1) MacKinnon, John.
Oxford University Press. Paperback: 511 pages. Price: $
China covers about 7% of the earth's land surface and encompasses a
hugely diverse range of habitats. As a result, it boasts a rich and
diverse avifauna, including some of the most spectacular and fascinating
birds to be found anywhere in the world.
Building on the enormous popularity and reputation of the original A Field Guide to the Birds of China
(2000), John MacKinnon's fully updated and refreshed work remains a
truly comprehensive, taxonomically modern, fully illustrated, and
authoritative field guide. 1484 bird species are richly
illustrated
in 164 annotated colour plates, which are closely integrated with
up-to-date colour distribution maps, QR codes providing easy access to
birdcalls, IUCN Red List status indicators and new, concise
descriptions. These descriptions feature key observations as well as
conveying crucial
changes to species distributions resulting from climate change and landscape transformation.
Guide to the Birds of China
will appeal to an international and growing audience of professional
and amateur ornithologists and birding enthusiasts, academic researchers
and students, wildlife photographers, and conservationists.
RECOMMENDATION: Currently the best available English language guide to the birds of China.
2) Adriaens, Peter et al..
Gulls occupy a particularly important place in the world of
birds. But because they are notoriously difficult to identify, they have
been relatively neglected in the ornithological literature. Gulls of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East
offers the most up-to-date guide for gull identification in Europe and
beyond. With a direct and visual approach, and an abundance of beautiful
color photographs, this book provides thorough accounts of all species
and subspecies of gulls found in the Western Palearctic. The guide
compares similar taxa and addresses the complexities of identifying
hybrids. Gulls of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East will be the standard work for identifying these birds for some time to come.
- Richly illustrated with nearly 1,400 color photographs
- Thorough accounts of all species and subspecies of gulls found in the Western Palearctic
- Up-to-date information for easy and accurate identification of 45 species
RECOMMENDATION: A must have for all Laridophiles!
3) Bildstein, Keith L.. Comstock Publishing Associates. Hardbound: 244 pages. Price: $34.95 U.S.
Bildstein's latest work is
an inspirational and long overdue blend of all things vulture. Based on
decades of personal experience, dozens of case studies, and numerous
up-to-date examples of cutting-edge science, this book introduces
readers to the essential nature of vultures and condors. Not only do
these most proficient of all vertebrate scavengers clean up natural and
man-made organic waste but they also recycle ecologically essential
elements back into both wild and human landscapes, allowing our
ecosystems to function successfully across generations of organisms.
With distributions ranging over more than three-quarters of all land on
five continents, the world's twenty-three species of scavenging birds of
prey offer an outstanding example of biological diversity writ large.
Included
in the world's species fold are its most abundant large raptors―several
of its longest lived birds and the most massive of all soaring birds.
With a fossil record dating back more than fifty million years, vultures
and condors possess numerous adaptions that characteristically serve
them well but at times also make them particularly vulnerable to human
actions. Vultures of the World is a truly global treatment of vultures, offering a roadmap of how best to protect these birds and their important ecology.
RECOMMENDATION: A must have for all vulture fans!
4) Richie, Marina. Oregon State University Press. Paperback: 251 pages. Price: $
More
than one hundred species of kingfishers brighten every continent but
Antarctica. Not all are fishing birds. They range in size from the
African dwarf kingfisher to the laughing kookaburra of Australia. This
first book to feature North America’s belted kingfisher is a lyrical
story of observation, revelation, and curiosity in the presence of
flowing waters.
The kingfisher—also known as the halcyon bird—is
linked to the mythic origin of halcyon days, a state of happiness that
Marina Richie hopes to find outside her back door in Missoula, Montana.
Epiphanies and a citizen science discovery punctuate days tracking a
bird that outwits at every turn. The female is more colorful than the
male (unusual and puzzling) and the birds’ earthen nest holes are
difficult to locate.
While the heart of the drama takes place on
Rattlesnake Creek in Missoula, the author’s adventures in search of
kingfisher kin on the lower Rio Grande, in South Africa, and in London
illuminate her relationships with the birds of Montana. In the quiet of
winter, she explores tribal stories of the kingfisher as messenger and
helper, pivotal qualities for her quest. For all who love birds or
simply seek solace in nature, Halcyon Journey is an inviting introduction to the mythic and mysterious belted kingfisher.
RECOMMENDATION: A must read for anyone with an interest in Belted Kingfishers.
5) Hunting, Jill.
