Tag Archives: bird watching

Best Bird Book Of the Year So Far: What The Robin Knows by Jon Young

Uncategorized, , , , , , , ,

There was a dead rabbit in the middle of the road today. I suspected such a thing, nearby, just out of sight, and edible, because I noticed some crows taking off whenever a car went by. Then, when I went over, I could see the rabbit that they were feasting on between drive-bys.

I had been looking for rabbits lately, because of this: the cat had switched to hanging out by the upstairs window, the better to observe the just arriving Juncos (snow birds, it is fall). She had previously spent most of her time observing rabbits from the lower, ground level windows, until just the other day when, rather suddenly, all the rabbits disappeared. Until then, there was always a rabbit or two. In fact, the entire city had been recently invaded by rabbits, according to several reports, and now they seemed to be disappearing quickly. This, I assume, means that the coyotes finally got busy. Or, an epidemic of tularemia. Either way, something happened.

I once had a cat that was partly outdoors on Cape Cod. Well, the cat was indoors, but would escape. We’d go looking for it and always find it in a bush (a different bush every time) surrounded by no rabbits. All the other bushes would have rabbits nearby. But not the one with the cat in it. (Until, again, the coyotes showed up and ruined the rabbit-test method of finding the cat!)

Have you seen the film Dead Birds? See it if you can. This is a very important ethnographic film, of the old style, by Gardner, of a place in Highland New Guinea. Part of the story actually has to do with live birds, not dead ones, and how they are used by sentries at the outskirts if the village lands, during times of conflict, to detect the arrival of enemy combatants. You watch the birds, and you are watching the hidden predators.

Or you can listen to them. Or you can listen to the monkeys. Anything with an alarm call. I could engage you with story after story, if you and I both had the time, of finding very interesting and elusive critters out in the bush, mainly in Africa, by following up on the predator avoidance behavior of primates or birds.

And, this brings us to what I think is one of the best bird books ever.

What the Robin Knows: How Birds Reveal the Secrets of the Natural World by Jon Young is an exploration of nature based on this premise: the robin knows everything about its environment, and this information is regularly conveyed via the bird’s call, or its behavior. By observing that behavior or understanding the robin’s vocalizations, you can poach that information and also know a lot about the immediate environment, which may be your own back yard, the area near your camping site, the wooded gully the enemy may approach you by, or a nearby park.

And, of course, it isn’t just the robin, it is all the animals including birds, insects, and everything else. But Young is talking about birds, and it is certainly true that in most or possibly all habitats, it is the birds that, owing to their diurnal and highly visible and sound oriented nature, are telling you all this information about your mutual surroundings as well as about the bird itself.

To me, birding (and nature watching in general) is not so much about lengthening one’s list (though that is always fun) but, rather, about observing and understanding behavior. Young explores this, teaches a great deal about it, and places this mode of observation in the context of countless stories, or potential stories, about the world you are sharing with the birds you are watching.

This is a four or five dimensional look at a multidimensional world. Lucky for us humans, as primates, we share visual and audio modalities, and mostly ignore odor, and we have overlapping ranges in those modalities (to varying degrees). But birds fly (most of them, anyway) and are small and fast and there are many of them. In many places we live, we are the only diurnal visually-oriented non-bird. Indeed, while I’m sure my cat communes with the rabbits at a level I can’t possibly understand, I’m pretty sure I get the birds in ways she could not possibly get her paws around. (Which is why we don’t let her out of the house. She would prefer to eat them, rather than appreciate them!)

From the publisher, about the author:

Growing up near the Pine Barrens in New Jersey, Jon Young studied as a tracker and naturalist. For three decades, he has taught and mentored children and adults, combining Native skills practiced worldwide with the tools of modern field ecology, emphasizing the nearly lost art of understanding bird and animal language. The founder of OWLink Media, 8 Shields Institute, and the Shikari Tracking Guild, he consults with programs around the world. Jon has written or produced numerous books, audio, and multimedia projects. His website is www.birdlanguage.com. Married with six children, he lives in the woods above Santa Cruz, California.

