10,000 Birds

APRIL 2, 2019

I think that’s great; even if these birds remain officially at the subspecies level in the future, it is tremendously helpful to have more information about them. There are no distribution maps, which makes me wonder how much information we miss when we rely only on maps. What is in the Species Accounts? Photographs.

North America 142

North America Sparrows America United States 142

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 13, 2013

Click here for more information on his photography. You can click here for more information about Year of the Eagle. While these adults were not banded, it is well documented that Bald Eagles are monogamous and return to the same nest each year. Year of the Eagle is his third book.

Eagles 181

Eagles Bald Eagle Seattle Game 181

10,000 Birds

JUNE 19, 2013

Plus the fact that they only lay one egg per season which is incubated for about four weeks and the chicks don’t fledge for another fifty days gives you some notion as to why these birds are a Species of Special Concern. The Black Swift is considered a Species of Special Concern in California.

California 201

California North America Costa Rica Niger 201

10,000 Birds

APRIL 2, 2013

For ornithologists, it is the documentation of a multi-year project designed to record the distribution and abundance of birds in a specific area (in North America, usually a state or a province), utilizing a mapping method involving blocks and grids. Let’s hear it for the return of the forest!

Pennsylvania 220

Pennsylvania Breeding Birds Sparrows 220

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 2, 2014

Phillipps’ Field Guide (I’ll be using this shortened form of the title) covers 673 avian species, including 59 endemics, and 53 species that have not been documented yet for the area but which may show up in the next few years. Borneo, the authors say, is under-birded. I think we need to do something about that.

Brunei 172

Brunei Birds Asia China 172

10,000 Birds

MARCH 6, 2018

Think about it–how do you document the behavior of birds that spend years flying (or swimming) and feeding and, apparently, sleeping above or within the deep sea? Where does the female Emperor Penguin go after she has produced that one egg and handed it over to the male for incubation? Technology to the rescue!

Albatross 114

Albatross Penguins Research Breeding 114

10,000 Birds

JULY 4, 2023

Holt and his staff, several of which are also ‘characters’ in the book, do hard-core field work, finding owls, owl nests, documenting them and working with concerned and unconcerned organizations to inform public policy decision-making. Humans were drawing owls 36,000 years ago, as Ackerman points out!

Owls 200

Owls Science Barn Owls Penguins 200

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 1, 2013

And, in a very lovely section in the middle of the book, she describes the life cycle of the cahow, informing evocative passages about their nocturnal courtship and flight with recent research findings about how seabirds are able to function—eat, sleep, navigate home. This is a good read, informative and engaging.

Birds 164

Birds Rats Breeding 2012 164

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 20, 2023

As you can easily judge from the dullness of this information, it is not something I made up but rather an appalling example of nepotism in the naming of birds. In providing this information, they quote extensively from an ornithology book that was published 3 years before I was born (and I am not a young man).

China 217

China Birds Pythons Eagles 217

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 3, 2020

Plantema gives highly detailed information about the weather, terrain, ownership of and access to the islands and coasts where penguins breed. He draws on his personal experiences to inform the history, geography, and especially the travel option sections. © Otto Plantema, used with permission. © Otto Plantema, used with permission.

Penguins 277

Penguins Georgia New Zealand Albatross 277

10,000 Birds

JUNE 7, 2022

Practically every sentence is documented with these studies. Gorman’s personal field experience informs much of the text and his total grasp of the field means he relates one research finding to another with narrative ease. A 10-page Index is very helpful in locating topics, including country information.

Woodpeckers 224

Woodpeckers Hungary Thailand 2014 224

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 3, 2017

The authors emphasize in the Introduction the great degree to which the text and illustrations are based on current scientific information. And “Notes” contains information on distribution, habitat, migration patterns, noteworthy sightings for vagrants, as well as bits on behavior and nests. The maps, however are small.

Australia 105

Australia Birds Penguins 2015 105

10,000 Birds

JULY 2, 2019

This range of illustration continues throughout the 24 plates, reflecting, I assume, what has been documented and not documented for each species and the degree of difference between sexes and amongst subspecies. Most conveniently, we are given the page number of the species account for more–much more–information.

Research 136

Research Eggs South America Costa Rica 136

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 6, 2013

The books (and, I assume the series) share a web-type design construct in which information is organized visually, by blocked colored spaces, bar separators, and size and color of font. The where and how of egg laying and larva emergence is briefly treated, with page references to larval drawings at the back of the book.

Ireland 168

Ireland France Breeding Eggs 168

10,000 Birds

MARCH 1, 2019

While the hunting of game with trained birds of prey can be a controversial topic among birders , falconry was a valuable early source of information on birds, and its history, culture, and imagery continue to fascinate bird lovers, as we shall see. Few hobbies place such value on the written knowledge contained in books as does birding.

2015 113

2015 Italy Falcons Europe 113

10,000 Birds

MARCH 3, 2015

I also enjoyed the breeding photo series, showing Downy Woodpecker eggs and then hatchlings within a breeding chamber in a tree, with only a few wood chips to support them. No political boundaries are indicated, which makes using the book awkward when the map and the textual range information are on different pages.

Woodpeckers 234

Woodpeckers 2002 Europe Research 234