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Notable books of 2012: mid-year roundupThe editors of BirdWatching magazine describe Steve N.G. Howell's guide to petrels, albatrosses, and storm-petrels, Julie Zickefoose's new collection of essays, John Marzluff's latest book about crows, Derek Lovitch's guide to becoming a better birder, David Sibley's backyard birding flashcards, and 10 other new books about birds and birdwatching.
Published: April 20, 2012 A much-needed work on the identification of seabirds; a collection of astounding photographs; a book about notetaking; essays on crows, an endangered warbler, and injured and orphaned birds; and field guides to faraway islands, the coastline of the United States, even mammal behavior — the titles we’ve chosen for this mid-year roundup are as varied as the birds that inspired them.
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Sibley Backyard Birding Flashcards: 100 Common Birds of Eastern and Western North America by David Allen Sibley, Potter Style, 2012, 100 cards, $14.99, cards.
Sibley birding flashcards
These appealing flashcards feature illustrations and text from David Sibley’s field guides to the birds of eastern and western North America. On each card, a pair of Sibley’s paintings allow comparisons of male and female, adult and juvenile, or breeding and nonbreeding plumage. Common and scientific names are printed on the opposite side, along with the length, wingspan, and weight of each bird and brief descriptions of its preferred habitat, field marks, and songs and calls. The cards are perfect for testing your identification skills, sharing with young birders, even exploring differences between populations. The tiny maps accompanying the descriptions are no substitute for those in your field guides, but this doesn’t make the cards any less fun or engaging.
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What the Robin Knows: How Birds Reveal the Secrets of the Natural World by Jon Young, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012, 272 pages, $22, hardcover.
Get closer to birds
Don’t tell lifelong birder Jon Young that robins are boring. He can sit still in his yard, watching and listening for the moment when robins and other birds no longer perceive him as a threat. Then he can begin to hear what the birds say to each other, warning about nearby hawks, cats, or competitors. Young’s book will teach you how you, too, can understand birds and their fascinating behaviors.
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Petrels, Albatrosses, and Storm-Petrels of North America: A Photographic Guide by Steve N.G. Howell, Princeton University Press, 2012, 520 pages, $45, hardcover.
Birds of the final frontier
Acclaimed field ornithologist Steve N.G. Howell has produced a much-needed ID guide to “the most accomplished, graceful, and seemingly uninhibited fliers among birds” — the 42 petrels, 14 albatrosses, and 20 storm-petrels that can be found sailing, wheeling, and gliding within 200 nautical miles of our coasts, from Alaska and Canada to the Caribbean and Panama. |
A Field Guide to the Southeast Coast & Gulf of Mexico: Coastal Habitats, Seabirds, Marine Mammals, Fish, & Other Wildlife by Noble S. Proctor and Patrick J. Lynch, Yale University Press, 2012, 386 pages, $24, paperback.
Southeastern riches
This isn’t a guide to birds alone — although it describes 123 tubenoses, herons, terns, and other birds — but a general guide to the plants and habitats, sharks, rays, fish, sea turtles, crocodiles and alligators, whales, dolphins, seals, and manatees that you’ll find while birding from Cape Hatteras to the Florida Keys and Gulf Coast — home to some of the richest wildlife areas in the world. |
Midway: A Guide to the Atoll and its Inhabitants by Connie Toops and Phyllis Greenberg, LasAves, 2012, 90 pages, $14.95, paperback.
The magic of Midway
In 90 concise and delightful pages, writer and naturalist Connie Toops and photographer Phyllis Greenberg showcase Hawaii’s Midway Atoll, the site of a 1942 battle that changed the course of World War II and the home of the world’s largest nesting colonies of Laysan and Black-footed Albatrosses, as well as petrels, tropicbirds, terns, ducks, tiger sharks, dolphins, and sea turtles. |
America's Other Audubon by Joy M. Kiser, Princeton Architectural Press, 2012, 144 pages, $45, hardcover.
A treasure trove of nest art
Before she died of typhoid fever at age 32 in 1879, naturalist and artist Genevieve “Gennie” Jones had been hard at work on her book Illustrations of the Nests and Eggs of Birds of Ohio. From childhood, Jones had collected nests and eggs with her father, and they often discussed the need for a book that would identify each bird’s nests and eggs. Years later, after seeing handcolored engravings from Audubon’s The Birds of America, Jones decided, with the support of her parents, brother, and best friend, to create her book.
After her death, her family labored for seven years to finish the project in her memory. In 1886, 90 copies were published. Today, fewer than 25 copies remain in institutions and private collections. Fortunately, Joy M. Kiser, a former librarian with the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, recognized the importance of telling the story of Gennie Jones, her family, and their remarkable book. In America’s Other Audubon, Kiser features reproductions of their original art, as well as archival photographs of the family and Gennie’s field notes about the birds she knew so well. A treasure.
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EarthFlight: Breathtaking Photographs from a Bird's-Eye View of the World by John Downer, Firefly Books, 2011, 240 pages, $49.95, hardcover.