Lots of science in this book, well documented and referenced. Simple black and white but very engaging graphics. So far my favorite bird book of the year.

The Birdman of Lauderdale

Uncategorized, , , , ,

The Birdman of Lauderdale is a collection of essays by birdman Clay Christensen.

Clay writes the popular “Birdman of Lauderdale” column for the Saint Paul Park Bugle, and leads birdwatching field trips in the Twin Cities area.

This is a collection of updated and edited essays from that publication, most about bird watching, or the birds themselves. Is it OK to hate cowbirds? What is it like to witness the takeoff of a mob of cranes? How do birdwatchers find birds anyway? What is bird banding all about? These and other burning questions are addressed in engagingly written snippets.

I really enjoyed this book. If you are a bird watcher, or thinking about becoming a bird watcher, you will enjoy this book. Or, maybe you are looking for the perfect gift for someone who is into birds, especially in the upper midwest or plains.

Waterfowl of North America, Europe, and Asia: Beautiful new book

Uncategorized, , , , , , ,

There are three kinds of books that count as animal (usually bird) guides.

1) A pocket field guide of the critters of a reasonably circumscribed geographical area, like the Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Eastern and Central North America. This is a small book that can fit in a big pocket, and a classic guide like this one is something you’ll want to have with you while bird watching in the eastern or central US.

2) A big book, not suitable for pockets, of the critters of a reasonably circumscribed geographical area. A great example of this is The Crossley ID Guide: Eastern Birds . It covers the same geographical area as the aforementioned Peterson guide, but the book’s authors and publishers sacrifice portability for other characteristics like richness of detail and more book real estate for many more images.

3) A book, larger or smaller, that focuses on a specific geographical area but covers most of the visible wildlife including, often, plants, and maybe including additional information for the traveller. A recent example of this is the just published Wildlife of the Galapagos.

4) A book that covers a large taxonomic group, but over a vast geographical area. Carnivores of the World is an example of this. It covers all of the non-aquatic carnivores, everywhere on the planet. This particular book is a pocket field guide, but in a way that is kind of funny because you’d have be on quite a trip to need a pocket guide for the Earth for a given type of animal. I quickly add, however, that while it might seem a bit silly, the Carnivores of the World is actually a fantastic book.

barrowsgoldeneye640hThe book, Waterfowl of North America, Europe, and Asia: An Identification Guide, by Sébastien Reeber, overlaps with some of these categories. The title could be rewritten to say “Temperate and Subtropical Waterfowl of the Northern Hemisphere,” though that would be a bit misleading because a large percentage of these birds migrate long distances, so really, it is more like “Waterfowl of the world except the ones that stay in the tropics or otherwise don’t migrate north of the tropics,” but that would be a silly title.

Also, Waterfowl of North America, Europe, and Asia: An Identification Guide is large format. The up and down and back and forth dimensions are not as large as Crossley’s bird guides, but it is way bigger than a field guide, and thick … 656 pages. The plates start on page 32 and the detailed text and photograph rich species accounts run from pages 177 to 616, to give you an idea of the balance and expansiveness found in this volume.

This book is organized in a unique way. There are two main parts. First, 72 plates show peterson-style drawings of all of the birds that are covered, with the drawings arranged on the right side, with basic ID information, range maps, and references to other parts of the book on the left side. This allows the user to find a particular bird fairly quickly. Importantly, the pictures cover both sex and age variations.

The second part of the book significantly expands on the plates, and is cross referenced by plate number, with extensive text and multiple photographs to add very rich detail.

