FEATURED TITLE

1) Kennerley, Peter and David Pearson. Reed and Bush Warblers. 2010. Helm Identification Guides. Hardbound: 712 pages. Price: 65 GBP (about $105.00 U.S.).
SUMMARY: This detailed and comprehensive identification guide follows in the mo(u)ld of Sylvia Warblers and Pipits and Wagtails. It primarily covers the genera Acrocephalus, Locustella, Cettia and Bradypterus, together with a few smaller related genera. To the uninitiated, these are the archetypal ‘little brown jobs’ and as if they weren’t hard enough to identify anyway, many of them are hard to see as well! This authoritative handbook covers their identification in breathtaking detail, illustrated with line drawings, sonograms, wonderful colour plates and photographs. It is destined to become the ultimate reference for these challenging birds.
RECOMMENDATION: Brian Small's artwork highlight this book! A must have for all World birders!

New Titles

1) Benson, Etienne. Wired Wilderness: Technologies of Tracking and the Making of Modern Wildlife. 2010. Johns Hopkins University Press. Hardbound: 251 pages. Price: $55.00 U.S.

SUMMARY: American wildlife biologists first began fitting animals with radio transmitters in the 1950s. By the 1980s the practice had proven so useful to scientists and nonscientists alike that it became global. Wired Wilderness is the first book—length study of the origin, evolution, use, and impact of these now—commonplace tracking technologies.
     Combining approaches from environmental history, the history of science and technology, animal studies, and the cultural and political history of the United States, Etienne Benson traces the radio tracking of wild animals across a wide range of institutions, regions, and species and in a variety of contexts. He explains how hunters, animal—rights activists, and other conservation—minded groups gradually turned tagging from a tool for control into a conduit for connection with wildlife. Drawing on extensive archival research, interviews with wildlife biologists and engineers, and in—depth case studies of specific conservation issues -- such as the management of deer, grouse, and other game animals in the upper Midwest and the conservation of tigers and rhinoceroses in Nepal -- Benson illuminates telemetry's context—dependent uses and meanings as well as commonalities among tagging practices.
     Wired Wilderness traces the evolution of the modern wildlife biologist's field practices and shows how the intense interest of nonscientists at once constrained and benefited the field. Scholars of and researchers involved in wildlife management will find this history both fascinating and revealing.
RECOMMENDATION: For those with an interest in the history of wildlife biology.

2) Dyson, Freeman (editor). The Best American Science and Nature Writing: 2010. 2010. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Paperback: 385 pages. Price: $14.95 U.S.
SUMMARY: Freeman Dyson, renowned physicist and public intellectual, edits this year’s volume of the finest science and nature writing. This edition contains 28 essays that cover topics such as astronomy and cosmology, neurology, nature writing, and the environment.
RECOMMENDATION: For anyone interested in good writing!

FEATURED TITLE

1) Porter, Richard and Simon Aspinall. Birds of the Middle East (second edition). 2010. Princeton University Press/Helm. Paperback: 384 pages. Price: $39.50 U.S.

SUMMARY: Birds of the Middle East is now the most field-ready and comprehensive guide to the fantastic birds of this region. This fully revised and updated second edition covers all species--including vagrants--found in the Arabian Peninsula (including Socotra), Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Cyprus. It features 176 superb color plates depicting more than 800 species, as well as 820 color distribution maps that show the breeding range for almost every species. In this upgraded edition, maps and detailed species accounts are now located opposite the plates, making this stunningly illustrated field guide easier to use than ever.
-The most comprehensive field guide to the birds of the Middle East
-Covers more than 800 species--including 100 not covered in the first edition
-Features 176 color plates depicting all species
-Includes detailed species accounts and 820 color distribution maps
-Text and maps now located opposite the color plates.
RECOMMENDATION: Anyone interested in the birds of the Middle East will want this book!

The weekly Birdbooker Report

My WEEKLY Birdbooker Report can be found here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2010/nov/07/4

New Titles

1) Beccaloni, George. Biggest Bugs (life-size!). 2010. Firefly Books. Hardbound: 84 pages. Price: $19.95 U.S.

