One of the newer field guides, this one has lovely illustrations and maps all on the same page for ease of use. It also shows birds in different poses - very helpful! It is a bit heavy to carry in the field, but the quality is worth the weight! The library also owns his guide to birds of Western North America.
This is a wonderful book for everyone interested in bluebirds. It has lots of photographs and covers virtually every aspect of bluebird-ing, from housing to feeding to fledging to behavior.
"Copiously illustrated with maps, line drawings, and full-color photographs, this large format paperback book contains the essential information that backyard nature enthusiasts want and need -- to select feeders and understand the basics of birdfeeding."
By Roger Tory Peterson and Virginia Marie Peterson
"In celebration of the centennial of Roger Tory Peterson's birth comes a historic collaboration among renowned birding experts and artists to preserve and enhance the Peterson legacy. This new book combines the Peterson Field Guide to Eastern Birds and the Peterson Field Guide to Western Birds in one volume, filled with accessible, concise information and including almost three hours of video podcasts to make bird watching even easier."
"The companion to the Oscar-nominated film, Winged Migration is the definitive visual account of its subject: the extraordinary flights of migrating birds around the world. Migration is an enigma. Who knows why the cuckoo, born in Europe, flies alone to the far forests of Africa, home of its ancestors? Or how the Arctic tern can fly over ten thousand miles on its astonishing journey from pole to pole? Winged Migration follows single birds and whole squadrons on their restless flights seeking answers to such riddles. The result is a tour de force that is testament to the patience of a globe-trotting team of filmmakers and ornithologists. With its informative text, Winged Migration offers both the general reader and the dedicated bird watcher a bird's-eye view of five continents and a grand, yet intimate, portrait of the secret life of birds."
When a flash of pink was spotted in a cloud of gray gulls over Newburyport, Massachusetts, ten thousand people descended on the town in hopes of seeing a rare Ross's gull from Siberia. Among them were Pete and Linda Dunne, who set off from there on a year-long odyssey. Dunne had poured the most remarkable stories, birds, and characters into this unforgettable book about their once-in-a-lifetime adventure.
Felton Gibbons and Deborah Strom trace the history of bird watching in America. This recreational activity has evolved from the practice of shooting as many birds as possible to the contemporary practice of watching and recording the numbers and varieties of our feathered neighbors. The authors introduce the reader to pioneer naturalists Alexander Wilson, John James Audubon and John Muir.
For anyone curious about the lives of migratory birds this book is a great nest of information. The author has traveled all over the world banding and observing birds and talking to the experts--amateur birders and ornithologists who have made many of the important discoveries about bird biology. From Alaska to Lake Erie to the limestone forests of Jamaica, Weidensaul reaches not only for the scientific particulars but for the universal stories and humanizing, descriptive turns of phrase that keep this book from bogging down in statistics and jargon. By book's end the reader is unable to resist the heart of this compelling story, a plea for the conservation of habitat to keep these miraculous creatures on--or at least circling--the earth.
Turkeys are not stupid. The author spent a year studying a flock of wild turkeys in the loblolly pine woods of Florida, having hatched wild turkey eggs and imprinting the poults on himself. Turkeys are masters of disguise, blending in with their surroundings in ways so subtle as to make the work of hunters and predators difficult. Hutto is a wildlife artist, and the book is illustrated with his sketches and color photographs.
"Journey with Christopher Cokinos to a time when flocks of Passenger Pigeons blocked the sun and Carolina Parakeets colored the sky--according to one pioneer--'like an atmosphere of gems.' Driven by a desire to understand the lives of these now-extinct birds and how and why they vanished, Cokinos excavates crumbling newspapers and forgotten reports. From Bird Rock in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Louisiana's tangled bayous, he searches for those who loved the Passenger Pigeon, the Carolina Parakeet, and the Labrador Duck; for the people who stalked the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, the Heath Hen, and the Great Auk; and for those who tried to save them. A compelling blend of science, history, politics, and memoir, Hope Is the Thing with Feathers draws on previously unpublished photographs and original documents to make these long-vanished birds come alive. Cokinos delves into the mysterious sighting of Ivory-Billed Woodpeckers in April 1999; the incredible plan to create new Heath Hens on Martha's Vineyard; and the astonishing possibility that these extinct birds could be resurrected through the science of cloning."
The best thing about the library is that it is available not only to me, but to everyone. It does not discriminate. It makes itself available to those who want to use it.