So, when it comes to your preference for drawings vs. photographs, you can have your cake and eat it too. Also, when it comes to your need for a basic field guide vs. a more in depth discussion, you can have your cake and eat it too there as well.

easternspot-billedduck640hAside from these two main sections there are sections on how to use the book, basics of taconomy and systematics, the physical anatomy of birds and how that relates to identification, important information on moulting and plumage variation as well as age and sex, which as you probably know are key in identifying waterfowl because this varies so much. There is an extensive section on hybrids, which, again, is a big deal with many waterfowl, and a very large number of hybrids are addressed in the book. (There is a separate hybrid index.)

The book is extremely well produced and presented. I love this book.

Since Waterfowl of North America, Europe, and Asia: An Identification Guide is brand new, if you’ve got a birder friend or relative with a birthday coming up soon, this is the perfect gift. Meanwhile, migrations are underway. You need this book now.

Wildlife Of The Galapagos: Updated Field Guide (Review)

Uncategorized, , , , , , , ,

Wildlife of the Galápagos: Second Edition (Princeton Pocket Guides), by Julian Fitter, Daniel Fitter, and David Hosking is both a field guide and a travel guide, focusing on the Galapagos Islands. It includes basic information about each island and each town or tourist destination, and a comprehensive guide to how to visit, what to bring and not bring, and otherwise plan your trip to these amazing evolution-drenched islands.

The wildlife that is covered includes birds, other land vertebrates including the famous tortoises and lizards, offshore mammals, fish, insects, and plants. There is even a short section on the different geological features, which are not technically wildlife, rounding off the guide as the only book you really need to bring. Oh, and there is also an overview of the Islands’s history.

Over 400 species are covered with 650 illustrations including maps and drawings. The wildlife (and geological features) are represented mainly as photographs. It is a pocket size pocked guide similar to your average portable bird book.

The authors are experienced guides and have been involved with Galapagos conservation and tourism for years.

The first edition of this book was widely used. The second edition has added fish, Spanish names, more information about history, climate, geology, and conservation, and of course, updated information on visitor sites.

You can’t go to the Galapagos without this book. You can, however, get this book and not go to the galapagos, and pretend you are going! (Or, get inspired, and start saving up now!)

Feeding Wild Birds

Uncategorized, , , , , , ,

When the Texas A&M University Press asked me to consider reviewing Feeding Wild Birds in America: Culture, Commerce, and Conservation by Paul Baicich, Margaret Barker, and Carrol Henderson, I had mixed feelings.

Was this just another backyard bird feeding guide? That would be nice, but not too exciting. After all, feeding birds is just a matter of getting a bird feeder and keeping it full, right? Was it an indictment of what some might consider a bad practice, because it brings birds in close contact with killer windows and cats, and causes them to become dependent on fickle human providers? Was it yet another guide to help bird lovers in their never ending battle with squirrels and other feeder-exploiting non-birds?

But, I figured, what the heck, I’ll have a look. And I’m glad I did. This is a great book because it is full of stuff you would have never thought important or interesting, but that is, in fact, important and interesting.

Americans have been feeding birds on a variable but more or less regular basis for well over a century. Human feeders have become part of the ecology of birds, and the practice has probably figured into the redistribution of a number of species, some invasive, some not. Bird conservation and birding, and generally, interest in birds, has been significantly enhanced by the practice of “bringing the birds to the people,” which is usually the reason to do this. The annual backyard bird count, which plays an important role in tracking conservation and zoological status of birds, is an extension of backyard bird feeding.

_____________
See also: Books on birds and nature.
_____________

Just as importantly, and really, one of the main reasons to read this book, is that the practice of feeding birds, supplying feed, designing feeders (and baths and other things) is an historically rich, complex, nuanced, and fascinating endeavor. Understanding the history of feeding birds is a little like collecting stamps. You can’t avoid myriad connections with history, in this case, world political history, history of American industry, game hunting, conservation, and, the environmental movement.

