’ve been wanting to review for a long time, but thought that a shorter piece would work better than the long ones I always seem to end up doing here.

Pennsylvania 189

Pennsylvania Texas Whales Whaling 189

10,000 Birds

MAY 4, 2017

That sentence really doesn’t begin to describe this very smart and highly readable book. The ‘little green book’ was now over 450 pages long! Photographic credits are given with each photo, which I like better than a listing at the back of the book. Press, 2011). Please–do not read this section only!

South America 185

South America Ecuador Reptiles America 185

10,000 Birds

APRIL 5, 2011

Astounding because she picked up birding before she could speak and surprising because this ability was definitely not inherited from anyone in my family, myself included. There are some really excellent kids birding books. The illustrations are really what makes the book, along with a useful identification guide at the end.

Birds 279

Birds Game South Africa Wildlife 279

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 25, 2021

pounds, it is a hefty book, not something you would want to carry on foot, but rather leave at home or in your car. But first and foremost – it is a beautiful book. Each family is given a double-page spread. Bird-ringers (banders) will find this book priceless, despite already having specialised ringing guides.

Europe 264

Europe Asia Cyprus Turkey 264

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 26, 2021

When was the last time you chose a book by its covers? This book is essentially about those birds that breed on the continent south of the Sahara, a topic few birders are familiar with. He has authored several other books and many articles, largely on natural history.

Congo 264

Congo Africa Madagascar Kenya 264

10,000 Birds

MARCH 30, 2012

So a book about birds by Julie Zickefoose, featuring her writing and art, some of which has been featured in different forms on her blog, is guaranteed to be a hit with me. First of all, the 384-page book is beautiful from hardcover to hardcover, literally. But her writing is not the dry text of a biology book or scientific paper.

Wildlife Rehabilitation 262

Wildlife Rehabilitation Woodpeckers Emotional Hunting 262

10,000 Birds

JUNE 3, 2012

I also know the field guides I use very well, and I know where to find which bird species in the book. I knew nothing about the vast majority of bird families occurring in the region. Heck, I didn’t know that these bird families even existed in the first place, as they have no representative in my neck of the globe.

Indonesia 258

Indonesia Family Asia Groups 258

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 4, 2016

This is a very good thing; it means they publish a lot of books about birds (probably more at this point than U.S. This is a hefty book, 560 pages long and dimensions of 6.3 The book’s organization reflects the authors’ goal of making this a guide accessible to birders of all levels and skill.

Ireland 175

Ireland Birds Falcons Turtles 175

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 2, 2021

It had perhaps 20 or so species per plate, and a rather concise description on the opposite (left) page, but all maps were grouped in the end of the book, making it very impractical to check them and in order to use the checklist, you had to know what to expect and which species are unlikely. The book covers all the world’s birds.

Botswana 264

Botswana Africa Ecuador Birds 264