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Notable bird books of 2010: Year-end roundup
The editors of BirdWatching magazine describe the Stokeses' photographic field guide, the American Bird Conservancy's important handbook of bird conservation, a page-turner about a 2008 Big Year attempt, and eight other new books.
Published: October 22, 2010 We’re pleased to present our 2010 end-of-year book roundup, a collection of 14 titles that we feel deserve to be in your library. We recommend them all because, each in its own way, they teach us about birds and make us better birdwatchers.
Our selections include an important new guide to conservation, a first-hand account of a successful effort to save oiled penguins, a tale of a record-breaking around-the-world adventure, and Pete Dunne’s story of summer close to home. Five of the books are field guides, including the new North American guide from Don and Lillian Stokes. They answer our questions about it below.
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Whooping Crane: Images from the Wild by Klaus Nigge, TAMU Press, 2010, 228 pages, $45, hardcover.
Rare beauty
Photographer Klaus Nigge spent six days and nights in a blind in Canada’s Wood Buffalo National Park, where he made extraordinary images of a pair of endangered Whooping Cranes and their chick. Then at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas, he recorded a rare sight: twins. Nigge’s book, Whooping Crane: Images from the Wild, is, like the cranes, a treasure. |
Bird Feathers: A Guide to North American Species by S. David Scott and Casey McFarland, Stackpole Books, 2010, 368 pages, $34.95, paperback.
Identify feathers
Environmental educators and wildlife trackers S. David Scott and Casey McFarland have produced an outstanding guide to feathers. They explain how to recognize the different types of feathers, and their photos — showing individual feathers of 397 North American bird species — may just help you identify the next feather you find.
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The Coolest Bird, by Rich Levad, American Birding Association, 2010, 152 pages, free, e-book.
Black Swift opus
In an article about the Black Swift in our August 2008 issue, we noted that the late swift expert Rich Levad had written a book about the mysterious bird that nests behind waterfalls and the people who have studied it. More than two years after his death, his account has been published as a free e-book. It’s at aba.org/thecoolestbird.pdf. |
Guide to Songbird Set-up Photography, by Alan Murphy, Alan Murphy Photography, 2009, 106 pages, $50, e-book.
Photo tips
Bird photographer Alan Murphy contributes regularly to our magazine and has had three cover photos in recent years. In his new e-book, he explains how to create photography setups that entice woodpeckers, feeder birds, hummingbirds, bluebirds, and much more. Available at www.alanmurphyphotography.com/ebook.htm. |
Bayshore Summer: Finding Eden in a Most Unlikely Place, by Pete Dunne, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010, 288 pages, $24, hardcover.
Eden in our midst
Our readers love the Delaware Bayshore. They consistently vote it a favorite place to watch hawks and other birds. And as Pete Dunne reveals in this volume — the second in a series that also includes Prairie Spring, an equally lovely ode to the heart of our country — there is ample reason for such affection. |
The American Bird Conservancy Guide to Bird Conservation, by Daniel J. Lebbin, Michael J. Parr, and George H. Fenwick, University of Chicago Press, 2010, 456 pages, $45, hardcover.
Guide to bird conservation
Hands down, this is the most important book of the year, one every birdwatcher should own. It provides distribution, threats, and conservation status for all 212 WatchList species in the U.S. It describes the habitats all birds rely on — the authors have organized these into 12 beautiful “birdscapes.” (“Grasslands and Prairies” is above.) It analyzes the human causes of bird mortality. And most important, it lays out an achievable plan of action for safeguarding our country’s rich birdlife and how you can help. |
Birds of Southeastern Arizona, by Richard Cachor Taylor, R.W. Morse Company, 2010, 440 pages, $19.95, paperback.
Arizona field guide
Rick Taylor, author of the indispensable A Birder’s Guide to Southeastern Arizona, has packed loads of info into this compact, easy-to-use new field guide. He provides ID tips, elevational charts, and notes on records, behaviors, calls, and habitats for more than 400 species, including residents, migrants, and Mexican vagrants. Essential. |
Birds of the West Indies, by Norman Arlott, Princeton University Press, 2010, 240 pages, $24.95, paperback.
Fits in your pocket
This book doesn’t pretend to be the complete reference to the region — that job was well done by A Guide to the Birds of the West Indies by Herbert Raffaele and others (512 pages, Princeton, 1998) — but it includes all the species from Grand Bahama to Grenada, and it fits in your pocket.
