This is a classic Peterson/Petrides style guide, with the usual front matter about bird id, geography, habitats, etc. Species draswings are on the left leaf while descriptions and range maps on the left. The drawings do not have Peterson Pointer lines, but there are a lot of drawings to clarify regional versions and life history stages. In fact, the attention to regional variation is a notable and outstanding feature of this file guide.

There is also an extensive bibliography with over 600 references. The book is medium format, not pocket but not huge, and just shy of 600 pages long. Also, last time I clicked through it was on sale. Know somebody going to Central America over winter break? Get this for them as their holiday gift!

Like the Princeton guides tend to be, this is a very nice book, well written, well constructed, and likely to become the standard for that region for the foreseeable future.

To really understand the meaning of this, please read my brand new essay at 10,000 birds, here:

If Birds are Dinosaurs than I’m a Monkey’s Uncle

… which is part of the Come At Me series of fantastic posts on that site.

I love the way the parrot responds to Alexa’s response by first making bleepy-bloopy techie noises, then imitating the sound of all the manual light switches being thrown.

But wait, there’s more. This parrot made an Alexa shopping list:

This is an excellent bird book that all Australian birders simply need to have. Holiday season is just around the corner. Get one of these for your favoriate Australian!

This is not exactly a pocket guide. It is more of a car guide, and you better have a big glove box. The 6.8 x 9.7 inch format is hefty, and there are over 550 pages of high quality thickish paper.

There are some 30 pages of excellent front matter giving all the usual contextual information any bird guide gives. Then, the species are laid out taxonomically with color coded bleeds grouping major taxa. Each spread of pages has information on the left and pictures, which are excellent Peterson style drawings, on the right.

The typical spread has four species, but many have three. A species will be represented by several drawings showing the different morphs (by age status and sex, typically) as well as other features, such as what a wing looks like in flight, or a close up of a tail’s markings, etc. The authors were very thoughtful in this aspect of the layout. The book is designed to help you identify the bird. Information needed to address subspecies or hybrids, etc. is provided. There are range maps for everything on the same page layout.

There is a checklist, glossary, and index.

The Australian Bird Guide has spread the 900 birds across 4,000 images divied up on 249 plates (with, as mentioned, three or four bird species per plate).

A very notable feature of The Australian Bird Guide is what appears to be a very extensive coverage of the elusive sea birds in the region. Distribution and status of the bird species is very up to date as well.

About the authors:

Peter Menkhorst is a principal scientist with the Victorian government and has forty years’ experience in ecological research and the survey and management of Australian mammals and birds. He is the author of A Field Guide to the Mammals of Australia. Danny Rogers is an ornithologist specializing in shorebird ecology and patterns of feather molt in birds, and works for the Victorian government environment department. Rohan Clarke is a lecturer in vertebrate ecology at the School of Biological Sciences, Monash University. Jeff Davies is a Melbourne-based artist who specializes in portraits of Australian birds and their environments. Peter Marsack is an award-winning wildlife artist based in Canberra. Kim Franklin is a freelance artist and illustrator who has exhibited worldwide and is based in Adelaide.

In this case, the giant insects are praying mantis, and the dinosaurs are hummingbirds and other small birds. In some cases, maybe most cases, this involves small birds like hummingbirds being taken at nectar sites (natural or otherwise) by introduced species of praying mantis in the US.

Here’s the info from the recently published paper:

Bird Predation By Praying Mantises: A Global Perspective, by Martin Nyffeler, Michael R. Maxwell, and J. V. Remsen, Jr.

ABSTRACT
We review 147 incidents of the capture of small birds by mantids (order Mantodea, family Mantidae). This has been documented in 13 different countries, on all continents except Antarctica. We found records of predation on birds by 12 mantid species (in the genera Coptopteryx, Hierodula, Mantis, Miomantis, Polyspilota, Sphodromantis, Stagmatoptera, Stagmomantis, and Tenodera). Small birds in the orders Apodiformes and Passeriformes, representing 24 identified species from 14 families (Acanthizidae, Acrocephalidae, Certhiidae, Estrildidae, Maluridae, Meliphagidae, Muscicapidae, Nectariniidae, Parulidae, Phylloscopidae, Scotocercidae, Trochilidae, Tyrannidae, and Vireonidae), were found as prey. Most reports (>70% of observed incidents) are from the USA, where mantids have often been seen capturing hummingbirds attracted to food sources in gardens, i.e., hummingbird feeders or hummingbird-pollinated plants. The Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) was the species most frequently reported to be captured by mantids. Captures were reported also from Canada, Central America, and South America. In Africa, Asia, Australia, and Europe, we found 29 records of small passerine birds captured by mantids. Of the birds captured, 78% were killed and eaten by the mantids, 2% succeeded in escaping on their own, and 18% were freed by humans. In North America, native and non-native mantids were engaged in bird predation. Our compilation suggests that praying mantises frequently prey on hummingbirds in gardens in North America; therefore, we suggest caution in use of large-sized mantids, particularly non-native mantids, in gardens for insect pest control.

