Other

Huh? That would have been my reaction a couple years ago to the concept of birding and social media. Sure, I used some listservs and forums to get birding news, but the idea that Facebook could be useful for birders would have been laughable.

Not anymore. Social media – Facebook, Twitter, blogging, and the like – has been extremely useful for other industries and groups, and birding is no different.

If you’d like to find out what this social media thing is all about, and how it can be helpful to you as a birder, then you’re in luck. Gunnar Engblom has long been championing its use to birders, and he has now put together a 31 day Social Media workshop for birders.

The workshop is free, and will take the form of posts on his blog. I’m really looking forward to this, I’ve been needing a push to get off my butt and sign up on Twitter!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas, and that this new year will be full of new birds!

I had intended to use my time off work to finish some reviews, but between the holidays, out of town trips, and computer problems, that hasn’t really worked out. The computer issues especially may keep me from doing much until next week. Well, at least I can keep reading (and keep getting even further behind!).

I don’t normally post about things unrelated to bird books and other media. But sometimes an occasion or opportunity pops up that I just have to mention (like the recently created 10,000 Birds Conservation Club). This is such opportunity – after all, what birder wouldn’t want a free trip to Peru?

Gunnar Engblom of Kolibri Expeditions is indeed giving away multiple free birding trips to Peru. One of the reasons is obvious, he wants to generate publicity so that his trips fill up. But it goes much beyond that. The two itineraries included in this promotion (one to Manu, universally regarded as one of the best birding spots on the planet) were designed to bring eco-tourism to the native communities. Thus, the group stays in locally run lodges to promote a sustainable alternative to logging, mining, and oil exploitation. So, not only will you be seeing some fantastic birds, you will be helping to preserve their habitat at the same time.

So what do you need to do? Easy:

1. Sign up for the Kolibri Expeditions email newsletter.
2. Tell people about the contest. Blog about it (like I’m doing here), tweet it, post it on facebook, digg it, email your birding buddies, anything.

That’s basically it. But check out Gunnar’s post to get all the details:

Free Birding Trips to Peru

And even if you don’t participate (and why wouldn’t you?), check out Gunnar’s excellent blog. But then again, maybe you shouldn’t. Seeing all of those wonderful Peruvian birds is bound to change your mind and make you want to get to Peru as soon as possible!

If you’re reading this, I assume that you enjoy reading about birds. I certainly do, it’s why I started this site. But underlying that is a basic enjoyment of birds themselves. They bring alot of joy into my life. But the sad fact is that they’re in trouble. If we want to have birds around for ourselves and our children, then we need to actually do something.

But what can I do, you may be asking? There are specific things you can do, as well as great organizations you can join. And everyone who loves birds should do those things. But it can be hard to see how personal actions like recycling, and joining large conservation groups actually helps. It would be great if there was something we could do that has a tangible, demonstrative benefit for birds that really need our help.

The guys at the 10,000 Birds blog have created just such a thing – the 10,000 Birds Conservation Club. It costs $25 US (or the equivalent in another currency) per year, and that entire amount (minus necessary expenses – the founders aren’t keeping a dime for themselves) goes toward the conservation of threatened birds. The members can even help direct where the money is spent!

And if that wasn’t enough, they have also lined up some great giveaways available only to Conservation Club members. The first such giveaway is a set of all three Sound Approach books. All three are fantastic books that any birder would love. Honestly, if I didn’t already have them, I would have joined just to enter this contest!

And there will be more giveaways throughout the year. But it’s worth joining just for the fact that you know that your money is going directly to help threatened species, and that you will have a voice in how it is actually spent. I’ve already joined, and if you enjoy having birds around, you should consider it as well.

Some of you may have seen a cryptic post earlier today titled “Books for Beginning Birders”, but containing only some text saying “coming soon…”. Sorry about that, I was trying to get a shell of a page up quickly, and, well…it’s been a long day.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that it has been updated, and should be correct now. So, if you haven’t seen it, here are some Books for Beginning Birders.

I agonize over the star ratings in my reviews. I don’t even know if anyone out there cares what the rating is, but I do. If I’m going to rate something, I want that rating to reflect my opinion as accurately as possible. The good thing is that the more reviews I do, the better I’m able to compare books with each other. But looking back, I’ve found that I no longer agree with some of my ratings.