The history starts in the nineteenth century, when regular feeding of birds became a thing. By the early 20th century, books on the topic, and a commercial and do-it-yourself industry, formed around the problem of delivering seed. Over time, various seeds and other feed products were invented, and the same industry that feeds our pets and farm animals got involved in producing bird feed. Before World War II, the practice and the associated industries were established, if not yet fully mature.

Things got tough during the depression and World War II, because of limited resources (see especially the chapter on “Hemp, the Devil’s Birdseed”).

Somewhere in there, the practice of feeding game birds developed. Bird baths were invented and deployed. Suet was introduced. Windows and cats increasingly became problems, and increasingly, solutions developed (partly).

The authors investigate the spread of various species, including invasive species, with bird feeding. Of particular interest is the spread and distribution of the Cooper’s Hawk, which in some areas specializes in hanging around the feeder-equipped backyard where it is easy to find prey. (This hawk specializes in catching birds in close quarters.)

During the 50s, 60s, and 70s, the practice involved a lot of experimentation, including how to address squirrels, and a further diversification of feed types and types of birds attracted, and the development of more companies making more products. By the end of the 20th century, the practice was fully institutionalized, and most of the current practices and products were developed, from seed to suit to hummingbird juice.

________
See also: How do birds survive the winter?
________

If you are a feeder of birds, this book will help you be a better feeder of birds. More importantly, it give you something else. Both bird watching and bird feeding (and lots of other things people do) are pleasurable, and people get hooked on these activities, their leisure time enriched. But these are also activities that are potential touchstones to other, vast areas of knowledge. Just as birders could, in my opinion, have an even better time birding if they knew more about the ecology and evolution of birds, bird feeders can appreciate this activity a great deal more knowing about the history. And this history is not dry, or a hard slog of any sort. The book is engaging, compelling, and just plain cool.

I strongly recommend Feeding Wild Birds in America: Culture, Commerce, and Conservation for your avian culinary edification.

In Search of the Elusive Pittas: The Jewel Hunter

Uncategorized, , ,

The Jewel Hunter by Chris Goodie is the story, generally chronological, of one man’s quest to observe, in nature, every known species of a rare and typically elusive bird: the Pittas. Oh, and all in one year. For a birder, this is the rough equivalent of buying some impossible to pay for sports car as a symptom of midlife crisis. It required being bitten by leeches and scared by snakes.

The Pittidae is a family of songbirds distributed in the Old World, mainly in Asia and Australia, but with a few species in Africa.

They tend to live in rain forests or at least, denser woodlands and scrub country or swamps or places like that. These are the habitats of legends because so many humans see them as “impenetrable” (having lived in one such habitat for some time I can tell you that they only seem that way!). Nonetheless, there is a rule about animals in rain forests. It is very easy to find them. As long as before you set out to do so, you know exactly where they are in advance, and how to get there. This is the sort of thing that makes Gooddie’s adventure book a bit of a nail biter.

This book is funny, entertaining, engaging, and if you are a true bird watcher or now, you’ll enjoy it.

I’ve often recommended that the true birder read well done and authoritative studies or compendia treating bird families (or some other taxonomic group). I would count The Jewel Hunter as an example of that even thought it is written as an entertaining adventure story (that could be made into a movie). By the time you’re done with it you’ll know all about this family of birds and a lot of other stuff. There are plenty of maps, color photographs, data, and so on.

Donna reviews it here as well.

The Ultimate Holiday Gift Guide to Birding Books

Uncategorized, , , ,

This is a summary of several of the better books I’ve had the opportunity to review here, organized in general categories. This is written from a North American perspective since most of my readers are North American (though many of you live to the west of the “Eastern Region” … but you probably know that). So, when not specified, a book with a regional focus is likely to be for that area, and the “Outside the US” section is labeled thusly.

