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 246

2006 Tortoises Sea Lions Porpoises 246

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

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

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 253

Wildlife Rehabilitation Family Birds Collecting 253

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

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

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

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 204

Alaska Kenya Georgia Russia 204

10,000 Birds

MAY 6, 2014

A good state bird guide needs to offer details about a bird’s look, sound, behavior and habitat in language that is specific enough to differentiate the bird from similar-looking species, but nonscientific enough not to intimidate novice birders. Species are organized in American Ornithologists’ Union taxonomic order.

New Jersey 240

New Jersey Birds 2014 Tail Banding 240

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 220

Science Birds Costa Rica Research 220

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

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

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 223

Sri Lanka Malaysia Suriname Malawi 223

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 7, 2023

This added layer elevates Birding Under the Influence: Cycling Across America in Search of Birds and Recovery from a book of fun birding and travel adventures to a more complex memoir about the ways in which birding spurs self-reflection, motivates life change, feeds a need for wonder, and creates community. This is a smartly written book.

Los Angeles 211

Los Angeles Massachusetts Birds New York City 211

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 231

El Salvador America Costa Rica Honduras 231

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

JANUARY 5, 2016

And so, I turn to Better Birding: Tips, Tools & Concepts for the Field , the new book by George L. This is a very different book from what I expected, less of a handbook and more of a comprehensive identification text on 24 groups of birds, presented in words and photographs. It is an intriguing choice of species.

Birds 190

Birds Groups 2015 North America 190

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 169

New Jersey Birds Science New York City 169

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 193

Trinidad South America Birds 2011 193

10,000 Birds

JULY 2, 2024

This paragraph is taken from British Birds , a book written by W.H.Hudson, novelist, celebrated nature writer and one of the founders of the Royal Society for the Protection Birds. Perhaps surprisingly, all the major check lists agreed that the latter was a proper species, despite the reservations of many field observers.

Species 177

Species Europe Game illegal 177

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

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 211

Science Albatross Research Owls 211

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

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 174

Brunei Asia Birds China 174

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

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

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 181

Family Species 181

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 216

Dissection Birds Europe Eggs 216

10,000 Birds

JULY 7, 2015

Every bird book seems to be about the west coast this month!) I was not planning to do either, but I was going to Catalina Island with my daughter, Sarah, and her boyfriend, Todd, and the hour-long boat ride there and back sounded like an excellent opportunity to try this book out in the field. This is a small book, 56 pages long.

Dolphins 162

Dolphins Porpoises Whales Whaling 162

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 161

Mexico America North America Falcons 161

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 27, 2020

Because this book is nothing short of spectacular. Birders normally care about species and make species lists, how do families fit into those? Adding more species brings a lot of excitement, as long as you bird your own country or a continent. 11,000 species require lots of money and a good portion of one’s life.

Family 292

Family Birds South America Breeding 292

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 213

2018 New York City Abandoning Abandon 213

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 155

Penguins Seals Leopards Mammals 155

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 164

Pennsylvania Texas Whales Whaling 164

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 263

North America Wildlife Mammals Breeding 263

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 2, 2018

He brings to this book an academic background in biology and horticulture and, more importantly, decades of experience developing strategies for the best backyard bird feeding practices. The book is focused on suburban living, with little attention given to the unique challenges of urban bird feeding.

New York City 171

New York City Birds Squirrels Woodpeckers 171

10,000 Birds

JULY 19, 2021

His latest book is The Real James Bond , available as a hardcover, an eBook and an audiobook. In 2021, the American Ornithological Society announced that it has now classified the Bahama Nuthatch as a distinct species, Sitta insularis. One is a species altogether new to science — a nuthatch discovered on Grand Bahama Island.”

Bahamas 343

Bahamas Philadelphia 2004 United States 343