My WEEKLY Birdbooker Report can be found here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2011/feb/27/2
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
The Crossley ID Guide: Eastern Birds
1) Crossley, Richard. The Crossley ID Guide: Eastern Birds. 2011. Princeton University Press. Flexibound: 529 pages. Price: $35.00 U.S.
SUMMARY: This stunningly illustrated book from acclaimed birder and photographer Richard Crossley revolutionizes field guide design by providing the first real-life approach to identification. Whether you are a beginner, expert, or anywhere in between, The Crossley ID Guide will vastly improve your ability to identify birds.
Unlike other guides, which provide isolated individual photographs or illustrations, this is the first book to feature large, lifelike scenes for each species. These scenes--640 in all--are composed from more than 10,000 of the author's images showing birds in a wide range of views--near and far, from different angles, in various plumages and behaviors, including flight, and in the habitat in which they live. These beautiful compositions show how a bird's appearance changes with distance, and give equal emphasis to characteristics experts use to identify birds: size, structure and shape, behavior, probability, and color. This is the first book to convey all of these features visually--in a single image--and to reinforce them with accurate, concise text. Each scene provides a wealth of detailed visual information that invites and rewards careful study, but the most important identification features can be grasped instantly by anyone.
By making identification easier, more accurate, and more fun than ever before, The Crossley ID Guide will completely redefine how its users look at birds. Essential for all birders, it also promises to make new birders of many people who have despaired of using traditional guides.
*Revolutionary. This book changes field guide design to make you a better birder
*A picture says a thousand words. The most comprehensive guide: 640 stunning scenes created from 10,000 of the author's photographs
*Reality birding. Lifelike in-focus scenes show birds in their habitats, from near and far, and in all plumages and behaviors
*Teaching and reference. The first book to accurately portray all the key identification characteristics: size, shape, behavior, probability, and color
*Practice makes perfect. An interactive learning experience to sharpen and test field identification skills
*Bird like the experts. The first book to simplify birding and help you understand how to bird like the best
*An interactive website--http://www.crossleybirds.com/--includes expanded captions for the plates and species updates.
RECOMMENDATION: First of all this guide ISN'T a field guide, it's too big (bigger than The Sibley Guide to Birds (2000)) and unlike the Sibley 2000, it just covers the birds of eastern North America! The layout isn't in the traditional field guide style in which related/similar species are on the same page, so I wouldn't recommend it for beginning birders just starting to learn how to identify birds.
Each photo plate is layered with birds up close and in the distance giving depth to the plates. They remind me of museum dioramas. The habitat settings in each plate are general good except for the marsh and sedge wrens ( the habitats for those species are reversed: the Marsh Wren should be in the cattails and the Sedge Wren should be in the grasses.) Also the Red-naped Sapsucker is shown with snowy mountains in the background. In most of its range the sapsucker is a summer bird and the snow should be long gone. The text is brief but useful like the Sibley guide. The color range maps look accurate.
In the end, I would recommend this book for intermediate level birders who are learning to see birds as they actually appear in life and perhaps for advanced birders as a supplement to standard field guides. Three other books in the series are in the works: Western birds, British birds and a mystery guide.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
FEATURED TITLE
1) Sinclair, Ian and Peter Ryan. Birds of Africa: south of the Sahara (second edition). 2010. Struik Nature. Paperback: 767 pages. Price: GBP 29.99 ( $46.00 U.S.).
SUMMARY: This new edition of Birds of Africa south of the Sahara contains some 400 updated images along with fully revised text, capturing the latest information available. It provides unrivalled coverage of African birds in a single volume, and is the only book to describe and illustrate all the birds found in Africa south of the Sahara Desert (the Afrotropic Region), including Socotra, Pemba and islands in the Gulf of Guinea. Despite its exceptional coverage, this guide is compact enough to use in the field, and follows the standard field guide format, with texts and range maps appearing opposite the colour plates. With its extraordinary reach and coverage, this is a must-have volume for birding enthusiasts everywhere.
RECOMMENDATION: A must have for those with an interest in the birds of Africa, even if you have the first edition of this book!