Everybody needs a basic field guide. If you need more than one field guide because you are a family of birders, or because you like to keep one in the car and one by the feeder, than make your second (and third?) guides different from your first, because there will be plenty of times you will want to look something up in more than one place. A field guide is a good starting point, but the “How to be a birder” section includes books that you will be very glad you read once you read them, and if you are going to pick one “how to” book for yourself or as a gift, make it the Kaufman Field Guide to Advanced Birding. If you know a young person getting interested in birding, the National Geographic Birding Essentials is essential, and if they are in the Eastern US, the Young Birder’s Guide is perfect.

I’ve not covered bird song here, other than the one, rather spectacular iBook.

Field and Identification Guides

How to be a birder

Categorial Guides

Regional Bird Guides Outside the US

Academic or Topically General Books About Birds

Bird Song (and more)

  • Music of the Birds Volume 1 is an experimental book, in iAuthored iBook format, focusing on a handful of selected species in Eastern North America.

Children’s Books

Also, don’t forget to read ALL of my posts at 10,000 birds! There’s some other good posts there too.

National Geo's Birding Essentials

Uncategorized, , , ,

Are you interested in birding but don’t really know much about it? Did you just put a feeder outside and noticed that birds are interesting, or did you finally get around to stopping at that wildlife refuge you drive by every week on the way to the casino and realize that walking down to the swamp to look at birds and stuff is both better exercise and cheaper than playing slot machines for nine hours straight? Or have you been birding in a casual way for a while, using your Uncle Ned’s old binoculars and a tattered and torn Peterson you found on the sale table at the library, and want to find out which aspects of birding you are missing out on? Filling in the blank spots in your knowledge of birding is easy given how willing birders and writers about birding are to tell everybody else about birding, and it is probably even easier to do with a book like “National Geographic Birding Essentials.”

(Full disclosure, I write for National Geographic’s Science Blogs, sure, but really, I have nothing to do with this book. I didn’t even get it as review copy, someone gave it to me for Christmas last year.)

As you know, in the beginning of almost every bird guide is a chapter (or two) on how to do the whole birding thing, some more extensive and some less extensive. The most extensive and useful for the novice that I know of is the front matter in The Young Birder’s Guide, which I highly recommend for middle school or so aged potential birders. Well, Birding Essentials is like that first chapter but in the form of a whole book. Here’s what you need to do to see if you should get a copy of this book and spend a few hours with it. Look at the following list of topics and see if you feel like you know enough about most of them, or not:

<li>Binoculars, how to chose one and how to use them.</li>

<li>Field guide basics, how to use them, etc.</li>

<li>Understanding status and distribution of a bird species</li>

<li>Details and terminology of migration, nesting, and other patterns of movement and migration

Parts of the bird. Here’s a short list of parts. If you don’t know them, you don’t really know the parts: 

<li>
  • lores
  • eye line
  • supercilium
  • lesser and greater coverts
  • tertials
<li>Colors and patterns.  Bird color terms are atypical.</li>

<li>Methods of identification using field marks</li>

<li>Variation in bird features (sexual dimorphism included)</li>

There’s more, including strategies for approaching the field adventure that is birding, and dealing with rare variants, and so on.

Excellent birdy bedside reading, but mainly for the novice birder. If you work with bird watching in a science classroom, this is probably a good volume to have handy; tell your librarian to get it.

Create a Wildlife Conservation Stamp for Habitat Acquisition and the Conservation of Wildlife.

Uncategorized, , ,

The Bird Bloggers, led by Corey Finger at 10,000 birds, where I blog monthly, are asking you to sign this petition and pass it on to others:

We propose a Wildlife Conservation Stamp, comparable to the well-known Duck Stamp, to support the acquisition of habitat and the conservation of all wildlife in the National Wildlife Refuge system with an emphasis on non-game species. A Wildlife Conservation Stamp would allow birders, photographers, hikers, and other people who enjoy wildlife in a non-consumptive way to financially show their support of the National Wildlife Refuge system.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN

Bird watchers are numerous. Duck hunters are required to buy duck stamps before they hunt ducks, but lots of people, including birders and such, buy the stamps because they are pretty and they support habitat conservation. But more birds and conservation oriented people would buy something like a duck stamp but not a duck stamp if it was offered, thus more funds for conservation.

