No comments about Birds of the Heartland Notecards.

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No comments about The Audubon Ark: A History of the National Audubon Society.

No comments about Birds of California: Our Birds (CD-ROM for Windows).

No comments about Wildlife Sanctuaries and the Audubon Society: Places to Hide and Seek.

No comments about Birds Alphabet Coloring Book (Dover Coloring Book).

1 comments about For the Beauty of the Earth: Birding, Opera, and Other Journeys.

1. Thomas Urquhart is a 'rara avis' - a true intellect who has used his skills in scholastic research, personal avocations of reading great literature, studying languages, the many faces of music and poetry, and bird watching to create a book that defies description. FOR THE BEAUTY OF THE EARTH: BIRDING, OPERA AND OTHER JOURNEYS is not a memoir in the dictionary sense of the word. Yes, these are shared observations by a Naturalist who has visited his native England, Mali, Provence, Italy and America (now his home) and simply absorbed all the natural, at times rapidly disappearing, beauty of nature. For the reader who must have linear writing to enjoy a book, then this beautifully written volume is still accessible by reading only a chapter at a time. All of Urquhart's 'journeys' are descriptive of place, of people, of customs, of history, of local and universal mythology, of all the music in the songs of birds and the symphonies of natural wonders. While he celebrates and guides us a fellow travelers to embrace the wonders of the earth, he gently encourages us to heed his warnings. "...we have yet to internalize our recent discovery that the earth is fragile and finite. Although our ancestors understood how to live in nature far better than we do, they had not discovered this important fact...The scale of the disconnect between how we have conceived of the earth in cultural memory and just how much we need it now to support our species for the future is beginning to sink in. It is a chasm we must cross before we are pushed over the edge by the demons we have unleashed in our wake." "..our natural systems are at once source, symbol and symptom of our quality of life; their wise stewardship must be the standard by which any government is judged." Yet Urquhart, for all his convictions that we must preserve our natural resources, does not preach to us in this book. His primary concern is to awaken in us a renaissance of the wonder of nature. Walking the Provencal countryside he muses, "The play of pagan and Christian, nature and man is finally distilled into pure delight, a whimsical descant that decorates the physical testimony of the timeless dance of man and the earth." Along his travels he has many diversions into his appreciation for the symphonies and songs of Gustav Mahler, the Ring cycle of Richard Wagner, Schubert and other composers whose music holds evidence of the naturalist's view, poets and writers. Urquhart's knowledge of the density of history, language, mythology, botany and ornithology of his visited places is astonishing. There is more to learn in this volume of musings than in libraries of dry reference books. Why? In his words, "I have searched all my life for a practice that would allow me to celebrate Earth and nature as they deserve, to penetrate their wonders in the least branch, pool or leaf. It is a personal quest for something ecstatic or revelatory, something that will make my cheeks tingle or bring tears to my eyes." This lovingly and eloquently written diary of the earth is a joy to read and is food for thought as our society continues to chomp large bites out of hte earth's crust and atmosphere. Thomas Urquhart is a poet, a philosopher, and a simple birdwatcher with a profound message. Everyone should read this treasure!

No comments about Attracting Birds.

2 comments about How to Attract Birds (Ortho Library).

1. The editorial review basically says it all. I'm using the book quite a bit -- I'm trying to attract birds that will eat insect pests. Few other sources have such detailed information about feeding habits, and the information on houses is quite adequate, although you can find birdhouse designs which are much more visually appealing (to humans!) in other books. The one thing I really wish they had done is to put the pests in the index; finding what pests birds like particular to eat requires tedious entry-by-entry searching.



2. Why is it that books like "How to Attract Birds" recommend putting up a separate squirrel feeder to distract those fuzzy-tailed rodents from gobbling up the contents of your bird feeders? All this does is attract more squirrels to your yard, who proceed to devour both the contents of the squirrel feeder and the bird feeders.
   
   Or in the case of our old house in Detroit, the squirrel feeder on the fence attracted the rats from our neighbor's woodpile, and the squirrels very wisely stuck to the bird feeders.
   
   Any self-respecting book on attracting birds also has to include information on how to discourage unwanted seed hustlers such as squirrels, chipmunks, starlings, and (in the case of our new home), raccoons, and bears. Authors John Dennis and Michael McKinley do their best in Ortho's "How to Attract Birds," but they tend to emphasize the positive (attracting favorite birds) rather than the negative (discouraging unwanted visitors).
   
   This 96-page book is divided up into sections on "Birds in the Wild," "Planting for Birds," "Providing Food," "Providing Water," "Providing Housing," and "Attracting Your Favorite Birds." The text is an easy read, and there are lots of color photos and diagrams.
   
   Be sure to read the inset on page 53, "Protecting Your Guests." There are types of feed that shouldn't be used in the summer, e.g. peanuts and coconut because they can't be digested by nestlings of certain species. You also might want to avoid certain ornamental plants with berries that ferment, intoxicating their feathered diners and causing them to fly "into houses or into oncoming traffic."
   
   Overall "How to Attract Birds" is a very useful book, even though it doesn't satisfy my quest to build an effective squirrel-proof feeder.

No comments about Birds and forests: A management and conservation guide.