Sunday, February 25, 2024

New Titles

 


1) Lovitch, Derek J.. Birdwatching in Maine: The Complete Site Guide (Second Edition). 2024. Brandeis University Press. Paperback: 482 pages. Price: $35.00 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: An invaluable site guide for New England birders, now available in a new updated edition.

     With over 470 species of birds recorded, Maine offers an abundance of birding opportunities for people of all levels of interest and experience, from those looking beyond their backyards for the first time to knowledgeable visitors looking to plug a hole in their list of sightings. The state’s wealth of undeveloped land and its extensive coastline, countless islands, and varied habitat combine to host an impressive diversity of birds at all times of the year. Birders travel to Maine from near and far to seek hard-to-find species, from the only Atlantic puffins breeding in the United States on offshore islands to Bicknell’s thrushes high in the mountains.

     This book fills an important niche for the birdwatching community by offering comprehensive entries detailing the best locations for finding birds throughout the state for enthusiasts of all levels of skill and interest. It contains descriptions of 202 birding sites in Maine, with explicit directions on how to get there, for all sixteen of the state’s counties, several as large as other New England states! Each chapter features a county map, a brief overview by Derek J. Lovitch, numerous specific site guides, and a list of rarities. The book also contains a detailed and useful species accounts guide for finding the most sought-after birds.
 
      Lavishly illustrated in color throughout,
Birdwatching in Maine is the best available resource for finding birds in the largest of the New England states. This updated edition features a new introduction, as well as new birding sites and maps.
RECOMMENDATION: This book is a must-have for anyone birding Maine!  

 


 

2) Goodfellow, Peter. Avian Architecture Revised and Expanded Edition: How Birds Design, Engineer, and Build. 2024. Princeton University Press. Hardbound: 176 pages. Price: $29.95 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: The essential illustrated guide to how birds design and build their nests—now fully revised and expanded.

     Birds are the most consistently inventive builders, and their nests set the bar for functional design in nature. Describing how birds design, engineer, and build their nests, Avian Architecture deconstructs all types of nests found around the world using architectural blueprints and detailed descriptions of the construction processes and engineering techniques birds use.

     This spectacularly illustrated book features more than 300 full-color images and more than 40 case studies that profile key species worldwide. Each chapter covers a different type of nest, from tunnel nests and mound nests to floating nests, hanging nests, woven nests, and even multiple-nest avian cities. Other kinds of avian construction—such as bowers and food stores—are also featured.

     Now with more case studies and an updated foreword, this revised and expanded edition includes intricate step-by-step sequences, visual spreads on nest-building materials and methods, and insightful commentary by a leading expert.

  • Illustrates how birds around the world design, engineer, and build their nests
  • Features architectural blueprints, step-by-step sequences, visual spreads on nest-building materials and methods, and expert commentary
  • Includes more than 300 full-color images
  • Covers more than 100 bird species worldwide
RECOMMENDATION: This book is a must-read for anyone with an interest in this aspect of bird behavior.
 

3) Pálsson, Gísli. The Last of Its Kind: The Search for the Great Auk and the Discovery of Extinction. 2024. Princeton University Press. Hardbound: 291 pages. Price: $27.95 U.S.
PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: How an iconic bird’s final days exposed the reality of human-caused extinction.
     The Great Auk is one of the most tragic and documented examples of extinction. A flightless bird that bred primarily on the remote islands of the North Atlantic, the last of its kind were killed in Iceland in 1844. Gísli Pálsson draws on firsthand accounts from the Icelanders who hunted the last great auks to bring to life a bygone age of Victorian scientific exploration while offering vital insights into the extinction of species.


      Pálsson vividly recounts how British ornithologists John Wolley and Alfred Newton set out for Iceland to collect specimens only to discover that the Great Auks were already gone. At the time, the Victorian world viewed extinction as an impossibility or trivialized it as a natural phenomenon. Pálsson chronicles how Wolley and Newton documented the fate of the last birds through interviews with the men who killed them, and how the naturalists’ Icelandic journey opened their eyes to the disappearance of species as a subject of scientific concern—and as something that could be caused by humans.

       Blending a richly evocative narrative with rare, unpublished material as well as insights from ornithology, anthropology, and Pálsson’s own North Atlantic travels,
The Last of Its Kind reveals how the saga of the Great Auk opens a window onto the human causes of mass extinction.

RECOMMENDATION: This book is a must-read for anyone with an interest in the Great Auk and/or bird extinctions. 

 


 

4) McCune, Bruce and Linda Geiser. Macrolichens of the Pacific Northwest (Third Edition). 2024. Oregon State University Press. Paperback: 549 pages. Price: $45.00 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: A key component in healthy ecosystems, lichens can be found in almost any natural habitat in the Pacific Northwest. This comprehensive guide to the region’s macrolichens is intended for use by beginners as well as specialists: weekend naturalists will be able to identify specimens and recognize the great diversity of lichens, while lichenologists and mycologists will gain greater knowledge of the distribution and abundance of various species.

      This updated third edition of
Macrolichens of the Pacific Northwest includes 95 additional species and an expanded introduction. It features keys to 109 genera and 681 species of Oregon and Washington macrolichens—all the macrolichens known or expected to occur in the two states. The keys also provide excellent coverage for lichens of Idaho and Montana, inland to the Continental Divide. Color photographs and detailed descriptions emphasize lichens prevalent in forested ecosystems.

