Books-Birds
Category archives for Books-Birds
The World’s Rarest Birds
Posted by Greg Laden on April 6, 2013 
There are something over 10,000 species of birds (thus the name of the famous blog). Of these, just under 600 are in very very serious trouble, some to the extent that we are not sure if they exist, others are so rare that we know they exist but there are no good photographs of them,…
The New Crossley Raptor ID Book: You Want It
Posted by Greg Laden on April 5, 2013 
A couple of years back, the The Crossley ID Guide for Eastern Birds came out and it caused a huge splash in the birdwatching world. For some time now it has become apparent that bird watching, especially the identification part of it, was changing in its approach. We describe it this way, though I think…
Golden Eagles and Free Coffee!
Posted by Greg Laden on March 19, 2013 You’ve heard of the The Crossley ID Guide: Eastern Birds (The Crossley ID Guides). It is a revolutionary new way to assemble a field guide, where each page has a drawing of what it would look like if suddenly outside your living room there was a full blown habitat for some species of bird, with…
The Best Raptor Book Ever – The Crossley ID Guide: Raptors
Posted by Greg Laden on March 12, 2013 The Crossley ID Guide: Raptors is just now coming out. I was able to spend a little time with it a few weeks ago, though my official copy has not arrived yet. But Princeton (the publisher) is organizing a major blog hoopla over the publication of this new book, and I’ve signed on to participate.…
In Search of the Elusive Pittas: The Jewel Hunter
Posted by Greg Laden on December 15, 2012 The Jewel Hunter by Chris Goodie is the story, generally chronological, of one man’s quest to observe, in nature, every known species of a rare and typically elusive bird: the Pittas. Oh, and all in one year. For a birder, this is the rough equivalent of buying some impossible to pay for sports car as…
How to draw birds
Posted by Greg Laden on December 13, 2012 
Tired of merely watching birds? Ever consider trying to draw them? There’s a method to do so. John Muir Laws is very good at this and he’s written a book that can help you get started, maybe even become good at it yourself: Laws Guide to Drawing Birds. In case you were wondering, Laws’ name…
The Ultimate Holiday Gift Guide to Birding Books
Posted by Greg Laden on December 11, 2012 
This is a summary of several of the better books I’ve had the opportunity to review here, organized in general categories. This is written from a North American perspective since most of my readers are North American (though many of you live to the west of the “Eastern Region” … but you probably know that).…
The Natural and Unnatural Histories of the Chicken
Posted by Greg Laden on December 9, 2012 I liked Chickens: Their Natural and Unnatural Histories by Janet Lembke even if it is annoyingly unscholarly in places where it should be (assertions of fact are frequently made with zero or poor referencing). As far as I can tell, the writing is accurate in its coverage of all things Chicken. Chickens in science, chickens…
Nature’s Compass: The Mystery of Animal Navigation
Posted by Greg Laden on December 1, 2012 
I’ve been interested in Animal Navigation for years. I’ve always been interested in things like orientation and maps and so on, but it was when I started working with the Efe Pygmies in the mid 1980s, and noticed that there were some interesting things about how they found their way around in the rainforest, that…
National Geo’s Birding Essentials
Posted by Greg Laden on November 28, 2012 Are you interested in birding but don’t really know much about it? Did you just put a feeder outside and noticed that birds are interesting, or did you finally get around to stopping at that wildlife refuge you drive by every week on the way to the casino and realize that walking down to the…
How to be a better birder
Posted by Greg Laden on November 27, 2012 There are several things you need to do to be a better birder. Some of these things can be handled by just tossing money after the problem. Better binoculars, more books, that sort of thing. If you use those tools well they will improve your abilities as a birder. But the most important thing you…
Update Your Southern African Bird Guide Collection
Posted by Greg Laden on November 26, 2012 When traveling and working in South Africa, I’ve always used Newman’s guide to the birds of Southern Africa, and more recently, I found the Sasol guide to be helpful as well. (I discuss both briefly here.) Now, I’ve got on my desk a copy of Princeton’s Birds of Southern Africa: Fourth Edition by Ian Sinclair,…
Birds of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives
Posted by Greg Laden on November 9, 2012 Let’s look at Birds of India: Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives (Second Edition) (Princeton Field Guides): The best field guide to the birds of the Indian subcontinent is now even better. Thoroughly revised, with 73 new plates and many others updated or repainted, the second edition of Birds of India now…
Birds of Central Asia (Princeton Field Guide)
Posted by Greg Laden on November 4, 2012 Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan … they all have birds, it turns out. Until now there has never been a field guid to the birds of this regino. Raffael Aye, Manuel Schweizer, and Tobias Roth have written one, and it is called, fittingly, Birds of Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan. It…
Cotingas and Manakins: Amazing birds, amazing bird book
Posted by Greg Laden on November 2, 2012 Five families of birds make up the group that could be referred to as the Cotingas and Manakins, which in turn include species with such colorful names as “Pale-bellied Tyrant-Manakin,” “Bare-necked Fruitcrow,” “Peruvian Plantcutter,” and “White-browed Purpletuft.” And certainly, you’ve heard of the Andean Cock-of-theRock. These birds and their relatives are THE famous colorful amazing…
Music of the Birds. And more!