SUMMARY: This new edition of Birds of Africa south of the Sahara contains some 400 updated images along with fully revised text, capturing the latest information available. It provides unrivalled coverage of African birds in a single volume, and is the only book to describe and illustrate all the birds found in Africa south of the Sahara Desert (the Afrotropic Region), including Socotra, Pemba and islands in the Gulf of Guinea. Despite its exceptional coverage, this guide is compact enough to use in the field, and follows the standard field guide format, with texts and range maps appearing opposite the colour plates. With its extraordinary reach and coverage, this is a must-have volume for birding enthusiasts everywhere.
RECOMMENDATION: A must have for those with an interest in the birds of Africa, even if you have the first edition of this book!
Sunday, February 20, 2011
The weekly Birdbooker Report
My WEEKLY Birdbooker Report can be found here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2011/feb/20/2
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2011/feb/20/2
Saturday, February 19, 2011
New Titles
1) Archibald, J. David. Extinction and Radiation: How the Fall of Dinosaurs Led to the Rise of Mammals. 2011. Johns Hopkins University Press. Hardbound: 108 pages. Price: $65.00 U.S.
SUMMARY: In the geological blink of an eye, mammals moved from an obscure group of vertebrates into a class of planetary dominance. Why? J. David Archibald's provocative study identifies the fall of dinosaurs as the factor that allowed mammals to evolve into the dominant tetrapod form.
Archibald refutes the widely accepted single-cause impact theory for dinosaur extinction. He demonstrates that multiple factors—massive volcanic eruptions, loss of shallow seas, and extraterrestrial impact—likely led to their demise. While their avian relatives ultimately survived and thrived, terrestrial dinosaurs did not. Taking their place as the dominant land and sea tetrapods were mammals, whose radiation was explosive following nonavian dinosaur extinction.
Archibald argues that because of dinosaurs, Mesozoic mammals changed relatively slowly for 145 million years compared to the prodigious Cenozoic radiation that followed. Finally out from under the shadow of the giant reptiles, Cenozoic mammals evolved into the forms we recognize today in a mere ten million years after dinosaur extinction.
Extinction and Radiation is the first book to convincingly link the rise of mammals with the fall of dinosaurs. Piecing together evidence from both molecular biology and the fossil record, Archibald shows how science is edging closer to understanding exactly what happened during the mass extinctions near the K/T boundary and the radiation that followed.
RECOMMENDATION: This slim volume is for those with a technical interest in paleontology and/or mammalogy.
2) Nield, Ted. Incoming! Or, Why We Should Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Meteorite. 2011. Granta. Hardbound: 271 pages. Price: GBP 20.00 (about $32.48 U.S.).
SUMMARY: Astonishing new research suggests that 470 million years ago, a stupendous collision in the Asteroid Belt (whose debris is still falling today) bombarded the Earth with meteorites of all sizes. A revolutionary idea is emerging that the resulting ecological disturbance may have been responsible for the single greatest increase in biological diversity since the origin of complex life - the hitherto unexplained Great Ordovician Biodiversity Event.
Introducing these fresh discoveries to a wider public for the first time, Ted Nield challenges the orthodox view that meteorite strikes are always bad news for life on Earth. He argues that one of the most widely known scientific theories - that dinosaurs were wiped out by a strike 65 million years ago - isn't the whole picture, and that the causes of the end-Cretaceous mass extinction (of which the dinosaurs' demise was a part) were much more varied and complex.
Meteorites have been the stuff of legend throughout human history, interpreted as omens of doom or objects of power. But only in the eighteenth century, when the study of falling space debris became a science, were meteorites used to unlock the mysteries of our universe. Incoming! traces the history of meteorites from the first recorded strike to the video recordings made routinely today, showing how our interpretations have varied according to the age in which they fell, and how meteorite impacts were given fresh urgency with the advent of the atom bomb. Introducing a wealth of fascinating characters alongside extraordinary new research, Ted Nield has written the perfect introduction to the science and history of 'the falling sky'.
RECOMMENDATION: An interesting introduction on the subject of the effects that meteorite impacts (both literally and figuratively) have had on the Earth.
SUMMARY: In the geological blink of an eye, mammals moved from an obscure group of vertebrates into a class of planetary dominance. Why? J. David Archibald's provocative study identifies the fall of dinosaurs as the factor that allowed mammals to evolve into the dominant tetrapod form.