SUMMARY: Biggest Bugs Life-size is a veritable jump-off-the-page spectacle for bug enthusiasts. It is the first book to include color photographs of 38 of the world's biggest, heaviest, longest and mightiest bugs reproduced at their actual size. Concise text gives all of the essential facts, including the bug's size, what it eats and who discovered it. Maps show where the bugs live.
     The book's dramatic gatefold shows the world's longest bug -- at 22-inches, the Chan's megastick is almost as long as an adult's arm. There is also the gargantuan cockroach, with the longest wingspan in the world, and the potentially pesky gigantea beefly, which is as big as a human eyeball. Even the names are big: giant hawker dragonfly, colossus earwig, giant tarantula hawk wasp, goliath bird-eating spider, Amazonian giant centipede, titan longhorn beetle.
Biggest Bugs Life-size shows the bugs as they are in real life, in brilliant color and in enormous photographs that readers won't soon forget.
RECOMMENDATION: For ages 9-12.

2) Phillips, Roger. Mushrooms and other Fungi of North America. 2010. Firefly Books. Paperback: 384 pages. Price: $29.95 U.S.
SUMMARY: For amateur collectors or professional mycologists working in the field, this guidebook is quite simply the best North American mushroom reference ever published. Each of the 1,000 specimens is shown in full color on a neutral background to eliminate distractions, and specimens are arranged to show the cap, stem, gills, spines and a cross section, usually in various stages of growth.
     Roger Phillips identifies all regional varieties of Basidiomycetes, which include chanterelles, puffballs and fungi, and Ascomycetes, which include morels and cup fungi. Detailed descriptive information on each mushroom variety includes:
-Dimensions of cap, gills and stem
-Color and texture of flesh
-Odor and taste
-Habitat and growing season
-Distribution and appearance of spores
-Edibility and poison warnings
     There is also helpful advice on collecting specimens plus an illustrated beginner identification key and a generic key for the more advanced collector.
Mushrooms and Other Fungi of North America is at once the ideal introduction to mycology and an essential reference for the experienced collector -- the definitive book in its category.
RECOMMENDATION: A very useful guide to the fungi of North America.

3) Bevis, John. Aaaaw to Zzzzzd: The Words of Birds. 2010. The MIT Press. Hardbound: 143 pages. Price: $12.95 U.S.
SUMMARY:  Birds sing and call, sometimes in complex and beautiful arrangements of notes, sometimes in one-line repetitions that resemble a ringtone more than a symphony. Listening, we are stirred, transported, and even envious of birds’ ability to produce what Shelley called “profuse strains of unpremeditated art.” And for hundreds of years, we have tried to write down what we hear when birds sing. Poets have put birdsong in verse (Thomas Nashe: “Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo”) and ornithologists have transcribed bird sounds more methodically. Drawing on this history of bird writing, in Aaaaw to Zzzzzd, John Bevis offers a lexicon of the words of birds. For tourists in Birdland, there could be no more charming phrasebook.

     Consulting it, we find seven distinct variations of “hoo” attributed to seven different species of owls, from a simple hoo to the more ambitious hoo hoo hoo-hoo, ho hoo hoo-hoo; the understated cheet of the tree swallow; the resonant kreeaaaaaaaaaaar of the Swainson’s hawk; the modest peep peep peep of the meadow pipit. We learn that some people hear the Baltimore oriole saying “here, here, come right here, dear” and the yellowhammer saying “a little bit of bread and no cheese.”
     Bevis, a poet, frames his lexicons—one for North America and one for Britain and northern Europe—with an evocative appreciation of birds, birdsong, and human attempts to capture the words of birds in music and poetry. He also offers an engaging account of other methods of documenting birdsong—field recording, graphic notation, and mechanical devices including duck calls and the serinette, an instrument used to teach song tunes to songbirds.
     The singing of birds is nature at its most sublime, and words are our medium for expressing this sublimity. Aaaaw to Zzzzzd belongs in the bird lover’s backpack and on the word lover’s bedside table, an unexpected and sui generis pleasure.
RECOMMENDATION: An interesting introduction to bird vocalizations.

New Title

1) Ulin, David L.. The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time. 2010. Sasquatch Books. Hardbound: 151 pages. Price: $12.95 U.S.

SUMMARY: Reading is a revolutionary act, an act of engagement in a culture that wants us to disengage. In The Lost Art of Reading, David L. Ulin asks a number of timely questions — why is literature important? What does it offer, especially now? Blending commentary with memoir, Ulin addresses the importance of the simple act of reading in an increasingly digital culture. Reading a book, flipping through hard pages, or shuffling them on screen — it doesn’t matter. The key is the act of reading, the seriousness and depth. Ulin emphasizes the importance of reflection and pause allowed by stopping to read a book, and the focus required to let the mind run free in a world that is not one's own. Far from preaching to the choir, The Lost Art of Reading is a call to arms, or rather, pages.
IAN RECOMMENDATION: For those with an interest in the lost art of reading.