This is the first and only field-ready photographic bird guide that covers every species in Europe. There are 2,200 photos covering 860 species. The West Asian and North African coverage is of all of the species there that have occurred in Europe, so think of this primarily as a European guide.

Critically important in this guide is the ratio between the above mentioned numbers. For every species, there are potentially several photographs. Sometimes, it is male and female. Some other morphological categories are illustrated. For some birds, especially raptors, there may be numerous views in flight.

The amount of information give per bird is minimal (this is a field guid) and the range maps are classic style and well done. Some books have dozens of pages of front matter, but this book has almost none. Other than the index and credits, there is no back matter. Yet, the book is well over 400 pages long. That’s a lot of birds in one book. If you want a European bird guide for the field, this is the one.

About the authors:

Frédéric Jiguet is one of France’s leading ornithologists and a conservation biologist at the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris. He is director of the Centre de Recherches sur la Biologie des Populations d’Oiseaux (CRBPO), and serves on the editorial board of France’s premier bird-study journal, Ornithos. Aurélien Audevard has been studying birds for much of his life and has conducted several high-profile conservation studies for the Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (LPO PACA). His photographs have appeared in many of Europe’s leading birding magazines, including Ornithos, L’Oiseaux, Birding World, and Dutch Birding.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Introduction 6
Species descriptions 12
Swans 12
Geese 14
Shelducks 21
Dabbling ducks 22
Whistling ducks 28
Diving ducks 28
Sea ducks 34
Stifftails 41
Vagrant and exotic ducks 42
Gamebirds 45
Divers (Loons) 55
Grebes 58
Shearwaters and petrels 61
Storm-petrels 66
Rare petrels and albatrosses 67
Frigatebirds 75
Tropicbirds 76
Gannets and boobies 77
Pelicans 80
Cormorants 81
Herons, bitterns and egrets 83
Storks 93
Spoonbills and ibises 94
Spoonbills and storks 96
Flamingos 97
Honey-buzzards 99
Buzzards 101
Snake eagles 105
Kites 106
Vultures 108
Harriers 113
Eagles 117
Osprey and Black-shouldered Kite 126
Accipiters 127
Falcons 129
Rails, crakes and gallinules 137
Cranes 143
Bustards 145
Oystercatcher and Turnstone 148
Stilts and avocets 149
Stone-curlews and coursers 150
Pratincoles 151
Plovers and lapwings 153
Sandpipers 162
Woodcocks and snipes 173
Dowitchers and Upland Sandpiper 176
Godwits 177
Curlews 178
Larger sandpipers 180
Phalaropes 185
Skuas (Jaegers) 187
Gulls 190
Terns 211
Auks 222
Sandgrouse 227
Pigeons and doves 229
Parakeets 234
Cuckoos 235
Owls 238
Nightjars 246
Swifts 248
Contents
Kingfishers 251
Rollers 253
Bee-eaters 254
Hoopoe 255
Woodpeckers 256
Larks 262
Swallows and martins 269
Pipits 274
Wagtails 279
Accentors 284
Wren and Dipper 286
Robins and chats 287
Redstarts 291
Stonechats 295
Wheatears 298
Rock thrushes 303
Thrushes 304
Bush warblers and cisticolas 311
Grasshopper warblers 312
Reed warblers 315
Tree warblers 320
Sylvia warblers 324
Leaf warblers 333
Crests 341
Old World flycatchers 343
Tyrant flycatchers 348
Penduline tit and leiothrix 350
Reedling and parrotbill 351
Long-tailed tit 352
Tits 353
Nuthatches 358
Treecreepers 360
Wallcreeper and Golden Oriole 361
Shrikes 362
Crows and jays 370
Starlings 377
Waxwings 379
Bulbuls and mynas 381
Sparrows 382
Introduced exotic finches 386
Finches 389
Buntings 404
Vagrant Nearctic passerines 417
New World warblers 433
Index 434
Photographic credits 444

Musings at 10,000 Birds:

This is a simple question with a complicated answer. Part of the answer is this: The biological identity of an individual that guides its choice of mate. So, in a simple version of the world of a bird, there are two sexes, male and female, and males chose females and females chose males as mates.

