Birdwatching Books - Page 4

Egg & Nest

Rosamond Purcell, Linnea S. Hall, René Corado

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The beauty of the robin’s egg is not lost on the child who discovers the nest, nor on the collector of nature’s marvels. Such instances of wonder find fitting expression in the photographs of Rosamond Purcell, whose work captures the intricacy of nests and the aesthetic perfection of bird eggs. Mining the ornithological treasures of the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology, Purcell produces pictures as lovely and various as the artifacts she photographs. The dusky blue egg of an emu becomes a planet. A woodpecker’s nest bears an uncanny resemblance to a wooden shoe. A resourceful rock dove weaves together scrap metal and spent fireworks. A dreamscape of dancing monkeys emerges from the calligraphic markings of a murre egg.

Alongside Purcell’s photographs, Linnea Hall and René Corado offer an engaging history of egg collecting, the provenance of the specimens in the photographs, and the biology, conservation, and ecology of the birds that produced them. They highlight the scientific value that eggs and nest hold for understanding and conserving birds in the wild, as well as the aesthetic charge they carry for us.

How has evolution shaped the egg or directed the design of the nest? How do the photographs convey such infinitesimal and yet momentous happenstance? The objects in Egg & Nest are specimens of natural history, and in Purcell’s renderings, they are also the most natural art.

Storey's Illustrated Guide to Poultry Breeds

Carol Ekarius

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Farmers and fanciers keep an astonishing variety of poultry breeds in North America. These birds provide meat and eggs to nourish us and feathers to keep us warm. Their quirky personalities and charming good looks make them barnyard favorites. They inspire passionate devotion from show breeders and provide a living for farmers.

Presented here, breed by breed, are more than 120 barnyard fowl — from chickens and turkeys to emus and pheasants. For each animal, readers will find stunning color photography, a brief history, and a detailed description. The identifying characteristics included for each breed are: class (standard and bantam); size (for cocks and hens); appearance of comb, wattles, and earlobes; color (everything from black-breasted red to silver laced); place of origin; conservation status; and special qualities (including longevity, size and quantity of eggs, quality of meat, and other relevant uses). Author Carol Ekarius provides enough information to satisfy both the dedicated browser and the serious farmer weighing the pros and cons of multiple breeds.

In 2005, Storey's Illustrated Guide to 96 Horse Breeds of North America celebrated horses in a coffee-table reference that captivated enthusiasts of all ages. Now farmers, breeders, backyard chicken keepers, and unabashed poultry fanatics will have a definitive guide of their own. If it's poultry — fair or fowl — it's in this book.

National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern North America

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

New enthusiasts are flocking in record numbers to the fascinating pastime of birding. National Geographic has been meeting their need for clear and accurate information for 25 years with our million-selling Field Guide to the Birds of North America. Now, to better serve the expanding market, we’ve customized our field-guide format to offer unique coverage for birders east or west of the Rocky Mountains. These new volumes deliver in-depth information on every bird officially recorded in the specified area, with illustrated accounts of the different plumages and life stages, along with hundreds of color-coded range maps.

Unique features set these guides apart from the competition and promise to win a new generation of readers: A full-color visual index, printed on the inside covers, makes the content accessible visually —a real boon to beginning and intermediate birders. Annotated artwork highlights birds’ key physical features, making identification easier. Thumb-tabs help readers find information fast. Durable covers stand up to outdoor use, with integrated quick-reference flaps that double as place-markers.Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern North America details 619 species and contains 560 new range maps, plus illustrated accounts for 85 casual and accidental birds and an appendix listing 70 rarities.

Sibley's Birding Basics

David Allen Sibley

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

“I wrote and illustrated this book to help every inquisitive birder, from novice to expert. Whether you can identify six birds or six hundred, you’ll be a better birder if you have a grounding in the real nuts and bolts of what birds look like, and your skills will be even sharper if you know exactly what to look for and how to record what you see.” —David Allen Sibley

The Sibley Guide to Birds and The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior are both universally acclaimed as the new standard source of species information. And now David Sibley, America’s premier birder and best-known bird artist, takes a new direction; in Sibley’s Birding Basics he is concerned not so much with species as with the general characteristics that influence the appearance of all birds and thus give us the clues to their identity.
To create this guide, David Sibley thought through all the skills that enable him to identify a bird in the few instants it is visible to him. Now he shares that information, integrating an explanation of the identification process with many painted and drawn images of details (such as a feather) or concepts.