Here are the changes that I’ve made:

• A Field Guide to Warblers of North America (Peterson Guide)
  by Jon Dunn and Kimball Garrett
     

  REVIEW. This was one of my original reviews, and is much shorter than one I would write now. I need to just rewrite it. But in the meantime, I went ahead and changed the rating because I was too harsh initially. I could go with either 4 or 4.5, but went with the higher because this guide is incredibly useful.

  My complaints about it involve size (too small, thus making it too thick and reducing picture sizes), and the printing quality of the plates. However, it is full of useful information and illustrations. I think this is one of the few family-specific ID guides every North American birder absolutely needs. It’s still the first resource I turn to for warbler questions.

• Birding For Everyone: Encouraging People of Color to Become Birdwatchers
  by John C. Robinson
     

  REVIEW. My initial rating was based on my opinion that this is an important book for the future of birding. My opinion regarding that has not changed. However, based strictly on the content and organization, I would have given it a much lower score. I think 3.5 to 4 stars is a good range, considering everything.

• Raptors of North America: Natural History and Conservation
  by Noel and Helen Snyder
     

  REVIEW. I’m not sure what I was thinking here. After reading many more bird family books, I find that I keep comparing them to this one. The photography and text are both outstanding. It’s still not the place to turn to for identification or a quick summary of natural history information. But it’s a great read, and lets you really get to know these birds.

• The Sound Approach to Birding
  by Mark Constantine and The Sound Approach
     

  REVIEW. This is a revolutionary book that will increase your understanding and enjoyment of bird sounds. It fully deserves the highest rating.

• A Supremely Bad Idea: Three Mad Birders and Their Quest to See It All
  by Luke Dempsey
     

  REVIEW. I really enjoyed this, but comparing it to some other ratings, I think I need to drop it down a notch.

• Audubon VideoGuide to 505 Birds of North America
     

  REVIEW. This will be less and less relevant as time goes on. The internet is already a better source of bird videos and (especially) photos. And now we have portable applications such as iBird. There may still be a market for a disc-based collection (DVD, or better yet, blu-ray). But this is not that collection – it would need to be completely overhauled and updated.

• A Guide to Bird Watching
  by Joseph J. Hickey
     

  REVIEW. No, this classic won’t make modern birders “better” at their craft. But it is still worth reading for many reasons, foremost among them Hickey’s still-pertinent plea that bird watching be more than simple ticks on a checklist. Definitely worth reading.

There are a few more ratings that I’m less than confident about, but I’ll let them stand for now.

Does anyone find these ratings useful?

I maintain an Amazon wishlist for the usual reasons; mostly I just want to keep track of the books and other items that I want. But I make it a habit to glance over the list frequently. I want to keep an eye on the prices because Amazon has a habit of changing them often. Usually, it’s just a couple of dollars up or down, but sometimes the price gets dropped enough that I immediately place an order before it goes back up.

But today, while looking over my wishlist, a price virtually jumped off the screen at me. Take a look at the screencap below and see if it does for you as well.

Yes, you read that right. But here’s a look at the product’s page, just in case you don’t believe it.

Yes, that’s right – for just over $89k, you too can own this superb owl guide! Somehow, I found the resolve to pass this incredible deal.

I checked out more guides in this California series, and most were still the regular price. But a few had this mysterious “sourcing fee” added. The fee for the raptor guide was a relative bargain at $23,000+.

Checking again just now, I see that everything is back to the regular price. What, no one wanted to buy a book that costs as much as a luxury car?

In the May 2009 issue of Birding, the magazine of the American Birding Association, Alan Contreras opines: “Right now, we are overwhelmed with guides for beginners and specialized family references, many of which are good, but we lack truly advanced field guides…”

Among other suggestions, he would like to see a field guide that shows more plumages of each bird. To help make room for this, he suggests having relatively small illustrations of the easy birds, and larger illustrations of the small and hard-to-identify ones.

He makes some very good points. One of the reasons I love The Sibley Guide (review) so much is because it includes more illustrations of each species, on average, than any other North American guide.

