10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 7, 2023

I wish I had read this book. Because, let’s face it, when you get off that plane and look at those severe volcanic landscapes and then find yourself face to face with one of the islands’ four mockingbird species, you’re not going to think, “Oh, look, lava and a mockingbird.” Still, I wish I had prepared.

2006 245

2006 Tortoises Sea Lions Porpoises 245

10,000 Birds

APRIL 5, 2022

Schulman [not from the book!]. ” are the big questions at the heart of Vagrancy in Birds by Alexander Lees and James Gilroy, an impressive, fascinating book about what ornithologists and wildlife biologists have found out about avian vagrancy so far and their theories explaining this phenomenon. Don’t worry.

Compassion 258

Compassion Birds Eagles Science 258

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 180

Family Species 180

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 3, 2023

It covers 403 species: 172 nonpasserine species and 231 passerine species in the Species Accounts, 198 species beautifully illustrated by the author in the Plates section. The scarcity of information on the young of some avian species is astounding.

Wildlife Rehabilitation 252

Wildlife Rehabilitation Birds Family Collecting 252

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

You get three or four books in one with Jonathan Meiburg’s A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World’s Smartest Birds of Prey. It’s too complicated, and unnecessary, to detail in a book review; suffice it to say that Meiburg’s treatment of these subjects is riveting.

Guyana 238

Guyana South America Washington DC 238

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 222

Sri Lanka Malaysia Suriname Malawi 222

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 3, 2020

Penguins are cartoons, emoticons, animated films, children’s books (though owls really take first place here), sports teams, a book publisher, and a Batman villain (a rare example of penguin negativity, though Burgess Meredith did bring an endearing attitude to his 1960’s TV portrayal).

Penguins 278

Penguins Georgia Albatross New Zealand 278

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. It encompasses movement and plumage and even smell. How do they know?

North America 278

North America Research Birds America 278

10,000 Birds

JUNE 9, 2021

Last year there was a spate of books specifically about bird “behavior” – though one might well say that every book about birds, from field guides on up, is about behavior in some way or another. It’s the behavior that makes them fascinating to us. Well, purely physical attributes play a part, too: they’re pretty good looking.).

Alaska 203

Alaska Kenya Georgia Russia 203

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 6, 2024

Journeys With Penguins: Tracking the World’s Most Extreme Penguin is a different type of penguin book. Kooyman (co-author with Jim Mastro) spent decades studying Emperor Penguins and can be considered the world’s foremost expert on the species. Kooyman and Jim Mastro The book is divided into two sections.

Penguins 154

Penguins Seals Leopards Mammals 154

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 2, 2024

Bird Day is a lovely, little jewel of a book. Hauber and artist Tony Angell fulfills this goal beautifully and was the factor that motivated me to review this book. The essays also touch on conservation, though less that the amount I would have assumed would be in a book that is part of an “Earth Day” series.

Barn Owls 176

Barn Owls Chicago Penguins New Zealand 176

10,000 Birds

MAY 5, 2021

A fine idea for a nature book is promised by the title and subtitle: Earth’s Wild Music: Celebrating and Defending the Songs of the Natural World. But despite what one might have hoped and expected, the book isn’t about the sounds of nature, not really. Thus the book is a call to arms, and perhaps a necessary one.

Cleveland 254

Cleveland Whaling Whales Alaska 254

10,000 Birds

MAY 2, 2023

Flight Paths is a splendid but risky title for a book about bird migration. It could easily be mistaken for a book about aviation or space navigation or even a flight simulator game if you don’t read the long, adjective-filled subtitle: How a Passionate and Quirky Group of Pioneering Scientists Solved the Mystery of Bird Migration.

Science 185

Science Illinois Investigation 2006 185

10,000 Birds

MARCH 25, 2021

And, some time later, during the final stages of the bird-atlassing work, computer models of Serbian ranges for some 150 bird species were produced for the first time ever: Some bias was created because of the large data set from Belgrade and environs where the majority of active eBirders live. The consequences were amusing.

Europe 264

Europe Denmark Breeding Russia 264

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. Many popular science books have neither.

Science 219

Science Costa Rica Birds Research 219

10,000 Birds

JULY 6, 2021

It provides goals and a definite direction for your birding travels and thoughts; sometimes it even becomes the basis of a book! In 2012, I reviewed The Jewel Hunter , an absorbing narrative in which author Chris Goodie travelled throughout Asia, Africa, and Australasia to observe and photograph every Pitta species in the world.

