10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 1, 2015

This is the book you will want to give to everyone in your life who has said ‘I’d like to bird too, but ….(fill Not only is Nate a birding and blogging colleague, but Mike Bergin, 10,000 Birds co-publisher, has written the Foreword and I have been threatened with all sorts of birder-type punishment if I give this book a bad review.

North Carolina 263

North Carolina Birds North America Owls 263

10,000 Birds

JUNE 2, 2015

Producing a book about birds and nesting is a dangerous business. Some people love books like that. I’m happy to say that Laura Erickson and Marie Read have written a book, Into the Nest: Intimate Views of the Courting, Parenting, and Family Lives of Familiar Birds , that is not too cute and that does not anthropomorphize.

Eggs 263

Eggs Family 2006 New York 263

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

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 223

New Jersey Birds Science New York City 223

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 264

Sri Lanka Malaysia Suriname Malawi 264

10,000 Birds

APRIL 7, 2020

2019), and now this book. The progression could be said to echo that of an earlier book about an obsessive nature criminal, The Orchard Thief by Susan Orlean, which started out as an article in The New Yorker.). The book is structured cinematically. wrote a lengthy article in Outside magazine (Jan. Author Joshua Hammer.

Falcons 264

Falcons United Kingdom Zimbabwe Eggs 264

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 246

Family Species 246

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 Birds Research America 279

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 250

Bolivia Birds Brazil Switzerland 250

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 244

Reptiles Madagascar Family New York City 244

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 233

Brunei Asia Birds China 233

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

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 215

North America America Family Falcons 215

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

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 248

Hunters Sri Lanka Asia Solomon Islands 248

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

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 201

New York City Pelicans Penguins New York 201

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 4, 2015

There is a long list of articles and books on how to feed birds in your yard. So, I was happy to see the publication of a book on all aspects of wild bird feeding—history, culture, and economics. It is a serious book with a friendly attitude. There was cleaning, lots of cleaning of feeders and yard. And squirrels.

America 250

America Squirrels Industry Birds 250

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 264

Dissection Birds Europe Eggs 264

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

OCTOBER 6, 2015

I could go on and on, it’s that kind of a book—a comprehensive treatment of a species we respect and adore, based on the most current research, written in a style that, while factual, is from the author’s viewpoint, flavoring facts with a witty, observant personal quality. Scott Weidensaul is a nature writer with roots in journalism.

North America 255

North America Owls America Dominican Republic 255

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 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 189

Mexico America North America Falcons 189

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 203

Ireland Birds Falcons Turtles 203

10,000 Birds

JUNE 6, 2017

As a birder who struggles to hear and identify bird sound, this is the question continually on my mind as I write about this book. And, beyond the book itself, there is an audio component, a web site that allows you to play every spectrogram in the book. Yes, if you are going to use this book, you must read the Introduction!

North America 189

North America America Sparrows Birds 189

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

OCTOBER 12, 2017

The Birder’s Guide is a somewhat large and heavy book, not the kind you would want to carry in your bag (and too big even for a larger pocket). It is the kind of a book to study at home while deciding when and where to travel, which sites to visit and which targets to look for. It is not a site guide, yet it covers all that?

Africa 229

Africa Botswana Nigeria Namibia 229

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

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 259

Indonesia Family Asia Groups 259

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 Birds Ecuador 264

4 The Love Of Animals

AUGUST 25, 2010

I recently got a chance to read a charming new book called The Dog Who Healed a Family: And Other True Animal Stories That Warm the Heart & Touch the Soul. The book features short stories of animals who have touched the lives of people. But this book doesn’t just feature dogs, there are stories of all kinds of animals.

Family 100

Family Dogs Ponies Puppies 100

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 18, 2021

Every now and then you read a book which you believe should be read by everyone on the planet. Nature’s Best Hope by American entomologist and conservationist, Doug Tallamy, is such a book. The book is simply yet persuasively written, filled with scientific and historical evidence to make his case.

North America 264

North America Wildlife Mammals Breeding 264

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

Two books, two authors, two countries bursting with neotropical avian diversity. Since the books share authors and a creation process, I thought I would review them together. There is no reason expertise and talent cannot be shared across field guides when the books are published close together, like these are.

Costa Rica 246

Costa Rica Belize El Salvador Birds 246

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 22, 2020

I was lucky to visit India several times, but as a keen birder I carried along only a bird book, and even upgraded it to a new edition between the trips. I clearly needed a mammal book. Despite depicting 540 species/56 families, it is a lightweight book of 173 pages, easy to pack and carry.

Mammals 251

Mammals Asia Sri Lanka Bhutan 251

10,000 Birds

MAY 17, 2020

That piece of information, along with many others, comes from Kroodsma’a new book, Birdsong for the Curious Naturalist : Your Guide to Listening — and you have to love the “nearly.” And that’s part of the point of the book, and its charm – how much there is still to be discovered in the realm of birdsong. Except he doesn’t!

Virginia 264

Virginia Boston North America 2020 264