Posted by Greg Laden on June 20, 2012 
Music of the Birds by Lang Elliott is a classic book and CD combo well over 10 years old, that provided bird lovers with a chance to learn to identify and appreciate the songs of numerous species. Over the last decade or so many other CD-based bird song offerings have become available. More recently, Lang…
Spring Break Birding!
Posted by Greg Laden on March 23, 2012 If you are a birder and you are going on Spring Break (from the US), don’t forget that there are birds where you are going. And, probably, there are bird books that cover your destination. One of the really cool things about North American birding is that when you do go down to tye Yucatan,…
Petrels, Albatrosses, and Storm-Petrels of North America
Posted by Greg Laden on January 26, 2012 Did you know that there is an entire group of birds called “Tube Noses” because they have tubes on their noses? Well, to be more exact, the term is “tubenoses” and the noses are beaks. The tubes are tubular nostril-like thingies that most (all?) birds have which are extra tube-like in the tubenoses. Thus the…
Wildlife of Southern Africa
Posted by Greg Laden on December 12, 2011 Wildlife of Southern Africa , by Martin Withers and David Hosking, is new (August 2011) and good. If you are planning a trip to South Africa, Namibia, Botswana or anywhere nearby, or if you live there and like to go to the bush sometimes, consider it. This is a pocket guide, it is small, has…
New Bird Book: Birds of North America and Greenland
Posted by Greg Laden on November 12, 2011 Face it. Half the time … most of the time, really … you use your Peterson (or some other favorite “field guide”) as a checklist. You see a bird and you pretty much know in your head what it is, but you need to look it up to see what the three or four similar…
The Atlas of Birds: Diversity, Behavior, and Conservation
Posted by Greg Laden on November 11, 2011 How are birds related to dinosaurs, crocodiles, and pterosaurs? Where do birds live, and not live? How many bird species are there, and how many actual birds, and how does this vary across the glob? What about endemics?; Where ate the most local species found? Mike Unwin’s The Atlas of Birds: Diversity, Behavior, and Conservation…
It is time to start thinking about nesting
Posted by Greg Laden on November 10, 2011 Birds don’t live in nests. They make nests for specific purposes, use them for that purpose, then abandon them. Or, sometimes they don’t abandon them, but rather add on and use them again and again, but in between they don’t live in or on them. Well, sometimes they hang out on them a lot. And…
It’s fall. Time to start hoarding bird books.
Posted by Greg Laden on October 24, 2011 Here in the Northern Hemisphere, many of our birds fly away in the fall. Other, very cool birds from even farther north, depending on where you live then arrive. But just about now, where I live, we are at the tail end of the migration out and not quite at the migration in, so this…
Living Dinosaurs: The Evolutionary History of Modern Birds
Posted by Greg Laden on June 15, 2011 Living Dinosaurs: The Evolutionary History of Modern Birds is an academic anthology of key writing about bird evolution. There are two main things that distinguish this book: 1) It includes quite a bit on fossils and their bearing on bird evolution, a refreshing change from DNA-based phylogenies which can by and large only address later…
The Birds of New Jersey
Posted by Greg Laden on June 8, 2011 I’ve recently reviewed bird or nature books for some fairly exotic places (see this for all the reviews) including the Antarctic and the West Indies. Now, I have a book on the birds of one of the most exotic places ever: New Jersey! OK, if you are from New York like I am, you know…
Antarctic Wildlife: A Visitor’s Guide
Posted by Greg Laden on June 6, 2011 I’m sitting here looking at Antarctic Wildlife: A Visitor’s Guide. I’ve never been to the Antarctic so I can’t tell you what I think of this book from the pragmatic angle of how well it works as a guide, but I can tell you that I’ve learned a number of things just looking at the…
Guide to Birds of the West Indies
Posted by Greg Laden on June 2, 2011 The West Indies includes the Lucayan Archipelago (Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands); the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Hispaniola [Dominican Republic and Haiti], Jamaica, Cayman Islands); the Lesser Antilles (Leeward Islands [the Virgin Islands of Saint Croix, Saint Thomas, Saint John, Water Island, Tortola, Virgin Gorda, Anegada, Jost Van Dyke], Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Antigua, Barbuda,…
The Birder’s Handbook
Posted by Greg Laden on June 1, 2011 I recommend The Birder’s Handbook: A Field Guide to the Natural History of North American Birds. It was written by three serious bird experts and it will serve any bird watcher in North America very well. Here’s how you use it. You go bird watching and later, you look up one or two of the…
Bird Migration and Global Change
Posted by Greg Laden on May 25, 2011 I’m going to have more to say about this topic and this book at a later time, but I wanted to get a notice of it out for Migration Week. Bird Migration and Global Change by George W. Cox addresses the issue of impact on bird populations under conditions of global warming. This is an…
How Birds Migrate
Posted by Greg Laden on May 24, 2011 As part of Migration Week (inspired by this post), I’m covering migration related books (mainly having to do with birds). How Birds Migrate by Paul Kerlinger (with Illustrations by Pat Archer), Second Edition, is an affordable, up to date (2009 publication) comprehensive and intelligently written book. It is written for the general public but is…
, which is now available for the 