What birds see from the air
For more than 25 years, British filmmaker John Downer has trained eagles, hawks, and geese to fly with cameras on their backs, producing amazing views of how the birds see the world. For his latest film, EarthFlight, Downer uses small cameras capable of filming in high definition to reveal spectacular details about the birds and the landscapes below them: Common Cranes over a castle in France and colorful farmfields in Norway, a Barn Swallow catching a feather in mid-air, an eagle’s-eye view of Lesser and Greater Flamingos in Kenya, and Snow Geese flying past the Statue of Liberty.
Recently, Firefly Books published a 240-page book to accompany the six-part film, which is expected to air on the Discovery Channel in North America this summer. The book includes an introductory essay by Downer, maps of the flight paths of a few of the featured birds, and a detailed concluding chapter about the making of the film.
We like it for all of that, but mostly we can’t take our eyes off the photographs: Demoiselle Cranes flying through the Himalayas, a Scarlet Macaw over a river in Peru, a Bald Eagle soaring above the Grand Canyon, an endless flock of Cape Gannets in South Africa. Spectacular, one and all.
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Birds of Aruba, Curaçao, and Bonaire by Bart de Boer, Eric Newton, and Robin Restall, Princeton University Press, 2012, 192 pages, $27.95, paperback.
Birds between continents
This island trio is located just off the coast of South America, but, fascinatingly, the birdlife has a strong West Indian element and includes migrants from the north as well as visitors from the south. (American Redstart, Northern Waterthrush, Ovenbird, and Prothonotary, Blackpoll, and Connecticut warblers occur regularly.) Until this handy book, there was no comprehensive field guide. |
How to Be a Better Birder by Derek Lovitch, Princeton University Press, 2012, 208 pages, $19.95, paperback.
Improve your field skills
Our friend Derek Lovitch uses his years of experience birding in Maine and around the world to describe the field skills of top-notch birders. He explains how to use habitat, geography, and weather to find more birds and to anticipate vagrants. And he argues that if we care about the future of birds, we must bird with a purpose, joining citizen-science projects and submitting sightings to eBird. |
Behavior of North American Mammals by Mark Elbroch and Kurt Rinehart, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011, 384 pages, $35, hardcover.
Why animals do that
This guide doesn’t show birds, but we couldn’t wait to get our hands on it. Its subject is the behavior of more than 70 North American mammals, many of which we’ve come across while birding (meadow vole, coyote, American beaver, black-tailed prairie dog) and a few that like to help themselves to the contents of our bird feeders (black bear, chipmunk, white-tailed deer, eastern gray squirrel). |
The Bluebird Effect: Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds by Julie Zickefoose, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012, 384 pages, $28, hardcover.
Lyrical and lovely
In 25 chapters illustrated with watercolors and pencil sketches, naturalist, songbird rehabilitator, artist, and radio commentator Julie Zickefoose recounts her experiences with 24 birds that came to her injured or orphaned, that she spent time studying and sketching, or that perched on her shoulder as she worked, and one bird that she can only wish she got to know: the Ivory-billed Woodpecker.
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Gifts of the Crow: How Perception, Emotion, and Thought Allow Smart Birds to Behave Like Humans by John Marzluff and Tony Angell, Free Press, 2012, 304 pages, $25, hardcover.
Complexities of crows
Tool use among crows is well known, but John Marzluff, one of the world’s top experts on the birds, shows in his new book that there’s much more to their story. Large complex brains allow crows to learn from observing humans, to plan, and to reconsider their actions. Crows play, take risks, and seek revenge on animals that harass them. The more we learn, the more crows sound like us.
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Field Notes on Science & Nature edited by Michael R. Canfiled, Harvard University Press, 2011, 320 pages, $27.95, hardcover.
The value of jotting down
When the majority of Earth’s species still remain unknown and most researchers are more familiar with digital devices than pencils and paper, how should field notes be kept, and why? This beautiful volume offers the answers of 13 scientists and naturalists, including Bernd Heinrich, George Schaller, and our own Kenn Kaufman, as well as valuable glimpses into their notebooks.
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The Kirtland's Warbler: The Story of a Bird's Fight Against Extinction and the People Who Saved It by William Rapai, University of Michigan Press/Regional, 2012, 216 pages, $24.95, hardcover.
Inspiring warbler
This well-told story of the endangered Kirtland’s Warbler — from the first discovery of its nest in Michigan in 1903, to the start of cowbird trapping in 1972, to the recent exploration of its wintering grounds on Eleuthera in the Bahamas, to the discovery of its historic first nests in Ontario and Wisconsin in 2006 and 2007 — is filled with many heroes and much inspiration.
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Bird Sense: What It's Like to Be a Bird by Tim Birkhead, Walker & Company, 2012, 288 pages, $25, hardcover.
Birds’ private lives unveiled
The subtitle of British ornithologist Tim Birkhead’s fantastic new book is “What It’s Like to Be a Bird.” In seven authoritative chapters, he delivers on the promise, covering sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell, birds’ magnetic perceptions, and avian emotions. He discusses the history of scientists’ understanding of birds’ senses and brings us up to date on the latest research.
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