Assume for a moment that there is choice, and that the choice is based on a discernible feature. So, for example, males and females prefer to mate with a member of the opposite sex who has a blue and white pattern on its breast. So far so good, and so far simple. A bluer blue together with a whiter white on a female or male will be extra attractive to the member of the opposite sex.

But what if there emerged a genetically novel version of the males who lacked the white, but would only mate with females that lacked the blue. And, the obverse occurred as well. Suddenly you would have multiple sexes, beyond the usual two. There would be two kinds of males and two kinds of females.

Let’s ask the question again, what is sex? In a world in which the final adult outcome with respect to sex can be highly variable, one might look more deeply to find a simple binary observation to tell you if an individual is a male or a female. At the deepest level are presumably some genes, or maybe one gene, that matters, but there may be other equally important things that are not directly genetic as well. For example, in rats (as in “lab rat”) if the mother of a nominally (genetically) male offspring does not repeatedly lick the anogenital region of the pup, the usual cascade of hormones and hormone induced changes, involving androgens, will not occur in that individual and the final outcome will not be a rat that will mount and mate with a female.

Somewhere in between the gene and the anogenetical licking (or gender policing or incubation temperature or whatever else matters) is the sex chromosome. A sex chromosome may be a section of DNA (as a chromosome is) …. Read the rest here

Thinking About Birds Thinking

Some very interesting books came out this year that investigate bird brains.

Bird Brain: An Exploration of Avian Intelligence by Nathan Emery is the best current book on animal intelligence, and one of the best bird books you’ll be able to lay your hands on right now.

My review of the book is here.

What the Robin Knows: How Birds Reveal the Secrets of the Natural World by Jon Young is an exploration of nature via the senses (mainly visual and auditory) of birds, and of the reader. I’ve spent a fair amount of time communing with nature, either living with foragers in the Congo, or when I was a kid, being left in the forest by my parents who would drive away quickly, that sort of thing. You learn to read the signs of nature, and part of that is understanding what other animals are understanding, because that is information.

I review Yong’s book here. This is a fantastic book that you will really enjoy if you have any interest at all in nature or birds. Or not. You’ll still enjoy it.

Also check out The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman.

This elegant scientific investigation and travelogue weaves personal anecdotes with fascinating science. Ackerman delivers an extraordinary story that will both give readers a new appreciation for the exceptional talents of birds and let them discover what birds can reveal about our changing world. Richly informative and beautifully written, The Genius of Birds celebrates the triumphs of these surprising and fiercely intelligent creatures.

About birds

New this year is the important conservation oriented book Birds in Trouble by Lynn Barber. This is about birds threatened by all manner of things. In particular, she looks at just under 50 species in the US that have specific reasons to be considered as threatened.

Not new this year, but a book that I like so much I always want to mention it (when talking about bird books) is Ten Thousand Birds: Ornithology since Darwin by Birkhead, Wimpenny, and Montgomerie. Check it out. The title says it all.

Pretty Bird

Waterfowl of North America, Europe and Asia by Sebastien Reeber is one of those bird books you keep handy and use to expand your knowledge of birds laterally. You see a duck, then you explore the duck’s kin globally in this very nice looking and at the same time informative book.

The Crossley Guides

The Crossley ID Guides did not come out in 2016, but I list them here because they are still current, must have, highly innovative and beautiful books. If you don’t have the appropriate guides for your area, get them!

<li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691147787/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0691147787&linkCode=as2&tag=grlasbl0a-20&linkId=b07fe7215836f1dae723663f8d276637">The Crossley ID Guide: Eastern Birds</a><img src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=grlasbl0a-20&l=am2&o=1&a=0691147787" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></li>
<li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691157405/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0691157405&linkCode=as2&tag=grlasbl0a-20&linkId=00f5c3fd704c68fd8c894014f6112e7a">The Crossley ID Guide: Raptors</a><img src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=grlasbl0a-20&l=am2&o=1&a=0691157405" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></li>
<li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691151946/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0691151946&linkCode=as2&tag=grlasbl0a-20&linkId=83bd46ac51800e8627195c6b02a2b7b1">The Crossley ID Guide: Britain and Ireland </a><img src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=grlasbl0a-20&l=am2&o=1&a=0691151946" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></li>

But also by Birkhead, and current, is The Most Perfect Thing: Inside (and Outside) a Bird’s Egg. From the publishers:

Renowned ornithologist Tim Birkhead opens this gripping story as a female guillemot chick hatches, already carrying her full quota of tiny eggs within her undeveloped ovary. As she grows into adulthood, only a few of her eggs mature, are released into the oviduct, and are fertilized by sperm stored from copulation that took place days or weeks earlier. Within a matter of hours, the fragile yolk is surrounded by albumen and the whole is gradually encased within a turquoise jewel of a shell. Soon afterward the fully formed egg is expelled onto a bare rocky ledge, where it will be incubated for four weeks before a chick emerges and the life cycle begins again.

