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Books for birdwatchers
15 new books we like: essential field guides, eloquent essays, and more
By Chuck Hagner By Matt Mendenhall
Published: April 23, 2010 Lucky for us reading birdwatchers, there continues to be no shortage of excellent new books to educate and delight us when we’re not in the field.
We described 19 in our December 2009 issue, and you’ll find 15 more here.
Our selections this time around include field guides sure to make you a better birdwatcher, not only here at home but on your next trip abroad, too.
We cite a fascinating history of miniature bird carving and two oversize collections of bird photographs. Each surprises with every turn of the page.
We highlight works of striking honesty: essays on crows and eagles, lessons learned from studying birds, and the contention that watching birds can be a powerful spiritual experience.
And mixed in, just for fun, are interviews with science editor and writer Laura Erickson and Ivory-bill searcher Geoffrey Hill. Enjoy! |
Waterbirds
by Theodore Cross, W. W. Norton & Company, 2009, 344 pages, $150, hardcover.
This huge, remarkable collection of bird photographs had captured our attention long before we learned of the death of its even more remarkable creator, Theodore Cross, at the end of February.
Cross accomplished much in his life. He fought in the South Pacific during World War II. He edited the Harvard Law Journal. He marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama, and advised the Johnson and Nixon White Houses on the economics of black empowerment, a subject he also wrote about in two books. He made a fortune in publishing, buying and selling periodicals. He bid against Rupert Murdoch for control of book publisher Harper & Row. And along the way, he became obsessed with birds, and especially those, as he writes in the preface, “that I had ignored or took for granted for the first forty years of my life.”
In search of them, he traveled widely — to Christmas Island and Johnston Atoll in the Pacific for terns, tropicbirds, and noddies; to Funk Island in the North Atlantic for puffins; to Canada’s Ellesmere Island and the beaches of Delaware and New Jersey for Red Knots and other migratory shorebirds; to Green Island, Texas, for Reddish Egrets. In 1989, when he was 65, he became the first Westerner to visit the Kolyma River Delta in Siberia, nesting grounds of the pink-bellied Ross’s Gull and onetime location of Stalin’s death camps. Waterbirds, 344 pages long, gathers 179 of the best photos that Cross took during his sojourns, including one that Edward O. Wilson has justly called a “candidate for the most beautiful illustration of birds in existence.” |
The Private Lives of Birds: A Scientist Reveals the Intricacies of Avian Social Life by Bridget Stutchbury, Walker & Company, 2010, 272 pages, $25, hardcover.
Private lives uncovered
For the last 25 years, ornithologist Bridget Stutchbury has studied why female birds cheat on their mates, what makes males attractive, and how fast birds migrate from breeding to wintering grounds. Here she takes us behind the scenes of her detective work, explaining in clear, compelling prose how birds live their lives. |
Crow Planet: Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness by Lyanda Lynn Haupt, Little, Brown and Company, 2009, 240 pages, $23.99, hardcover.
Crows and our planet
In her moving new ode to crows, birder Lyanda Lynn Haupt tells numerous stories of watching and marveling at crows, the one group of birds virtually everyone knows. And by exploring the comings and goings of crows in her native Seattle, she elegantly and emphatically dispenses with the myth that nature cannot be found in cities.
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Bird by Andrew Zuckerman, Chronicle Books, 2009, 300 pages, $60, hardcover.
Birds in a sliver of time
What is the best way to record the essence of a bird, to portray its mystery? For photographer, author, and filmmaker Andrew Zuckerman, the answer is not to show the animal in its environment, as Audubon did in his famous paintings, but to photograph it against a background of pure white, at a shutter speed of about 1/8,000th of a second. “Andrew’s primary photographic mission,” writes Zuckerman’s producer, “has been to isolate the nature of the thing before him by stripping everything, to the extent he can, away, leaving only the most detailed information, in a sliver of time, to confront the viewer.”
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All about Birds: A Short Illustrated History of Ornithology by Valérie
Chansigaud, Princeton University Press, 2010, 239 pages, $29.95, hardcover.
Illustrated history
What a treat! In a concise, beautifully illustrated 239 pages, Valérie Chansigaud offers a history lesson on the study of birds. We meet Aristotle, Audubon, Darwin, and many other ornithologists, artists, and photographers who devoted their lives to understanding birds. |
Birds of Costa Rica: A Field Guide by Carrol Henderson, University of Texas Press, 2010, 400 pages, $29.95, paper.
Costa Rica revisited
Carrol Henderson knows the birds of Costa Rica as well as anyone. He has led 25 tours to the country since 1987 and wrote for us about birding there in October 2004. In his new field guide, he describes 310 species that you are most likely to see. Maps show where he has found each bird. |
Birds in Wood and Paint: American Miniature Bird Carvings and Their Carvers, 1900-1970 by Joseph H. Ellis, UPNE, 2009, 204 pages, $60, hardcover.
Little-known treasures
Attempting “to give the realm of miniature and full-size decorative carved birds the attention it deserves, separate and distinct from the field of decoys,” bird-carving aficionado Joseph H. Ellis showcases the lives and works of a dozen carvers, Elmer Crowell foremost among them,
who dominated carving throughout the bulk of the 20th century. |
Birdology: Adventures with a Pack of Hens, a Peck of Pigeons, Cantankerous Crows, Fierce Falcons, Hip Hop Parrots, Baby Hummingbirds, and One Murderously Big Living Dinosaur by Sy Montgomery, Free Press, 2010, 272 pages, $25, hardcover.