Archibald refutes the widely accepted single-cause impact theory for dinosaur extinction. He demonstrates that multiple factors—massive volcanic eruptions, loss of shallow seas, and extraterrestrial impact—likely led to their demise. While their avian relatives ultimately survived and thrived, terrestrial dinosaurs did not. Taking their place as the dominant land and sea tetrapods were mammals, whose radiation was explosive following nonavian dinosaur extinction.
Archibald argues that because of dinosaurs, Mesozoic mammals changed relatively slowly for 145 million years compared to the prodigious Cenozoic radiation that followed. Finally out from under the shadow of the giant reptiles, Cenozoic mammals evolved into the forms we recognize today in a mere ten million years after dinosaur extinction.
Extinction and Radiation is the first book to convincingly link the rise of mammals with the fall of dinosaurs. Piecing together evidence from both molecular biology and the fossil record, Archibald shows how science is edging closer to understanding exactly what happened during the mass extinctions near the K/T boundary and the radiation that followed.
RECOMMENDATION: This slim volume is for those with a technical interest in paleontology and/or mammalogy.
2) Nield, Ted. Incoming! Or, Why We Should Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Meteorite. 2011. Granta. Hardbound: 271 pages. Price: GBP 20.00 (about $32.48 U.S.).
SUMMARY: Astonishing new research suggests that 470 million years ago, a stupendous collision in the Asteroid Belt (whose debris is still falling today) bombarded the Earth with meteorites of all sizes. A revolutionary idea is emerging that the resulting ecological disturbance may have been responsible for the single greatest increase in biological diversity since the origin of complex life - the hitherto unexplained Great Ordovician Biodiversity Event.
Introducing these fresh discoveries to a wider public for the first time, Ted Nield challenges the orthodox view that meteorite strikes are always bad news for life on Earth. He argues that one of the most widely known scientific theories - that dinosaurs were wiped out by a strike 65 million years ago - isn't the whole picture, and that the causes of the end-Cretaceous mass extinction (of which the dinosaurs' demise was a part) were much more varied and complex.
Meteorites have been the stuff of legend throughout human history, interpreted as omens of doom or objects of power. But only in the eighteenth century, when the study of falling space debris became a science, were meteorites used to unlock the mysteries of our universe. Incoming! traces the history of meteorites from the first recorded strike to the video recordings made routinely today, showing how our interpretations have varied according to the age in which they fell, and how meteorite impacts were given fresh urgency with the advent of the atom bomb. Introducing a wealth of fascinating characters alongside extraordinary new research, Ted Nield has written the perfect introduction to the science and history of 'the falling sky'.
RECOMMENDATION: An interesting introduction on the subject of the effects that meteorite impacts (both literally and figuratively) have had on the Earth.
Friday, February 18, 2011
New Titles
1) Alford, David V.. Plant Pests (New Naturalist series). 2011. Collins U.K.. Paperback: 500 pages. Price: 30 GBP (about $48.71 U.S.).
SUMMARY: Ever since man first cultivated plants and grew crops, insects, mites and other creatures have risen to prominence as pests, but it is only throughout the last two centuries that we have come to study them in any detail.
Whereas in the past, emphasis has mainly been placed on ways to protect cultivated plants from attack or damage, nowadays our over-reliance on pesticides has been replaced by a far more enlightened approach to plant protection. Though chemical pesticides still have a role to play, environmental aspects and non-chemical means of pest control have become equally, if not more, important. This requires a greater appreciation of ecosystems, coupled with a greater understanding of individual pests, including their habits and their role in the environment.
Drawing on a lifetime of experience, David V. Alford provides a fascinating account of the natural history of the insects and mites that inhabit our farms and gardens, and feed on our cultivated plants. He shows how and why the different operations of cultivation affect their world, and why plant pests should not be viewed as different from other wildlife. Coverage of pests includes aliens, and although emphasis is placed mainly on arable and horticultural field crops, pests of protected crops - both edible and non-edible - are also included. Details of pest life cycles, status, distribution and the damage they cause are given, and natural enemies of pests are examined. The author also explores the impact of pesticides, climate change and evolving crop management practices.