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The Great Penguin Rescue: 40,000 Penguins, a Devastating Oil Spill, and the Inspiring Story of the World's Largest Animal Rescue, by Dyan deNapoli, Free Press, 2010, 320 pages, $26, hardcover.
An oil rescue done right
In the wake of the BP disaster and its botched bird recovery, it’s gratifying to read Dyan deNapoli’s new book. In it, the New England Aquarium penguin expert describes the successful effort to rescue 20,000 oiled African Penguins in South Africa in 2000. The lesson: When the job is done right, birds can be saved and returned to the wild. |
The Biggest Twitch: Around the world in 4,000 birds, by Alan Davies and Ruth Miller, Christopher Helm Publishers Ltd, 2010, 320 pages, £12.99, paperback.
Toucan Highway
In 2008, inspired by Kingbird Highway, Kenn Kaufman’s famous account of his quest to set a year-list record for North America, the authors sold their houses, left their jobs, and set out to break a year-list record for the world. The result, as Kaufman writes in the foreword, is a page-turner.
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Bird Songs Bible: The Complete, Illustrated Reference for North American Birds, by Les Beletsky, Chronicle Books, 2010, 536 pages, $125, hardcover.
Symphony of birds
Over the last few years, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Chronicle Books have teamed up to produce several memorable books of bird songs that include attached audio players. Now the publishers, along with ornithologist Les Beletsky and a team of top-notch illustrators, have outdone themselves with Bird Songs Bible. It features 747 species from Canada and the United States, including dozens of native and non-native species from Hawaii. Beautiful paintings of each bird appear alongside descriptions that include notes on distribution, habitat, behavior, and vocalizations. We love browsing through it, studying each illustration, and, of course, playing the songs and calls on the fun, easy-to-use audio player. |
Birds of Australia: Eighth Edition (Princeton Field Guides), by Ken Simpson and Nicolas Day, Princeton University Press, 2010, 392 pages, $39.50, hardcover.
Australia revisited
This field guide’s gorgeous new edition will whet your appetite for a trip down under. It covers all 780 of the continent’s birds. For each species, you’ll find authoritative text, range maps, and color illustrations. More than 900 black-and-white sketches — depicting nests, chicks, face patterns, bill profiles, flight styles, and more — accompany many accounts. |
Global Birding: Traveling the World in Search of Birds, by Les Beletsky, National Geographic, 2010, 320 pages, $35, hardcover.
Birds of the world
Of the world’s 10,000 or so bird species, only 7 percent can be found in North America. To see the others, you have to go — to the West Indies, Mexico, and Central and South America; to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa; to Asia, Australasia, and the Pacific. This book tells where to look and when, and provides page after page of superb armchair birding. |
The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America, by Donald and Lillian Stokes, Little, Brown and Company, 2010, 816 pages, $24.99, paperback.
A field guide to fast-forward your birding skills
The new Stokes guide uses photographs, more than 3,400 of them, to describe 854 species. We interviewed the authors recently. The full text is on BirdersWorld.com. Here’s an excerpt:
You write: “In the history of North American bird identification, shape has taken a backseat to plumage colors.” Do birdwatchers outside North America use shape more and rely on plumage less? Where?
We believe that Europeans often look more closely at shape than Americans.... There is a movement among American birders to start to use shape more, and we think this will increase. However, many birders, at all levels, have not yet developed their abilities to see and describe shape and, as a result, do not trust it as an accurate ID tool. Once you start to use shape, you will fast-forward your birding skills.
You write: “Excellent, well-chosen photographs are always more detailed and more accurate than a drawing.” In what ways?
This is particularly true when it comes to shape, feather wear, feather detail, and color placement. Because a bird’s shape is a composite of so many subtly interacting components, it is rare that a drawing puts them all together accurately enough to get a true representation.
Did you ever have difficulty obtaining photos that showed what you wanted to describe?
Yes! But in photographic field guides, this is what distinguishes a great guide — how hard you work to get exactly the right photo. You have to go the extra mile to look for and find just the right photo to show the clues you want to highlight. This is often mistakenly said to be a difference between drawings and photos, but it is not. It is not inherent in photos that they do not show the clues; it is simply a matter of leg work to find the perfect photo.
Will we see a version of the field guide on our smartphones soon?
We are considering it.
Read the full interview with Don and Lillian Stokes.
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