Birding Basics begins by reviewing how one can get started as a birder: the equipment necessary, where and when to go birding, and perhaps most important, the essential things to look for when birds appear in the field. Using many illustrations, David Sibley reviews all the basic concepts of bird identification and then describes the variations (of shape, size, and color) that can change the appearance of a bird over time or in different settings. And he issues a warning about “illusions and other pitfalls”—and advice on avoiding them.

The second part of the book, also plentifully illustrated, deals with another set of clues, the major aspects of avian life that differ from species to species: feathers (color, arrangement, shape, molt), behavior and habitat, and sounds.

This scientifically precise, beautifully illustrated volume distills the essence of David Sibley’s own experience and skills, providing a solid introduction to “naming” the birds. With Sibley as your guide, when you learn how to interpret what the feathers, the anatomical structure, the sounds of a bird tell you—when you know the clues that show you why there’s no such thing as “just a duck”—birding will be more fun, and more meaningful. An essential addition to the Sibley shelf!

The Audubon Backyard Birdwatcher: Birdfeeders and Bird Gardens

Robert Burton, Stephen Kress

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Happy Happy 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Purchased The Audubon Backyard Birdwatcher: Birdfeeders and Bird Gardens for my mother for Christmas, she is very pleased with the book, more so then her other books she has collected for Bird Watching.

The Audubon Backyard Birdwatcher Birdfeeders and Bird Gardens 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Beautiful book. Highly recommend this book to any bird and garden enthusiast. Quick delivery as well from vendor.

GREAT!!! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I purchased this for a gift for my husband for our anniversary. It came looking great, still in the package. It came fairly quick, about a week after I ordered it.

Thank you!

Very Good 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Very good book, has lots of information beyond just bird identification. Only thing I would have done different is have pictures of both the male and female (typically each kind of bird only has one picture).

Editorial Review:

Discover how to create a backyard bird sanctuary with the expert guidance of the National Audubon Society. Your backyard will come alive by applying these feeding and gardening techniques. Includes a photographic guide to the birds of North America, as well as the trees and plants that attract them. The ultimate resource for anyone interested in creating a bird-friendly habitat.

The Sibley Guide to Bird Life & Behavior

David Allen Sibley

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

“Once in a great while, a natural history book changes the way people look at the world. In 1838, John ames Audubon’s Birds of America was one...In 1934, Roger Tory Peterson produced Field Guide to the Birds...Now comes The Sibley Guide to Birds.”

Thus did The New York Times, in 1999, greet David Allen Sibley’s monumental book, which has quickly been established nationwide as the peerless, standard bird identification guide.

The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior is the new landmark book from David Allen Sibley. Designed to enhance the birding experience and to enrich the popular study of North American birds, the book combines more than 795 of his full-color illustrations with authoritative text by 48 expert birders and biologists. In this new guide Sibley takes us beyond identification, to show us how birds live and what they do.

Introductory essays outline the principles of avian evolution, life cycle, body structure, flight dynamics, and more. The 80 family-by-family chapters describe the amazing range of behavior dictated by birds’ biology and environment. Among the subjects covered and illustrated are:

--molts and plumages
--habitats
--food and foraging
--vocalizations and displays
--courtship and breeding
--rearing of young
--migration and movements
--scientific groupings
--introduced species
--accidental species
--anatomy
--flight patterns
--nests and eggs
--conservation
--global distribution

Accessibly written, superbly designed and organized, and brilliantly illustrated, The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior is an indispensable source of information on the avian life around us.

Bird Songs From Around the World: Featuring Songs of 200 Birds from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (Push and Listen)

Les Beletsky

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Bird Songs from Around The World 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I was very disappointed in this book it wasn't at all like I was lead to believe, I live in a public restroom in Svalbard and expected to see and hear more birds common to Svalbardean public toilets, really it was a total waste of money.

Editorial Review:

Discover two hundred of the world's most spectacular birds in Bird Songs from Around the World, the follow-up to the national best-seller Bird Songs: 250 North American Birds in Song. Drawing from the collection of the world-renowned Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, this stunning book features a sleek, built-in digital audio player that showcases each bird's song, as well as illustrated portraits and brief descriptions emphasizing the exceptional vocalizations. From the brilliantly plumed Lilac-breasted Roller in Africa to the flamboyant North American Roseate Spoonbill to Asia's Red Avadavat, Bird Songs from Around the World combines approachable information, beautiful art, and high-quality sound in a distinctive, elegant package.

Listen here
White Bellbird (South America)
Spot-breasted Laughingthrush (Asia)
Greater Potoo (North America)

Alex & Me LP: How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence--and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process

Irene Pepperberg

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Editorial Review:

On September 6, 2007, an African Grey parrot named Alex died prematurely at age thirty-one. His last words to his owner, Irene Pepperberg, were "You be good. I love you."

