10,000 Birds

AUGUST 3, 2021

There was a time when I thought each bird species had its own individual song. Then I found out that there was this vocalization called a ‘call,’ so I thought each bird species had its own individual song (but just the males) and individual call. © 2021 Barbara Ballentine and Jeremy Hyman & Quarto Publishing.

North America 278

North America Research Birds America 278

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 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 262

2020 Birds North America Sparrows 262

10,000 Birds

JULY 16, 2012

Jake’s favorite before-bedtime book when he was just a bit younger was Owl Babies by Martin Waddell, a picture book I had picked up at a nature center. By the middle of the book, Jake and his younger brother Zach would be chiming in, “I want my mommy,” and when Mama Owl finally return, they would rejoice along with the owlets.

Birds 204

Birds Switzerland Owls Lions 204

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 3, 2015

Navarro’s exceptional drawings illustrate the species accounts. Forty-eight species. Compare, for example, the species account illustration of the Cuban Trogon with the photo that opens up the introductory chapter. The luxury of space means that each species can be shown from various angles and in distinctive poses.

Cuba 223

Cuba Birds 2000 United States 223

10,000 Birds

MAY 12, 2014

Birding being a visual and an auditory pursuit, it’s not surprising that publishers have taken advantage of the media of its day to produce bird books accompanied by CDs or DVDs. QR stands for Quick Response (the things I learn when I write a book review!). The process itself was easier to use than playing a DVD while reading a book.

2006 191

2006 2014 Connecticut North America 191

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 215

Sri Lanka Malaysia Suriname Malawi 215

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 211

Science Birds Costa Rica Research 211

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 192

North America El Salvador America Nicaragua 192

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. This volume is no exception.

North America 177

North America America Family Falcons 177

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?”. A lot of attention is given to differentiating amongst similar looking species.

El Salvador 229

El Salvador America Costa Rica Honduras 229

10,000 Birds

MAY 5, 2015

Birding by Impression is a conscious, deliberate method of identifying and recognizing birds based on the study and evaluation of “distinctive structural features and behavioral movements” and comparison with nearby and similar species. The result is a different kind of book. So say Kevin T.

New Jersey 168

New Jersey Birds Science New York City 168

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 188

Trinidad South America Birds 2011 188

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. Did I dare dip my toe into this catalog of tantalizing species?

Brunei 172

Brunei Asia Birds China 172

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 174

Family Species 174

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 6, 2012

Or, one of the 145 species of Glass frogs living in the Cental and South American rainforests, I could look through the transparent skin on their undersides and see their internal organs. This is what happens when you read a book like Frogs and Toads of the World , by Chris Mattison. It turns out there is no scientific difference!

Reptiles 181

Reptiles Madagascar Family New York City 181

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 191

Albatross Campaign Protection Birds 191

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. And, to give his dream year a little more oomph, he created a grand once-in-a-lifetime goal: to track down and see every pitta species in the world in one year. This is the birding adventure book supreme. And mosquitos. And leeches.

Hunters 186

Hunters Sri Lanka Asia Solomon Islands 186

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. that’s three birds).

Science 203

Science Albatross Owls Research 203

10,000 Birds

MARCH 3, 2020

” The book in question is Birds of Bolivia: Field Guide , edited and written by Sebastian K. That’s pretty amazing–Bolivia has more bird species than India! The source of this ranking, BirdLife International, lists Bolivia as currently having 1,439 bird species, including 18 breeding endemics. ″ x 9.5″x

Bolivia 167

Bolivia Birds Brazil Switzerland 167

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 26, 2021

When was the last time you chose a book by its covers? And apart from local people, primate researchers sometimes spot it, but it is a species seen by fewer than ten living birders. And apart from local people, primate researchers sometimes spot it, but it is a species seen by fewer than ten living birders.

Congo 264

Congo Africa Madagascar Kenya 264

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. Insects and a host of other invertebrate life have evolved with these plant species, and thus depend on them.

North America 260

North America Wildlife Mammals Breeding 260

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 208

Dissection Birds Europe Eggs 208

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. Weighing 2.88 So if it is not a standard field guide, what is it? And the result?

Europe 230

Europe Asia Cyprus Turkey 230

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). That’s a lot of visual information!

Mexico 154

Mexico America North America Falcons 154

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. You see, the species in my field guides, as in the vast majority of field guides everywhere, are in taxonomic order. I knew nothing about the vast majority of bird families occurring in the region.

Indonesia 228

Indonesia Family Asia Groups 228

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 2, 2021

But when I felt familiar with perhaps half of the species around my town, I started to feel that my field guide is now too bulky and too hefty to carry, and that was the era before smartphones and phone apps. The book covers all the world’s birds. The book ends with English and scientific name indexes.

Botswana 235

Botswana Africa Birds Ecuador 235

10,000 Birds

APRIL 5, 2011

By age 2 she could identify over 10 species of birds in our Johannesburg, South Africa, yard by call alone. 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.

Birds 276

Birds Game South Africa Wildlife 276

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 3, 2013

Written in the tradition of the classic Hawks in Flight , but very much a product of the experiences of its birder authors, this is a groundbreaking book that offers a new way of identifying migratory birds at sea to all of us who observe the waters of eastern North America with expectation and excitement. The book is fairly large (10.4

Ducks 224

Ducks Groups North America North Dakota 224

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 157

Pennsylvania Texas Whaling Whales 157

10,000 Birds

JUNE 24, 2020

Birding in Trinidad and Tobago has been likened to an introductory chapter in the book of birding in the Neotropics. While the 480-odd species recorded within T&T may outstrip our fellow Caribbean islands by leaps and bounds, it pales in comparison to the massive lists of mainland South and Central America. And for good reason.

Trinidad 251

Trinidad Family America Species 251

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 27, 2021

The islands and surrounding islets of Trinidad and Tobago boast an astounding list of almost 500 species of birds. For such a small place, birders are often spoiled for choice, there seems to be a representative of almost every neotropical family making their presence felt in some corner of habitat. Green Honeycreepers.

Trinidad 255

Trinidad Groups Family Species 255

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 145

New York City New York Birds Breeding 145

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. As she has done for many years and with more than twenty species, she adopted a baby bird, a blue jay.

Ohio 135

Ohio Adoptable Emotional 2019 135

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. An associated issue is that the Belize and Costa Rica guides share many of the same descriptions of species, written by Howell. Why are these issues?

Costa Rica 202

Costa Rica Belize El Salvador Birds 202

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 6, 2018

Covering 1,261 species with data and taxonomy current up to August 2017, the field guide is an exciting achievement. And, then there are the more familiar birds–Wood-warblers, sandpipers, hawks–some species migrants, some species with a wide range. Can you guess which of the species cited above are endemic?

America 211

America El Salvador Costa Rica Honduras 211

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. Species accounts for all 2,792 bird species.

Africa 165

Africa Botswana Nigeria Namibia 165