New Titles

1) Beehler, Bruce. Birds of Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Columbia. 2019. Johns Hopkins University Press. Hardbound: 461 pages. Price: $49.95 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: A Great Blue Heron wades in the shallows of the Potomac River, scanning for unsuspecting prey. Sunlight turns the water translucent as a small school of fish rises to the water's surface. The heron strikes and moments later is swallowing its quarry―predation in action! This handsome Great Blue Heron is but one of the more than 400 bird species found in Delaware, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. It shares the mid-Atlantic with kingfishers, eagles, mergansers, wood warblers, and many more.

     Exploring backyard birds, birds of prey, and birds of the open ocean, Smithsonian ornithologist Bruce Beehler and premier nature photographer Middleton Evans have crafted a comprehensive volume unparalleled in its beauty and captivating storytelling. Birds of Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Columbia invites readers to experience the birds' lives as they live them: where they nest, how they forage, their various behaviors, and the natural environments they need to survive.
     Beehler offers practical advice on bird-watching, including how to find, attract, and even garden for birds, as well as the best places to see them in season. He also discusses the best birding apps, websites, and gear; provides advice on planning a birding field trip; and recommends ornithological institutions that will help you cultivate a lifelong birding hobby. Finally, Beehler challenges the reader to think about conservation efforts to preserve local bird populations.
     With striking color photographs of more than 400 species, this book is a bonanza for nature lovers. A wealth of images immerse the reader in the world of these wonderful creatures. Marvel at the majesty of Ospreys, navigate the ocean with storm-petrels, and nest with Mourning Doves, all while learning about the richness of the birds' lives, the complexities of their habits, and how we can help keep their populations vibrant and aloft for generations to come.
RECOMMENDATION: A must have for those birding the region.

2) Grimmett, Richard et al.. Birds of Bhutan and the Eastern Himalayas. 2019. Helm. Paperback: 416 pages. Price: $40.00 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: The first birding guide to the beautiful, endemic-packed Himalayan nation of Bhutan was published in 1999. This is a new and completely revised edition of that book, featuring concise text and detailed maps opposite superb plates, covering every species that regularly occurs in Bhutan plus most vagrants.

     For this edition coverage is expanded to include two Indian states that together with Bhutan make up the eastern arm of the Himalayas--Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, making this the one guide you'll need on a visit to this incredible corner of Asia.
RECOMMENDATION: A must have for those birding the area.

3) Paulson, Dennis. Dragonflies and Damselflies: A Natural History. 2019. Princeton University Press. Hardbound: 224 pages. Price: $29.95 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: Dragonflies and damselflies are often called birdwatchers's insects. Large, brightly colored, active in the daytime, and displaying complex and interesting behaviors, they have existed since the days of the dinosaurs, and they continue to flourish. Their ancestors were the biggest insects ever, and they still impress us with their size, the largest bigger than a small hummingbird. There are more than 6,000 odonate species known at present, and you need only visit any wetland on a warm summer day to be enthralled by their stunning colors and fascinating behavior. In this lavishly illustrated natural history, leading dragonfly expert Dennis Paulson offers a comprehensive, accessible, and appealing introduction to the world's dragonflies and damselflies.
     The book highlights the impressive skills and abilities of dragonflies and damselflies's superb fliers that can glide, hover, cruise, and capture prey on the wing. It also describes their arsenal of tactics to avoid predators, and their amazing sex life, including dazzling courtship displays, aerial mating, sperm displacement, mate guarding, and male mimicry.
     Dragonflies and Damselflies includes profiles of more than fifty of the most interesting and beautiful species from around the world. Learn about the Great Cascade Damsel, which breeds only at waterfalls, the mesmerizing flight of Blue-winged Helicopters, and how the larva of the Common Sanddragon can burrow into sand as efficiently as a mole.
Combining expert text and excellent color photographs, this is a must-have guide to these remarkable insects.

