New Titles

 

1) Rashid, Scott. Northern Saw-whet Owl: The Deep Woods Gnome. 2021. Self-published. Paperback: 123 pages. Price: $34.99 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: The diminutive Northern Saw-whet Owl is the smallest owl found in the east and one of the smallest in the west. Like the other small owls, Northern Saw-whet Owls are a secondary cavity-nesting species that prefer nesting in Northern Flicker cavities and also readily take to, and nest in nest boxes. Knowing this, I have built and placed more than 80 nest boxes for these owls, and placed them throughout the mountains of Northern Colorado. Having these boxes in place and finding several owls nesting in natural cavities, has given me the opportunity to study their nesting habits and food preferences. By trapping and banding the owls in the fall, has given me some insight into their movements after their nesting season has ended. Within the pages of Northern Saw-whet Owl (The Deep Woods Gnome) you will read about the bird’s natural history including their courtship, nesting, food preferences, and movements.

RECOMMENDATION: A must have for those with a serious interest in the Northern Saw-whet Owl.

 

2) Meiburg, Jonathan. A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World's Smartest Birds of Prey. 2021. Knopf. Hardbound: 366 pages. Price: $30.00 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: An enthralling account of a modern voyage of discovery as we meet the clever, social birds of prey called caracaras, which puzzled Darwin, fascinate modern-day falconers, and carry secrets of our planet's deep past in their family history.

     In 1833, Charles Darwin was astonished by an animal he met in the Falkland Islands: handsome, social, and oddly crow-like falcons that were "tame and inquisitive . . . quarrelsome and passionate," and so insatiably curious that they stole hats, compasses, and other valuables from the crew of the Beagle. Darwin wondered why these birds were confined to remote islands at the tip of South America, sensing a larger story, but he set this mystery aside and never returned to it.
 
      Almost two hundred years later, Jonathan Meiburg takes up this chase. He takes us through South America, from the fog-bound coasts of Tierra del Fuego to the tropical forests of Guyana, in search of these birds: striated caracaras, which still exist, though they're very rare. He reveals the wild, fascinating story of their history, origins, and possible futures. And along the way, he draws us into the life and work of William Henry Hudson, the Victorian writer and naturalist who championed caracaras as an unsung wonder of the natural world, and to falconry parks in the English countryside, where captive caracaras perform incredible feats of memory and problem-solving. A Most Remarkable Creature is a hybrid of science writing, travelogue, and biography, as generous and accessible as it is sophisticated, and absolutely riveting.

RECOMMENDATION: Fans of Owls of the Eastern Ice should enjoy this book!

 

 

3) Dunn, Jon. The Glitter in the Green: In Search of Hummingbirds. 2021. Basic Books. Hardbound: 331 pages. Price: $30.00 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: Hummingbirds are a glittering, sparkling collective of over three hundred wildly variable species. For centuries, they have been revered by indigenous Americans, coveted by European collectors, and admired worldwide for their unsurpassed metallic plumage and immense character. Yet they exist on a knife-edge, fighting for survival in boreal woodlands, dripping cloud forests, and subpolar islands. They are, perhaps, the ultimate embodiment of evolution's power to carve a niche for a delicate creature in even the harshest of places.

     Traveling the full length of the hummingbirds' range, from the cusp of the Arctic Circle to near-Antarctic islands, acclaimed nature writer Jon Dunn encounters birders, scientists, and storytellers in his quest to find these beguiling creatures, immersing us in the world of one of Earth's most charismatic bird families.

RECOMMENDATION: Lovers of hummingbirds will enjoy this book!

 

4) Sheldon, Ian and Tamara Hartson. Washington and Oregon Animal Tracks. 2021. Lone Pine. Paperback: 160 pages. Price: $10.95 U.S. 

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: Washington and Oregon abound with many species of animals and this book will help you identify their tracks. Concise descriptions of the animals and their tracks are combined with detailed drawings of the front and back prints, stride patterns and other important identifying aspects. A perfect guide for teachers, parents, hikers and urban adventurers.

RECOMMENDATION: Other titles in this series include Rocky Mountain and Northern California. These little guides are now in color and will fit easily into your backpack or large pockets!

 

5) Page, Lawrence M. and Brooks M. Burr. Peterson Field Guide to Freshwater Fishes of North America North of Mexico (second edition). 2011. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Paperback: 663 pages. Price: $25.99 U.S.   

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: There are nearly 1,000 species of freshwater fishes in North America alone, and identifying them can sometimes be a daunting task. In fact, in just the twenty years since publication of the first edition of the Peterson Field Guide to Freshwater Fishes, the number of species has risen by almost 150, including 19 marine invaders and 16 newly established nonnative species. This second edition incorporates all of these new species, plus all-new maps and a collection of new and revised plates. Some of the species can be told apart only by minute differences in coloration or shape, and these beautifully illustrated plates reveal exactly how to distinguish each species.
     The guide includes detailed maps and information showing where to locate each species of fish—whether that species can be found in miles-long stretches of river or small pools that cover only dozens of square feet. The ichthyologic world of the twenty-first century is not the same as it was in the twentieth, and this brand-new edition of the definitive field guide to freshwater fishes reflects these many changes. 

RECOMMENDATION: The number of plates have increased from 48 to 57. The range maps are now in color. If you own the first edition you will want the second edition.  

 

6) Kemp, Christopher. The Lost Species: Great Expeditions in the Collections of Natural History Museums. 2020 (2017). The University of Chicago Press. Paperback: 250 pages. Price: $21.00 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: The tiny, lungless Thorius salamander from southern Mexico, thinner than a match and smaller than a quarter. The lushly white-coated Saki, an arboreal monkey from the Brazilian rainforests. The olinguito, a native of the Andes, which looks part mongoose, part teddy bear. These fantastic species are all new to science—at least newly named and identified; but they weren’t discovered in the wild, instead, they were unearthed in the drawers and cavernous basements of natural history museums. As Christopher Kemp reveals in The Lost Species, hiding in the cabinets and storage units of natural history museums is a treasure trove of discovery waiting to happen.

      With Kemp as our guide, we go spelunking into museum basements, dig through specimen trays, and inspect the drawers and jars of collections, scientific detectives on the hunt for new species. We discover king crabs from 1906, unidentified tarantulas, mislabeled Himalayan landsnails, an unknown rove beetle originally collected by Darwin, and an overlooked squeaker frog, among other curiosities. In each case, these specimens sat quietly for decades—sometimes longer than a century—within the collections of museums, before sharp-eyed scientists understood they were new. Each year, scientists continue to encounter new species in museum collections—a stark reminder that we have named only a fraction of the world’s biodiversity. Sadly, some specimens have waited so long to be named that they are gone from the wild before they were identified, victims of climate change and habitat loss. As Kemp shows, these stories showcase the enduring importance of these very collections.

      The Lost Species vividly tells these stories of discovery—from the latest information on each creature to the people who collected them and the scientists who finally realized what they had unearthed—and will inspire many a museum-goer to want to peek behind the closed doors and rummage through the archives.

RECOMMENDATION: This well received title is now available in paperback.