RECOMMENDATION: A must have for those that collect titles in the New Naturalist series and/or have an interest in garden pests.
2) Baker, J.A. (with introduction by Mark Cocker and Diary edited by John Fanshawe). The Peregrine (The Hill of Summer & Diaries): The Complete Works of J.A. Baker. 2010. Collins U.K.. Hardbound: 416 pages. Price: GBP 20.00 (about $32.48 U.S.).
SUMMARY: Reissue of J. A. Baker’s extraordinary classic of British nature writing.
Despite the association of peregrines with the wild, outer reaches of the British Isles, The Peregrine is set on the flat marshes of the Essex coast, where J. A. Baker spent a long winter looking and writing about the visitors from the uplands – peregrines that spend the winter hunting the huge flocks of pigeons and waders that share the desolate landscape with them. Including original diaries from which The Peregrine was written and its companion volume The Hill of Summer, this is a beautiful compendium of lyrical nature writing at its absolute best. Such luminaries as Richard Mabey, Robert Macfarlane, Ted Hughes and Andrew Motion have cited this as one of the most important books in 20th Century nature writing, and the bestselling author Mark Cocker has provided an introduction on the importance of Baker, his writings and the diaries – creating the essential volume of Baker's writings.
RECOMMENDATION: For those with an interest in the Peregrine Falcon and/or classic natural history writing.
FEATURED TITLE
1) Angehr, George R. and Robert Dean. The Birds of Panama: A Field Guide. 2010. Cornell University Press. Paperback: 456 pages. Price: $35.00 U.S.
SUMMARY: The isthmus of Panama, where North and South America meet, hosts more bird species than all of North America. More accessible than ever to birdwatchers and other ecotourists, the country has become a premier neotropical birding and nature tourism destination in recent years. The Birds of Panama will be an essential tool for the new generation of birders traveling in search of Panama's spectacular avifauna.
This user-friendly, portable, and affordable identification guide features:
• large color illustrations of more than 900 species.
• the first range maps published to show the distribution of Panama's birds.
• concise text that describes field marks for identification, as well as habitat, behavior, and vocalizations.
• range maps and species accounts face illustration pages for quick, easy reference.
• the inclusion of North American migrants and seabirds, as well as female and juvenile plumage variations.
• an up-to-date species list for the country that reflects recent additions, taxonomic splits, and other changes in classification.
Panama's unique geography, small size, and varied habitats make it possible to see a vast diversity of birds within a short time. Its western and central areas harbor representatives of species found in Central America; species characteristic of South America may be found in the east. In the winter, birds from northern climes are commonly found in Panama as migrants. This is the one field guide the novice or experienced birder needs to identify birds in the field in Panama's diverse habitats.
RECOMMENDATION: A must have for birders visiting or are from Panama. Robert Dean is working on a field guide to the birds of northern Central America.
SUMMARY: The isthmus of Panama, where North and South America meet, hosts more bird species than all of North America. More accessible than ever to birdwatchers and other ecotourists, the country has become a premier neotropical birding and nature tourism destination in recent years. The Birds of Panama will be an essential tool for the new generation of birders traveling in search of Panama's spectacular avifauna.
This user-friendly, portable, and affordable identification guide features:
• large color illustrations of more than 900 species.
• the first range maps published to show the distribution of Panama's birds.
• concise text that describes field marks for identification, as well as habitat, behavior, and vocalizations.
• range maps and species accounts face illustration pages for quick, easy reference.
• the inclusion of North American migrants and seabirds, as well as female and juvenile plumage variations.
• an up-to-date species list for the country that reflects recent additions, taxonomic splits, and other changes in classification.
Panama's unique geography, small size, and varied habitats make it possible to see a vast diversity of birds within a short time. Its western and central areas harbor representatives of species found in Central America; species characteristic of South America may be found in the east. In the winter, birds from northern climes are commonly found in Panama as migrants. This is the one field guide the novice or experienced birder needs to identify birds in the field in Panama's diverse habitats.
RECOMMENDATION: A must have for birders visiting or are from Panama. Robert Dean is working on a field guide to the birds of northern Central America.
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