A zeal for watching birds
On the heels of her bestselling The Good Good Pig, Sy Montgomery turns her keen attention to birds. Hens, crows, parrots, rehabilitated hummingbirds, and an elusive cassowary in Australia are among her subjects. Each story supports her premise that watching birds “strengthens our souls.” Amen. |
The Eagle Watchers: Observing and Conserving Raptors Around the World by Ruth E. Tingay, Comstock Pub. Associates, 2010, 296 pages, $29.95, hardcover.
Privileged views of eagles
In short essays, 29 field biologists describe their efforts to study and protect eagle species around the world. They share harrowing experiences involving secret police, a tribal death march, and the Khmer Rouge. Best of all, they allow us to encounter young eagles, hidden nests, and master avian hunters. |
National Geographic Bird Coloration by Geoffrey Hill, National Geographic, 2010, 256 pages, $27.50, hardcover.
An Ivory-bill hunter explores bird coloration
Ornithologist Geoffrey Hill of Auburn University wrote for us in February 2007 about searching for Ivory-billed Woodpeckers along the Choctawhatchee River in Florida. In his new book, he describes what you need to know about the colors of birds. He spoke recently with Associate Editor Matt Mendenhall. Read the full interview.
So tell me, for someone who has never heard of Geoffrey Hill, why are you qualified to write this? What’s your background?
My whole professional life I’ve been focused on the colors of birds, and I’ve worked on a broad range of topics in bird coloration: mate choice and dominance, crypsis and how it affects survival, structural colors — the blues and greens — and lots of research on carotenoid colors and melanin pigmentation. I helped create the literature. I read the literature. I know what’s going on in this field as well as anyone. There are probably 20 individuals in the world for whom this is the main topic of study... and could have written this book.
What will a birder learn from your book? How will it help us understand birds better?
I think it will help on at least two levels. First, I hope it satisfies a level of curiosity. Lots of questions arise as you look at birds. What’s the difference between a morph and a color variant? I explain that in my book.
The second thing is that you could learn to interpret colors more cautiously. For instance, I talk a lot about variable carotenoid pigmentation because it’s subject to changing with levels of parasites and nutrition and access to pigments. So that means that if you’re basing an identification solely on a yellow or red color trait, which is likely to be a carotenoid color, you should think twice about that.
The question you should always ask is: Is it more likely that this bird had problems with its carotenoid expression, or is it more likely this bird flew from Japan to North America?... It may have flown from Japan, but before you jump to that conclusion, you should think, “Well, this could just be a color aberration caused by these things described in the book.”
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Peterson Reference Guide to Molt in North American Birds by Steve N.G. Howell, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010, 280 pages, $35, hardcover.
All about molt
This is the book for anyone who has ever been confused by an oddly colored duck, heron, or towhee. Expert moltologist Steve N.G. Howell thoroughly explains the strategies birds use to replace feathers, and he presents more than 270 photos that show what to look for in every North American family. |
Birds of Europe: Second Edition (Princeton Field Guides) by Lars Svensson, Dan Zetterström, and Killian Mullarney, Princeton University Press, 2010, 416 pages, $29.95, paper.
Europe’s birds anew
One of the world’s greatest bird field guides, first published in 1999, has been expanded and fully revised. It includes new species names, field marks, illustrations, and range maps. Remaining unchanged is its sense of purpose — to present clear identification information for each of Europe’s birds. |
Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Eastern and Central North America, Sixth Edition by Roger Tory Peterson, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010, 464 pages, $19.95, paper.
Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Western North America, Fourth Edition by Roger Tory Peterson, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010, 512 pages, $19.95, paper.
Fresh look for two Peterson classics
In 2008, Houghton Mifflin and a team of expert birders, including Paul Lehman and Michael O’Brien, released the first one-volume Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America, built on the foundation of Roger Tory Peterson’s two regional guides. Now they have returned to his two-volume treatment, publishing the fourth edition of his western guide and the sixth edition of his eastern and central guide. The editors and artists incorporated splits, lumps, and additions to the AOU Check-list through 2009 while retaining all of the hallmarks you expect in a Peterson guide: clean design, uncluttered illustrations, and authoritative, reliable, usable information.
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The Bird Watching Answer Book: Everything You Need to Know to Enjoy Birds in Your Backyard and Beyond (Cornell Lab of Ornithology) by Laura Erickson, Workman Publishing Company, 2009, 400 pages, $14.95, paper.
An expert answers common questions about birds
Ornithologist Laura Erickson, science editor at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and a frequent contributor to our magazine, has published her fourth book about birds. In it, she answers dozens of questions about birding and the lives of birds. She discussed the book recently with Associate Editor Matt Mendenhall. Read the full interview.
Where did the questions come from?
People write to Cornell with questions, and people write to me with questions, all the time, so I had a lot of questions to choose from. And I’m sure that there will eventually be a second edition with even more questions.
Whom do you see as the readers of this book? Who’s it for?
I try to write in a really accessible way, so somebody who doesn’t have a clue about anything about birds — the person who would ask if penguins really are birds or if swans really are birds — would be able to understand the book and get a lot of useful information.
What makes projects like this pleasurable for me is looking into things more deeply, so I am learning something, too. I try to make it accessible for beginners but still interesting for experienced and knowledgeable people.
What are the most common questions that you hear?
Every fall I get questions about whether hummingbirds ride on the backs of geese.
Still? Oh my.
Yeah, still... There was one case of hunters shooting a goose that had a dead hummingbird caught in weeds or something sticky on its back. The probability is that the hummingbird was trying to dive-bomb the goose, trying to drive it off its territory. I’ve watched hummingbirds dive-bomb Bald Eagles.
I think the original myth arose because somebody was watching a hummingbird dive-bombing a goose, and they didn’t watch long enough to see that it was trying to drive it away, not trying to hitch a ride. |
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