I imagine that the art on a Wildlife conservation Stamp would also be interesting. There would be loons. Trees. Frogs. Other non-duck things. Break the hegemony of the duck! So if you are a wildlife artist you should really want this.

Birds of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives

Uncategorized, , , ,

Let’s look at Birds of India: Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives (Second Edition) (Princeton Field Guides):

The best field guide to the birds of the Indian subcontinent is now even better. Thoroughly revised, with 73 new plates and many others updated or repainted, the second edition of Birds of India now features all maps and text opposite the plates for quicker and easier reference. Newly identified species have been added, the text has been extensively revised, and all the maps are new. Comprehensive and definitive, this is the indispensable guide for anyone birding in this part of the world.

Of all the different regional bird guides that I’ve looked at over the last several months, including those I’ve got on my desk waiting for my attention, two are thicker than all the others, Birds of India: Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives, and Birds of Melanesia: Bismarcks, Solomons, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia. “What does that mean?” you may ask. “What does thicker have to do with anything?”

One word: Plastics. No, wait, I mean: Speciosity. Melanesia and India are big, the latter bigger, and also, it isn’t really just India, it is South Asia including all those other countries mentioned in the title. Big gives you more species. But beyond that, these regions have a lot of species for other reasons. Many reasons have been proposed but two come to mind right now: 1) Diversity in terrain, and 2) being at the end of huge regions where species may get crammed into you like pebbles in a toddler’s pocket.

Birds of India covers 1,375 species with 226 color plates shoeing each of then and numerous color morphs and varieties. The illustrations are high quality and the info is laid out in old style Peterson with maps and descriptions across from the plates.

There are nine species of eagles in this region. Countless owls. Numerous frogmouths. You will obviously want this book (or this edition if you’ve got the older edition in hand) if you are going to the region or live in South Asia, but even if you don’t, but are big on birds, this is a nice book to have on your shelf for during your own surveying of diversity. For people living in certain temperate regions, I’ve recommended getting the corresponding tropical region’s books (one or two anyway) so you can visit, virtually, the sister species of the brilliant rainforest birds that come to your back yard, like the Tanagers, but even if you don’t live in the Old World you may consider this volume as the representative of the part of the world you don’t live in.

<ul>
  • Other bird book reviews are here.
    • <li><a href="http://10000birds.com/author/greg">My posts at 10,000 Birds are here. </a></li>

<li><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/category/birds/">Other posts on birds are here.</a></li></ul>

    New Bird Book: Birds of North America and Greenland

    Uncategorized, , , , , ,

    Face it. Half the time … most of the time, really … you use your Peterson (or some other favorite “field guide”) as a checklist. You see a bird and you pretty much know in your head what it is, but you need to look it up to see what the three or four similar ducks or woodpeckers or whatever are in your area in order to be sure that it is a Common Merganser or a Red Headed Woodpecker or whatever. All you need is a basic picture (drawing preferred for this sort of thing) the names of the birds and basic range maps.
    Continue reading New Bird Book: Birds of North America and Greenland →

    The Atlas of Birds: Diversity, Behavior, and Conservation

    Uncategorized, , , , , , ,

    i-1e1b1a6fb17838b12c2bd64c0798e0f0-atlas_of_birds_mke_unwin.jpgHow are birds related to dinosaurs, crocodiles, and pterosaurs? Where do birds live, and not live? How many bird species are there, and how many actual birds, and how does this vary across the glob? What about endemics?; Where ate the most local species found? Mike Unwin’s The Atlas of Birds: Diversity, Behavior, and Conservation covers this and more in a richly illustrated detailed global survey of Aves.
    Continue reading The Atlas of Birds: Diversity, Behavior, and Conservation →