The image of the owl at the top of the post is a screen grab from this gallery of photos by Ana Miller. I’ve got a couple of original Millers hanging in my library. You should get one too! Makes a great holiday gift.

But that is true of a lot of things. Your baby is smart (not really). Your dog is smart (not really). Ants are smart (sort of).

It takes a certain degree of objective research, as well as some serious philosophy of intelligence (to define what smart is) to really address this question. But when the research is done and the dust settles, crows are smart.

We were all amazed (or not, because we already knew that crows are smart) to find that New Caledonian crows made and used tools. Now, we know (see my most recent post at 10,000 Birds) that a nearly extinct Hawaiian crow is also a tool user. The interesting thing about this new finding is that it is highly unlikely that the Hawaiian crow and the New Caledonian crow descend from a tool using ancestor, according to the researchers who did this work. Rather, tool use arose independently in the two species. But, really, not so independently.

They are all crows, and crows are smart, and both of these species live in a particular habitat where this tool use makes sense, and competing species of bird that might otherwise be going after the resources the tool use allows access to are absent. So, the trait evolved twice, but not unexpectedly.

The Evolution and Development of Bird Intelligence

I want to point out two things about birds that you probably know. First, they share modalities with humans to a greater degree than most other species, even our fellow mammals. Second, many birds live under conditions where complex behavior would be selected for by long term Darwinian processes.

Most mammals are solitary, small and nocturnal, or if large, are diurnal herd animals or some sort of predator. They tend to be olfactory and have varying degrees of vision, etc. We, on the other hand, are highly visual, not very olfactory, diurnal, and have a complex social system, and so on. We share these traits, for the most part, with our fellow primates, but humans live in many non-primate habitats these days, so we tend to stand out as a bit odd. If you are reading this blog post, chances are that the nearest non-pet and non-human mammal that you could locate right now is a squirrel, and the actual nearest mammal is some sort of rodent that you would have a hard time finding.

But, the nearest animal with an interesting brain, and interesting behavior, is a bird. Go look out your window and report back. I’ll study this diagram on the evolution of intelligence while I await your return.

…

…
OK, I hope that was fun. Let us know what species it was in the comments, please.

The visual orientation, together with that second trait of smartness, combine to make birds and their smartness akin to human’s smartness to the degree that we subjectively see birds as “intelligent,” and that alone is interesting. But likely, we are both intelligent by objective criteria, about certain things.

Bird Brain: An Exploration of Avian Intelligence was written by Nathan Emery, who is a Senior Lecturer (that’s like a Professor of some sort, in America) at Queen Mary University, London. He researches the evolution of intelligence in animals, including primates and various birds, and yes, including the crows!

He and his team “…have found striking similarities in the behaviour, ecology, neurobiology and cognitive mechanisms of corvids (crows, rooks, jackdaws and jays) and apes. [Suggesting that] these similarities are adaptations for solving similar social and ecological problems, such as finding, protecting and extracting food and living in a complex social world.”

The book is really great, the best book out there right now on animal intelligence, possibly the best book so far this year on birds. This is the kind of book you want laying around the house or classroom to learn stuff from. If you are writing or teaching about anything in evolution or behavior, this is a great way to key into the current work on bird intelligence.

Bird Brain is also going to earn a place on my Holiday Shopping Guide in the “Best gifts to give a science oriented youngster or your local life science teacher to encourage thinking about evolution” category. Yes, this is definitely a gift level book. Nobody will not like this book.

This is like a coffee table book in that it is slightly larger (not huge, just a little big) format, and full of great pictures, and the kind of book you can pick up and start reading anywhere. But it is also a book with a story, in a sense, or at least, an arc organizing the research being reported on. It is engagingly and well written and, very importantly, written by an expert.

I do respect journalists who become very interested in a topic and learn all about it and write it up, but there are limitations to such work. It is possible for various errors, minor or not, to sneak into such a work because the author is not deeply engaged in the way that a lifelong commitment to a work allows for. Bird Brain is written by an expert, so that is not going to happen here.

I highly recommend Bird Brain, for anyone who does not want to be a bird brain about birds, intelligence, evolution, or the evolution of intelligence in birds.

Here’s the TOC: