Forthcoming Title

Here's a preview of the forthcoming The Warbler Guide: http://youtu.be/cTGK9oKBzw0

The Weekly Birdbooker Report

                                 Photo copyright: Joe Fuhrman

My WEEKLY Birdbooker Report can be found here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/grrlscientist/2013/apr/28/1

New Title

1) Jerolmack, Colin. The Global Pigeon. 2013. The University of Chicago Press. Paperback: 274 pages. Price: $27.50 U.S./ £18.00.

SUMMARY: The pigeon is the quintessential city bird. Domesticated thousands of years ago as a messenger and a source of food, its presence on our sidewalks is so common that people consider the bird a nuisance—if they notice it at all. Yet pigeons are also kept for pleasure, sport, and profit by people all over the world, from the “pigeon wars” waged by breeding enthusiasts in the skies over Brooklyn to the Million Dollar Pigeon Race held every year in South Africa.
     Drawing on more than three years of fieldwork across three continents, Colin Jerolmack traces our complex and often contradictory relationship with these versatile animals in public spaces such as Venice’s Piazza San Marco and London’s Trafalgar Square and in working-class and immigrant communities of pigeon breeders in New York and Berlin. By exploring what he calls “the social experience of animals,” Jerolmack shows how our interactions with pigeons offer surprising insights into city life, community, culture, and politics. Theoretically understated and accessible to interested readers of all stripes, The Global Pigeon is one of the best and most original ethnographies to be published in decades.
RECOMMENDATION: An interesting look at how Humans interact with the domestic Rock Pigeon.

Featured Title

1) Steadman, Ralph and Ceri Levy. Extinct Boids. 2012. Bloomsbury. Hardbound: 240 pages. Price: $50.00 U.S./£35.00.

SUMMARY: When Ceri Levy asked Ralph Steadman to produce one piece of art representing an extinct bird for a recent exhibition, Ghosts of Gone Birds, Ralph said 'yes'. Then 'yes' again ... and again ... and again.
     An astonishing 100 paintings later, Extinct Boids was born.
     Ralph got carried away by the birds, taking Ceri with him ... this book details the discoveries they made on their travels through the savage seas of extinction. After stumbling on the previously hidden Toadstool Island, where the extinct birds of the world live on in secretive harmony, the duo spent nearly a year in close proximityto a host of fantastical avian creatures.
     Ralph documents them all in this series of remarkable paintings, featuring unique interpretations of well-known birds such as the Great Auk, Passenger Pigeon and Dodo, along with less familiar members of the feathersome firmament - Snail-eating Coua, for example, or the Red-moustached Fruit Dove - and a variety of bizarre beasts including the Gob Swallow, the Long-legged Shortwing and the Needless Smut. All are captured in a riot of expression and colour, with a slice of trademark Steadman humour.
     Based on emails, diary entries and phone conversations, Ceri's accompanying text provides a running commentary, detailing the unfolding madness behind the creation of each piece in Ralph's extraordinary work. Things got tough as the pair discovered just how many amazing birds have been lost from our world forever.
     "But," as Ralph said "it did, after all, make a nice change from drawing politicians".
RECOMMENDATION: A humorous look at the serious subject of bird extinctions.

New Title

1) Holden, Peter. RSPB Birds: Their Hidden World. 2012. Bloomsbury. Paperback: 256 pages. Price: $24.95 U.S./ £14.99

SUMMARY: Even if you are an enthusiastic bird watcher, the details of how birds fly, why they behave as they do, how they breed and their extraordinary travels can seem very mysterious.
     This lively new book aims to give readers a broad understanding of 'how birds work' from their physical make-up to courtship and breeding, social activity and their spread and travels. Readers will be able to interpret the kind of bird activity and behaviour that they see and hear in their gardens as well as in the wider countryside and on nature reserves.
     Designed for the general interest reader and written in a lively and accessible style, the book is presented as a series of beautifully illustrated page spreads, enhanced by fully captioned photographs and with case studies of individual species of British and European birds.
RECOMMENDATION: A good general introduction to the biology and behavior of European birds.

New Titles

1) Davison, G.W.H. and Yeap Chin Aik. A Naturalist's Guide to the Birds of Malaysia: including Sabah and Sarawak. 2012. John Beaufoy Publishing. Paperback: 176 pages. Price: £9.99/ $17.95 U.S.

SUMMARY: This easy-to-use identification guide to the 280 bird species most commonly seen in Malaysia (including the state of Sabah and Sarawak on the island of Borneo) is perfect for resident and visitor alike.
     High quality photographs from sone of Malaysia's top nature photographers are accompanied by detailed species descriptions which include nomenclature, length, plumage, distribution, habits and habitat. The user-friendly introductlon covers climate, vegetation, biogeography, opportunities for naturalists and the main sites for viewing the listed species. Also included in A Naturalist's Guide to the Birds of Malaysia is an all-important checklist of all of the birds of Malaysia encompassing, for each species, its common and scientific names as well as Malay names, its status In each state as well as its global status.
RECOMMENDATION: A good introductory photographic guide to the birds of the region.

2) Shi, Wong Tsu. A Naturalist's Guide to the Birds of Borneo: Sabah, Sarawak, Brunei and Kalimantan. 2012. John Beaufoy Publishing. Paperback: 176 pages. Price: £9.99/ $14.95 U.S.
SUMMARY: A Naturalist's Guide to the Birds of Borneo contains the author's high quality photographs, accompanied by detailed species descriptions which include nomenclature, size, distribution, habits and habitat. The introduction covers geography and climate, vegetation and the main sites for viewing the listed species. An all important checklist of all of the birds of Borneo gives, for each species, the common and scientific names, IUCN status as at 2011 and its status in each state of Borneo.
RECOMMENDATION: A good introductory photographic guide to the birds of the region.

New Title

1) Leach, William. Butterfly People: An American Encounter with the Beauty of the World. 2013. Pantheon. Hardbound: 388 pages. Price: $32.50 U.S.

SUMMARY: From one of our most highly regarded historians, here is an original and engrossing chronicle of nineteenth-century America’s infatuation with butterflies, and the story of the naturalists who unveiled the mysteries of their existence.
     A product of William Leach’s lifelong love of butterflies, this engaging and elegantly illustrated history shows how Americans from all walks of life passionately pursued butterflies, and how through their discoveries and observations they transformed the character of natural history. Leach focuses on the correspondence and scientific writings of half a dozen pioneering lepidopterists who traveled across the country and throughout the world, collecting and studying unknown and exotic species. In a book as full of life as the subjects themselves and foregrounding a collecting culture now on the brink of vanishing, Leach reveals how the beauty of butterflies led Americans into a deeper understanding of the natural world. He shows, too, that the country’s enthusiasm for butterflies occurred at the very moment that another form of beauty—the technological and industrial objects being displayed at world’s fairs and commercial shows—was emerging, and that Americans’ attraction to this new beauty would eventually, and at great cost, take precedence over nature in general and butterflies in particular.
RECOMMENDATION: For those with an interest in American entomological history.