In
1872, a young graduate of Yale University named Thomas Russell
unearthed the bones of an 83,000,000-year-old dinosaur in western
Kansas. The rare fossil, an avian dinosaur with teeth and flightless
wings, proved that birds evolved from reptiles. More than a century
later, Russell’s great-granddaughter set out to retrace her ancestor’s
forgotten expedition. Part detective history, part memoir, For Want of Wings is Jill Hunting’s captivating account of her journey into prehistory, national history, and family history.
In her quest to piece together fragments of her family’s past, Hunting
ends up crisscrossing the United States, from California to Connecticut.
On her first trip across the Colorado Rockies to the fossil bed site
near Russell Springs, Kansas, Hunting brings along her then
twenty-six-year-old daughter. When the book opens, mother and daughter
are both at crossroads, each seeking to understand the impact of
personal decisions on the landscape of her life.
As Hunting
ventures forward, she encounters unexpected resources, such as
ten-year-old triplets who converse with her about dinosaurs and a
Connecticut museum where portraits of her ancestors hang on the walls.
Through lively descriptions of these visits, Hunting advances a view of
history as nonlinear and full of unlikely coincidences.
For Want of Wings
is also the carefully researched story of the least known of Yale’s
four expeditions into the American West, led by eminent paleontologist
O. C. Marsh; the friendship between Russell’s father and abolitionist
John Brown; a portrait of a mother and daughter evolving in
self-understanding; and an inquiry into matters of race in American
history and the author’s own family. In the end, all these pieces
converge, like fragments of a fossil, to form an exquisitely patterned
work of historical exploration.
RECOMMENDATION: A must read for anyone with an interest in fossil birds and/or paleontological history!
6) Taylor, Marianne.
Featuring dramatic and delightful wild bird colonies and communities, How Birds Live Together
offers a broad overview of social living in the avian world. From
long-established seabird colonies that use the same cliffs for
generations to the fast-shifting dynamics of flock formation, leading
wildlife writer Marianne Taylor explores the different ways birds choose
to dwell together.
Through fascinating text, color photos, maps,
and other graphics, Taylor examines the advantages of avian sociality
and social breeding. Chapters provide detailed information on diverse
types of bird colonies, including those species that construct
single-family nests close together in trees; those that share large,
communal nests housing multiple families; those that nest in tunnels dug
into the earth; those that form exposed colonies on open ground and
defend them collectively, relying on ferocious aggression; those that
live communally on human-made structures in towns and cities; and more.
Taylor discusses the challenges, benefits, hazards, and social dynamics
of each style of living, and features a wealth of species as examples.
Showcasing colonies from the edge of Scotland and the tropical delta of the Everglades to the Namib Desert in Africa, How Birds Live Together gives bird enthusiasts a vivid understanding of avian social communities.
RECOMMENDATION: A must read for anyone with an interest in bird behavior.
7) Whitelaw, John P. et al. (editors).
Comstock Publishing Associates. Hardbound: 157 pages. Price: $39.95 U.S.
Elusive Birds of the Tropical Understory is an arresting visual trip to the unseen corners of the Neotropical forest understory.
Edited by John P. Whitelaw, Jeffrey D. Brawn, Henry S. Pollock, and
John W. Fitzpatrick, this book combines unique images of tropical birds
with inspired essays by leaders in the world of modern ornithology.
With
one-of-a-kind photos of seldom-documented birds, the authors use
photography as a conservation tool. Many of the birds are more often
heard than seen―not much is known about some of them, and much of what
we do know is found in historical natural history literature, not
contemporary accounts. Due to dense vegetation, low light conditions,
and the birds' furtive behavior and cryptic coloring, they are
notoriously difficult to photograph. Yet, Elusive Birds of the Tropical Understory
delves deep into the Panamanian forest understory to show why these
birds should be included in discussion of the current conservation
crisis. What these species lack in bright colors they make up for in
distinctive behaviors, subtle plumage patterns, and ongoing mystery.
Elusive Birds of the Tropical Understory invites and inspires naturalists of all ages to take a closer look at a fascinating assemblage of overlooked birds.
RECOMMENDATION: A must have for anyone with an interest in Neotropical forest birds!
8) Milton, Nicholas. Pen and Sword History. Hardbound: 206 pages. Price: $49.95 U.S.
A
love of birds has always been an important part of the British way of
life but in wartime birds came into their own, helping to define our
national identity. One the most popular bird books ever, Watching Birds, was published in 1940 while songs like There’ll be Bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover epitomized the blitz spirit. Birds even featured in wartime propaganda movies like the 1941 classic The First of the Few
starring Leslie Howard where they inspired the design of the Spitfire.