      The illustrated glossary and introductory material cover the terminology needed to identify macrolichens and provide information on collection and handling. The biology, ecology, and air-quality sensitivity of lichens are discussed; regional air-quality sensitivities are provided for nearly 200 species.

      Macrolichens of the Pacific Northwest will prove invaluable to anyone seeking to identify lichens or to better understand these organisms and their vital role in the natural world. 

RECOMMENDATION: This book is a must-have for anyone with an interest in the lichens of the region!  

 

 

5) Turner, Mark and Sami Gray. Weeds of the Pacific Northwest: 368 Unwanted Plants and How to Control Them. 2024. Timber Press. Paperback: 455 pages. Price: $34.99 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: A comprehensive guide to the most common weeds of the Pacific Northwest, with essential information on their management and eradication.
 
      Weeds are everywhere. They crowd out valuable agricultural crops, compete with the tomatoes and beans in your vegetable garden, spread rampantly along roadsides, and pop up from the tiniest cracks in sidewalks. In order to manage them, we must first learn how to identify them.
 
     Weeds of the Pacific Northwest is a guide to identifying, controlling, and eradicating over 300 species of weeds that gardeners and homeowners are likely to encounter in Northern California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. Though they can all cause trouble, each weed is different. The hundreds of user-friendly photographs and detailed descriptions of each species here ensure that you can spot and treat any weed in your path.  As the experts behind this book demonstrate, some plants can be killed by eating them, some by digging, some by smothering, and some only by the judicious application of chemical herbicides—and it is very important for you and your neighbors to know and understand the differences. 

RECOMMENDATION: This book is a must-have for anyone with an interest in the weeds of the region!

 


 

6) Williams, Kevin et al.. Velvet Ants of North America. 2024. Princeton University Press. Flexibound: 440 pages. Price: $35.00 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: An authoritative, marvelously illustrated field guide to the velvet ants of North America.



7) English, Neil. Choosing & Using Binoculars: A Guide for Star Gazers, Birders and Outdoor Enthusiasts. 2024. Springer. Paperback: 523 pages. Price: $32.99 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: Binoculars are life enhancing instruments, uniquely capable of bringing the intricacies of nature into sharp focus. Whether it be birds, majestic lakes and seas, alpine vistas, wild animals or exploring the glories of the night sky, anyone interested in buying binoculars today will be faced with a bewildering number of different models to choose from!

     This book walks the reader through the fascinating world of binoculars, past and present, while exploring all of the main binocular types, their desirable features, how to test out and narrow down the choices a prospective customer should make, as well as looking at some of the best and most-sought-after binoculars money can buy. Uniquely experienced writer and binocular enthusiast, Dr. Neil English, takes the pain out of narrowing down the search for your ideal binocular, whether your budget is $50 or $5,000. Dr. English explores many of the timeless beauties of the binocular world, crafted by top European and Japanese manufacturers, such as Swarovski, Zeiss, Nikon, Leica and others. Sumptuously illustrated throughout with full color images, Choosing & Using Binoculars decodes all the technical jargon without sacrificing accuracy and presents the world’s best compendium of binocular literature for the birder, hunter, inveterate traveler, nature enthusiast and star gazer. Don’t leave home without it!

RECOMMENDATION: Due to size limitations, not all binocular models that birders use are listed in this book, but your average birder should find some good information here.

 


 

8) Varichon, Anne. Color Charts: A History. 2024. Princeton University Press. Hardbound: 284 pages. Price: $55.00 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: A beautifully illustrated history of the many inventive, poetic, and alluring ways in which color swatches have been selected and staged.

     The need to categorize and communicate color has mobilized practitioners and scholars for centuries. Color Charts describes the many different methods and ingenious devices developed since the fifteenth century by doctors, naturalists, dyers, and painters to catalog fragments of colors. With the advent of industrial society, manufacturers and merchants developed some of the most beautiful and varied tools ever designed to present all the available colors. Thanks to them, society has discovered the abundance of color embodied in a plethora of materials: cuts of fabric, leather, paper, and rubber; slats of wood and linoleum; delicate skeins of silk; careful deposits of paint and pastels; fragments of lipstick; and arrangements of flower petals. These samples shape a visual culture and a chromatic vocabulary and instill a deep desire for color.

     Anne Varichon traces the emergence of modern color charts from a set of processes developed over the centuries in various contexts. She presents illuminating examples that bring this remarkable story to life, from ancient writings revealing attention to precise shade to contemporary designers’ color charts, dyers’ notebooks, and Werner’s famous color nomenclature. Varichon argues that color charts have linked generations of artists, artisans, scientists, industrialists, and merchants, and have played an essential and enduring role in the way societies think about color.

     Drawing on nearly two hundred documents from public and private collections, almost all of them previously unpublished, this wonderfully illustrated book shows how the color chart, in its many distinct forms and expressions, is a practical tool that has transcended its original purpose to become an educational aid and subject of contemplation worthy of being studied and admired.

RECOMMENDATION: This color charts book concentrates on commercially used color charts and not those used by naturalists. It barely mentions Waller's,Werner's, and Munsell's charts and ignores others (e.g. Ridgway, Smithe, etc.).