After reading Contreras’ article, I started thinking about the features that I would like to see in my ideal field guide. But in all my ruminations, I didn’t come up with anything like what Richard Crossley is planning. The intrepid bloggers at 10,000 Birds just posted about Crossley’s plan for a new field guide, along with some of his unique photographic plates:

Could this be North America’s best ID guide?

For more examples of his plates, don’t miss Crossley’s The I.D. Guide gallery.

The more I see of Crossley’s photo plates, the more impressed I get. They are just amazing, and are surely works of art just as much as painted plates.

The samples look like they are intended to be full-sized pages, and I really hope that is the case. This format, though, will probably make for a very thick field guide. All I have to say about that is “Great!!”. Just think, a full-page plate showing all kinds of different plumages and positions, along with an entire facing page for most species. That will mean a ton of room for identification tips and other information.

Of course, that also means that it may not be portable enough to carry into the field. But if this is aimed at more advanced birders, then that won’t be a problem. Most of them leave the field guide in the car or at home anyway.

This is starting to sound a lot like the field guide that Contreras was wishing for. All I know is that I can’t wait to see the finished product.

I’ve just become aware of another bird book site – Avian Books. There is a ton of reviews, as well as lists of books by geographic region. The owner’s goal is to list and review all of his 1,200+ bird books. And I thought I had alot!

Another fantastic resource is the Tigrina Times, the online magazine of the Cape May Bird Observatory. There is a regular column by Pete Dunne (!), ID-related articles by Michael O’Brien, and fieldcraft tips from Don Freiday. Plus, there are regular book reviews. How can you not love all that?

Finally, on a non-book related note, The Binocular Site has created a list of birding sites. It is definitely a work in progress, but it has great potential.

Hopefully, you’ve gotten all of your Christmas shopping done by now. But just in case, here are some suggestions for any bird bibliophile in your life.

Field Guides

No birder will ever mind getting another field guide. I don’t think it’s even possible to have too many! Here are the latest for North America.

• National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of
  Eastern North America
  Western North America
  Jon L. Dunn and Jonathan Alderfer

  The venerable NatGeo field guide has now been split into eastern and western editions, a la The Sibley Guide. There are some added features in these new ones, making them worthwhile to most birders, especially anyone who does not have the full 5th edition.

• Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America
  Roger Tory Peterson

  The opposite of the NatGeo guides above, the previously separate Peterson guides have been combined into this volume. Peterson’s classic art has never looked better.
  Full Review

Fun Reading

Field guides, family monographs, and other such books are great, but every once in a while it’s good to relax with a light, fun book.

• Birdscapes: A Pop-Up Celebration of Bird Songs in Stereo Sound
  Miyoko Chu

  Yes, you read that right – a pop-up book. But this is unlike any pop-up book you had as a kid. It is amazingly elaborate, educational, and just plain fun.

• A Supremely Bad Idea: Three Mad Birders and Their Quest to See It All
  Luke Dempsey

  An irreverent, and often hilarious, look at what happens when someone gets bitten hard by the birding bug.
  Full Review

• A Guide to the Birds of East Africa
  Nicholas Drayson

  No, this isn’t in the wrong section – this is actually a novel. I haven’t had the chance to read it yet (it’s high up in my pile, though), but from what I understand it is a delightful read.

Other Books

And all the rest…

• Albatross: Their World, Their Ways
  Tui De Roy, Mark Jones, and Julian Fritter

  This is an absolutely gorgeous, as well as informative, book. It is probably the best non-identification-related family book that I have seen. Anyone with even the slightest interest in these fascinating birds should love this book.

• The Owl and the Woodpecker: Encounters With North America’s Most Iconic Birds
  Paul Bannick

  Fantastic photography and a really interesting approach make this a great gift.
  Full Review

• The Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature
  Jonathan Rosen

  This is a hard book to sum up in a sentence or two. It is part history of birdwatching, and part treatise on why one birds. But without a doubt it is the best birding book that I have read this year, and possibly ever.
  The paperback (shown here) will be available on December 23. The hardcover is available now.
  Full Review

Other Stuff

• Born Again Birdwatcher has a great list of gift suggestions
• Birdchick has a gift guide, and also posts about a birder gift site – Magnificent Frigatebird – that has some great tshirts and even underwear, among other things.