Along the coast flooding to prevent a German invasion helped the avocet
make a remarkable return while the black redstart found an unlikely home
in our bombed-out buildings.
As interesting as the birds were
some of the people who watched them. Matthew Rankin and Eric Duffey
counted seabirds while looking for U-boats. Tom Harrisson, the
mastermind behind Mass Observation, watched people ‘as if they were
birds’ while POW Guy Madoc wrote a truly unique book on Malayan birds,
typed on paper stolen from the Japanese commandant’s office. For Field
Marshall Alan Brooke, Britain’s top soldier, filming birds was his way
of coping with the continual demands of Winston Churchill. In
comparison, Peter Scott was a wildfowler who was roused by Adolf Hitler
before the war but after serving with distinction in the Royal Navy
became one of the greatest naturalists of his generation.
With a foreword by Chris Packham CBE Birds in the Second World War is the story of how ornithology helped to win the war.
RECOMMENDATION: A must read for anyone with an interest in World War Two history and/or ornithological history.
9) Prothero, Donald R.. CRC Press. Paperback: 448 pages. Price: $69.95 U.S.
The first vertebrate animals appear in the fossil record over
520 million years ago. These lineages diversified and eventually crept
ashore leading to further evolutionary divergence and the appearance of
the familiar charismatic vertebrates of today. From the tiniest fishes,
diminutive salamanders, and miniaturized lizards to gargantuan
dinosaurs, enormous brontotheres, and immense whales, vertebrates have
captured the imagination of the lay public as well as the most erudite
academics. They are the among the best studied organisms. This book
employs beautifully rendered illustrations of these diverse lineages
along with informative text to document a rich evolutionary history. The
prolific and best-selling author reveals much of the latest findings
regarding the phylogenetic history of vertebrates without overwhelming
the reader with pedantry and excessive jargon. Simultaneously,
comprehensive and authoritative while being approachable and lucid, this
book should appeal to both the scholar, the student, and the fossil
enthusiast. Key Features:
- Provides an up-to-date account of evolution of vertebrates
- Includes numerous beautiful color reconstructions of prehistoric vertebrates
- Describes extinct vertebrates and their evolutionary history
- Discusses
and illustrates the first vertebrates, as well as familiar lineages of
fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals
- Reviews mass extinctions and other important events in the diversification of vertebrates
RECOMMENDATION: A must have for anyone with an interest in vertebrate evolution!
10) Forth, Gregory. Pegasus Books. Hardbound: 279 pages. Price: $28.95 U.S.
A
remarkable investigation into the hominoids of Flores Island, their
place on the evolutionary spectrum—and whether or not they still
survive.
While doing fieldwork on the remote
Indonesian island of Flores, anthropologist Gregory Forth came across
people talking about half-apelike, half-humanlike creatures that once
lived in a cave on the slopes of a nearby volcano. Over the years he
continued to record what locals had to say about these mystery hominoids
while searching for ways to explain them as imaginary symbols of the
wild or other cultural representations.
Then along came the
‘hobbit’. In 2003, several skeletons of a small-statured early human
species alongside stone tools and animal remains were excavated in a
cave in western Flores. Named Homo floresiensis,
this ancient hominin was initially believed to have lived until as
recently as 12,000 years ago—possibly overlapping with the appearance
of Homo sapiens on Flores. In view of this timing and the striking resemblance of floresiensis to
the mystery creatures described by the islanders, Forth began to think
about the creatures as possibly reflecting a real species, either now
extinct but retained in ‘cultural memory’ or even still surviving.
He
began to investigate reports from the Lio region of the island where
locals described 'ape-men' as still living. Dozens claimed to have even
seen them.
In Between Ape and Human, we
follow Forth on the trail of this mystery hominoid, and the space they
occupy in islanders’ culture as both natural creatures and as
supernatural beings. In a narrative filled with adventure, Lio culture
and language, zoology and natural history, Forth comes to a startling
and controversial conclusion.
Unique, important, and
thought-provoking, this book will appeal to anyone interested in human
evolution, the survival of species (including our own) and how humans
might relate to ‘not-quite-human’ animals. Between Ape and Human is essential
reading for all those interested in cryptozoology, and it is the only
firsthand investigation by a leading anthropologist into the possible
survival of a primitive species of human into recent times—and its
coexistence with modern humans.
RECOMMENDATION: A must read for anyone with an interest in cryptozoology and/or paleo-anthropology.