Costa Rica 264

Costa Rica Brazil Bolivia Ecuador 264

10,000 Birds

APRIL 2, 2024

Osborn, a passionate field biologist who participates to the core of her being three re-introduction projects aimed at saving three very different, endangered species: Peregrine Falcon, Hawaiian Crow (‘Alala)*, and California Condor. My only wish is that the book included photographs. This is the most intense, tragic section.

California Condor 174

California Condor Falcons California Coyotes 174

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 198

North America El Salvador America Nicaragua 198

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 263

2020 Birds North America Sparrows 263

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 210

Science Albatross Research Owls 210

10,000 Birds

JULY 5, 2022

Don’t misunderstand me, it’s not consciously presented this way, but as I read the book, I really did feel that Klem was writing as he talks, putting into text the many presentations he has done over the years. FLAP is the Fatal Light Awareness Program, located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and this is how they raise awareness.

New York City 252

New York City Illinois Science Killing 252

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 215

Dissection Birds Europe Eggs 215

10,000 Birds

JULY 6, 2020

The travels in his most recent book Natural Encounters: Biking, Hiking, and Birding Through the Seasons are more limited — to the eastern part of the United States, mostly Washington, D.C. Beehler’s blog includes lots of photos; the book has few of those but a number of good drawings by John C.

New Hampshire 221

New Hampshire Washington Virginia Montana 221

10,000 Birds

APRIL 7, 2020

The simple answer is monetary gain, there is a global black market for these items, regardless of the species’ vulnerability for extinction. 2019), and now this book. The book is structured cinematically. wrote a lengthy article in Outside magazine (Jan. Author Joshua Hammer. photo credit: Cordula Krämer).

Falcons 205

Falcons United Kingdom Zimbabwe Eggs 205

10,000 Birds

APRIL 6, 2021

His second book on migration is a tale of many birds and many research studies all connected by the theme of migration and by his thoughtful narrative voice. The book is organized into ten chapters, framed by a Prologue and Epilogue focused on Weidensaul’s banding experience in Denali National Park.

Cyprus 249

Cyprus Slaughtered Slaughter Research 249

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 171

Bolivia Birds Brazil Switzerland 171

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

JANUARY 4, 2022

Yes, sure, Rock Pigeons are not a vulnerable species, unless you count the number of times they have been mocked, scorned, and shooed away. They’re apparently not a sensitive species either, because this derision doesn’t seem to bother them at all!

2018 212

2018 New York City Abandon Abandoning 212

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 148

New York City New York Birds Breeding 148

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 228

Cuba Birds 2000 United States 228

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 139

Ohio Adoptable Emotional 2019 139

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 5, 2019

Her lively block prints adorn calendars, note cards, puzzles, and children’s books, very much in the popular tradition of beloved minimalist Charley Harper. It’s a fun book, offering ideas for projects and, most importantly for me, new ways to observe birds and their natural world.

Birds 147

Birds Eggs Laws Oregon 147

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 2, 2023

And I remember what I told him, based on many recent field guide trends: Coming from them, it will be a good book, but it will be nowhere near the user-friendliness of “Birds of Costa Rica” by Garrigues and Dean from 2014. Now I can hear you screaming: but there are over 900 species!

Costa Rica 242

Costa Rica El Salvador Belize Nicaragua 242

10,000 Birds

JUNE 3, 2014

One of the reasons I enjoy about reviewing books is the opportunity to read titles I wouldn’t ordinarily encounter, not because they aren’t good but because they don’t fall easily into a category. Lost Animals: Extinction and the Photographic Record by Errol Fuller is one of these books. more than there really was to see!” (p.

Animal 266

Animal Mammals Hawaii Dolphins 266

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 7, 2014

True, because of higher precipitation, more luxurious vegetation and higher diversity of altitudes and habitats, east Macedonia and Thrace may offer better birding and a longer bird list, but for those, there is a more informative new book, Birdwatching in Northern Greece – a site guide by Steve Mills (2011, 2nd edition).

Greece 217

Greece Macedonia Birds 2014 217

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 195

2006 2014 Connecticut North America 195

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 order is roughly taxonomic, with the priority showing similar species together.

Mexico 160

Mexico America North America Falcons 160