New Titles

1) Lebbin, Daniel J. et al.. The American Bird Conservancy Guide to Bird Conservation. 2010. University of Chicago Press. Hardbound: 446 pages. Price: $45.00 U.S.

SUMMARY: Whether we live in cities, in the suburbs, or in the country, birds are ubiquitous features of daily life, so much so that we often take them for granted. But even the casual observer is aware that birds don’t fill our skies in the number they once did. That awareness has spawned conservation action that has led to notable successes, including the recovery of some of the nation’s most emblematic species, such as the Bald Eagle, Brown Pelican, Whooping Crane, and Peregrine Falcon. Despite this, a third of all American bird species are in trouble—in many cases, they’re in imminent danger of extinction. The most authoritative account ever published of the threats these species face, The American Bird Conservancy Guide to Bird Conservation will be the definitive book on the subject.
     The Guide presents for the first time anywhere a classification system and threat analysis for bird habitats in the United States, the most thorough and scientifically credible assessment of threats to birds published to date, as well as a new list of birds of conservation concern. Filled with beautiful color illustrations and original range maps, the Guide is a timely, important, and inspiring reference for birders and anyone else interested in conserving North America’s avian fauna. But this book is far more than another shout of crisis. The Guide also lays out a concrete and achievable plan of long-term action to safeguard our country’s rich bird life. Ultimately, it is an argument for hope. Whether you spend your early weekend mornings crouched in silence with binoculars in hand, hoping to check another species off your list, or you’ve never given much thought to bird conservation, you’ll appreciate the visual power and intellectual scope of these pages.
RECOMMENDATION: A must have for those interested in bird conservation of the Americas!

2) ORNITHOLOGICAL MONOGRAPHS no. 67 and 68:
     A) Winker, Kevin and Susan M. Haig, editors. Avian Subspecies. 2010. American Ornithologists' Union. Paperback: 200 pages. Price: $40.00 U.S.
SUMMARY: The 13 papers in this monograph on avian subspecies were delivered at the meeting of the A.O.U., the Cooper Ornithological Society and the Society of Canadian Ornithologists in Portland, Oregon during 4-9 August 2008.
RECOMMENDATION: For those with a technical interest in avian subspecies.
     B) Martinez-Sanchez, Juan C. and Tom Will, editors. Thomas R. Howell's Check-list of the Birds of Nicaragua as of 1993. 2010. American Ornithologists' Union. Paperback: 107 pages. Price: $40.00 U.S.
SUMMARY: A previously unpublished checklist to the birds of Nicaragua by the late Thomas R. Howell.
RECOMMENDATION: For those with an interest in the avifauna of Nicaragua. These titles can be ordered here: http://www.ucpress.edu/series.php?ser=orn



3) Wilson, Robert M.. Seeking Refuge: Birds and Landscapes of the Pacific Flyway. 2010. University of Washington Press. Hardbound: 245 pages. Price: $35.00 U.S.
SUMMARY: Each fall and spring, millions of birds travel the Pacific Flyway, the westernmost of the four major North American bird migration routes. The landscapes they cross vary from wetlands to farmland to concrete, inhabited not only by wildlife but also by farmers, suburban families, and major cities. In the twentieth century, farmers used the wetlands to irrigate their crops, transforming the landscape and putting migratory birds at risk. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service responded by establishing a series of refuges that stretched from northern Washington to southern California.
     What emerged from these efforts was a hybrid environment, where the distinctions between irrigated farms and wildlife refuges blurred. Management of the refuges was fraught with conflicting priorities and practices. Farmers and refuge managers harassed birds with shotguns and flares to keep them off private lands, and government pilots took to the air, dropping hand grenades among flocks of geese and herding the startled birds into nearby refuges. Such actions masked the growing connections between refuges and the land around them.
     Seeking Refuge examines the development and management of refuges in the wintering range of migratory birds along the Pacific Flyway. Although this is a history of efforts to conserve migratory birds, the story Robert Wilson tells has considerable salience today. Many of the key places migratory birds use - the Klamath Basin, California's Central Valley, the Salton Sea - are sites of recent contentious debates over water use. Migratory birds connect and depend on these landscapes, and farmers face pressure as water is reallocated from irrigation to other purposes. In a time when global warming promises to compound the stresses on water and migratory species, Seeking Refuge demonstrates the need to foster landscapes where both wildlife and people can thrive.
RECOMMENDATION: For those with an interest in the history of wildlife management along the Pacific flyway.