What would normally be a quiet, very private event was, in Alex's case, headline news. Over the thirty years they had worked together, Alex and Irene had become famous—two pioneers who opened an unprecedented window into the hidden yet vast world of animal minds. Alex's brain was the size of a shelled walnut, and when Irene and Alex first met, birds were not believed to possess any potential for language, consciousness, or anything remotely comparable to human intelligence. Yet, over the years, Alex proved many things. He could add. He could sound out words. He understood concepts like bigger, smaller, more, fewer, and none. He was capable of thought and intention. Together, Alex and Irene uncovered a startling reality: We live in a world populated by thinking, conscious creatures.

The fame that resulted was extraordinary. Yet there was a side to their relationship that never made the papers. They were emotionally connected to one another. They shared a deep bond far beyond science. Alex missed Irene when she was away. He was jealous when she paid attention to other parrots, or even people. He liked to show her who was boss. He loved to dance. He sometimes became bored by the repetition of his tests, and played jokes on her. Sometimes they sniped at each other. Yet nearly every day, they each said, "I love you."

Alex and Irene stayed together through thick and thin—despite sneers from experts, extraordinary financial sacrifices, and a nomadic existence from one univer­sity to another. The story of their thirty-year adventure is equally a landmark of scientific achievement and of an unforgettable human-animal bond.

Birdwatcher: The Life of Roger Tory Peterson

Elizabeth J. Rosenthal

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A great look into an extraordinary life 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Roger Tory Peterson is the most famous birdwatcher in history. 2008 is the 100th anniversary of his birth, and what better way to celebrate it than by learning more about the man himself?

After reading this book, you will not only find out much about Peterson's life and accomplishments, but you will come to know the man personally. The biographer conducted extensive interviews with his relatives, friends, and disciples (or in some cases their spouses or children). Their voice, often in the form of direct quotes, permeates the book. This was a very effective technique, and contributed much to the reader's growing sense of familiarity with Peterson.

Instead of being organized in a stricly chronological order, Rosenthal instead organizes much of the book by topic. When Peterson's life started branching out in many directions, they are focused on seperately. Thus, there are chapters on conservation efforts, travels, the continuing saga of the field guides, and the people that he influenced. With the exception of that last one, which seemed very incongruously placed, the story still flows in a very understandable fashion. This organization, instead of being confusing, actually helped keep me engaged and interested.

Overall, Birdwatcher is a well-written and enjoyable look at the life of the most famous birder in history. After reading this biography, I certainly know much more about Roger Tory Peterson's life and accomplishments. But what's more, I feel like I got to know the man himself. If you would like to do the same, this book is a great way to do so.

Editorial Review:

Roger Tory Peterson—the Renaissance man who taught Americans the joy of watching birds—also invented the modern field guide. His 1934 landmark Field Guide to the Birds was the first book designed to go outdoors and help people identify the elements of nature. This self-proclaimed “student of nature” combined spectacular writing with detailed illustrations to ultimately publish many other books, winning every possible award and medal for natural science, ornithology, and conservation.

Birdwatcher is a comprehensive, illustrated biography of Roger Tory Peterson--a hero in the conservation world--including interviews with friends, family, and protégés. 

The Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature

Jonathan Rosen

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Where the Wild Things Are 5 out of 5 stars.
12 of 14 people found this review helpful.

This book spoke to me. I've been a birder for over 20 years now, and after reading "The Life of the Skies" I understand at last why I enjoy it so much.

Author Rosen's central view is that humans need to affiliate with the natural world to be happy and fulfilled: "More and more I realize that to be bored with birds is to be bored with life. I say birds rather than some generic `nature,' because birds are what remain to us." He makes the point that birds are the only truly wild creatures most of us see.

Many of the pages include interesting history. The chapter about the ivory-billed woodpecker describes how after Alexander Wilson, the father of American ornithology, captured one in the 18th century, he noted that its cries sounded exactly like "the violent crying of a young child."

A must for anyone who loves birds, "The Life of the Skies" will make its reader want to go outside and look up.

Editorial Review:

We are all birdwatchers.

Over cities and jungles and open plains, the sky is animated by the flight of birds, and their presence reminds us of the wild element of life on earth that can never be suppressed. In The Life of the Skies, Jonathan Rosen explores the significance of this timeless pursuit, chronicling his own birding adventures alongside those of John James Audubon, Teddy Rooseevelt, and others. In the process, he discovers the interconnections--literary, philosophical, sceintific, and spiritual--between life on the ground and life up above. Richly researched, lyrically written, The Life of the Skies is "a tribute to the natural world and man's place in it" (Bloomberg News).