• A lavishly illustrated, comprehensive, and accessible natural history that reveals the beauty and diversity of one of the world's oldest and most popular insect groups
• Offers a complete guide to the evolution, life cycles, biology, anatomy, behavior, and habitats of dragonflies and damselflies
• Introduces the 39 families of dragonflies and damselflies through exemplary species accounts
• Features tips on field observation and lab research, and information on threats and conservation

 RECOMMENDATION: A well illustrated introduction to these insects.

New Title

1) Dee, Tim. Landfill: Notes on Gull Watching and Trash Picking in the Anthropocene. 2019. Chelsea Green. Hardbound: 238 pages. Price: $25.00 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: Over the past hundred years, gulls have been brought ashore by modernity. They now live not only on the coasts but in our slipstream following trawlers, barges, and garbage trucks. They are more our contemporaries than most birds, living their wild lives among us in towns and cities. In many ways they live as we do, walking the built-up world and grabbing a bite where they can. Yet this disturbs us. We’ve started fearing gulls for getting good at being among us. We see them as scavengers, not entrepreneurs; ocean-going aliens, not refugees. They are too big for the world they have entered. Their story is our story too.

     Landfill is the original and compelling story of how in the Anthropocene we have learned about the natural world, named and catalogued it, and then colonized it, planted it, or filled it with our junk. While most other birds have gone in the opposite direction, hiding away from us, some vanishing forever, gulls continue to tell us how the wild can share our world. For these reasons Landfill is the nature book for our times, groundbreaking and genre-bending. Without nostalgia or eulogy, it kicks beneath the littered surface of the things to discover stranger truths.
RECOMMENDATION: An interesting take on gull and Human interactions.

New Titles

1) Wright, Rick. Peterson Reference Guide to Sparrows of North America. 2019. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Hardbound: 434 pages. Price: $35.00 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: Sparrows are as complicated as they are common. This is an essential guide to identifying 76 kinds, along with a fascinating history of human interactions with them.
      What exactly is a sparrow? All birders, and many non-birders, have essentially the same mental image of a pelican, a duck, or a flamingo, and a guide dedicated to waxwings or kingfishers would need nothing more than a sketch and a single sentence to satisfactorily identify its subject. Sparrows are harder to pin down. This book covers the birds of the family Passerellidae, which includes towhees, juncos, and dozens of other not necessarily small and not necessarily brown birds.
      Birds have a human history, too, beginning with their significance to native cultures and continuing through their discovery by science, their taxonomic fortunes and misfortunes, and their prospects for survival in a world with ever less space for wild creatures. This book includes not just facts and measurements, but stories of the birds' entanglement with human history. 
RECOMMENDATION: A must have for those with a serious interest in North American sparrows.

2) Poole, Alan F.. Ospreys: The Revival of a Global Raptor. 2019. Johns Hopkins University Press. Hardbound: 205 pages. Price: $39.95 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: Ospreys are one of the few bird species that are found throughout the world. From forests in Hokkaido to rivers in Oregon and islands off Australia, Ospreys steal the show as nature lovers easily watch them build their massive nests and tend to their young. The fact that the Osprey is one of the few large birds that can hover adds to its mystique, and to watch it plunge into the water, emerging with a fish clutched in its talons, is truly a sight one will remember.

     As widespread as Ospreys are, not long ago they were under threat of extinction. During the 1950s and '60s, scientists tied the decline of Osprey populations to the heavy use of DDT and other human pollutants. In the 1980s, Ospreys began a slow recovery due to the efforts of conservationists and through the resilience of the adaptable raptors themselves. Today they are again considered common in most parts of the world, although some populations remain threatened.
     In this gorgeously illustrated book, Alan F. Poole, one of America's premier Osprey experts, has written a lyrical exposé of these majestic creatures, describing their daily habits and exploring their relationship with the environment. Ospreys celebrates the species' miraculous recovery from contaminants and hunters, chronicles their spectacular long-distance migrations, and unveils their vital role in bringing life to coastal habitats. Few other birds have such a hold on the human imagination. This book shows us why.
RECOMMENDATION: A must have for those with a serious interest in Ospreys.