5 comments about The Owl and the Woodpecker: Encounters With North America's Most Iconic Birds.

1. What a beautiful book! The text is well-written and educational. It explains the connections and ecology and habitat needs of these species beautifully. And after reading it I clearly understand how these two families of birds are connected and how important the woodpeckers are to so many other species, as well as the health of habitats. I am an owloholic and I learned some new things about owls from this book.
   
   The photographs are simply stunning. What I like about them is that they are action shots. So many photos of birds, especially owls, are of the birds perched and looking beautiful. And those are great. But, Paul's book has AMAZING active shots of owls being owls and woodpeckers being woodpeckers and that is what makes it stand out from other books. I can only imagine how many hours he put in to get some of the intimate shots of the birds. We are the lucky readers who get to reap the results of all that hard work. This book is a great addition to a birder's and/or naturalist's library and would be a great gift for either!



2. The sound of an owl calling in the middle of the night really does seem like a secret and private invitation, an irresistible beckoning from a different world. This book holds the key to that world, detailing a relationship between owls and woodpeckers, and its far-flung consequences among many other species, which I found unexpected and complex. The beautiful photos are intimate--the comic and vulnerable "old man" faces of a family of baby owls; a nobbly trophy wall of hundreds of glossy nuts embedded in the soft trunk of a dead tree--and loving. The text is full of satisfying detail about the habits of all the species of owls and woodpeckers found in the Pacific Northwest. Finally, the cd in the back features the calls of some 40 species, which I loved because it helped me identify the screech owl who woke me up last night. A really gorgeous book that all bird enthusiasts will appreciate. The photos alone are engrossing.



3. The photos in this book are so stunning that my first several passes through are National Geographic style - studying pictures and reading the captions. The author/photographer has captured actions I've witnessed, but never been able to really see.
   
   Finally, I settled in for the read. I enjoy the habitat-based chapters as an organizational framework and I went first to the habitats with which I'm most familiar. The author combines a breadth of information on the birds, their habitat and conservation issues, and his experience observing and photographing them. At first this felt choppy, but then I embraced it in the context of his discovery of birds and photography as a child (shared in the introduction). He is offering mentoring through his text. Not all aspects will immediately resonate with each reader, but many seeds will be planted and some sparks will catch (be prepared to invest in binocular, camera, and trips to nature next).
   
   The CD offers the owl and woodpecker calls and songs presented in a manner familiar to birders for identification and study.
   
   I expect that this book will launch more than a few new birders, starting them first with two charismatic families of birds. When I am through admiring my copy, I'll pass it along to a young person (middle school through high school) and follow up with an invitation to go birding when the owls start calling.



4. Ornithology is a steadily advancing science and birdwatching a popular pastime. Showcasing stunningly beautiful full-color photography by Paul Bannick, "The Owl And The Woodpecker" will be of enormous interest to both academia and dedicated bird enthusiasts as he visually explores the diversity of these two families of birds and how they live withing and enrich the ecosystems they inhabit. The selected birds range from the Northern Flicker and the Great-Horned Owl, to the Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl, Red-Cockaded Woodpecker, and the Northern Spotted Owl. Organized geographical to present birds in Pacific Coast urban and suburban habitats, northwestern maritime forests, western dry mountain forests, western oak woodlands, grasslands and shrub-steppe, southwestern dry lands, southeastern pine forests, eastern suburban and urban habitats, northeastern forests, boreal forest, and arctic tundra, "The Owl And The Woodpecker" is further enhanced with the inclusion of a 'Field Guide to North American owl and Woodpecker Species', a Bibliography, 'A Note About the Photography', an author biography, and an index, making it a very strongly recommended and popular addition to personal, academic, and community library Pets & Wildlife reference collections.



5. You don't have to be a bird watcher or a scientist to enjoy this book. The pictures are among the best I've ever seen, and the text, among other things, is an easy to understand introduction to some of the complexities of ecological balance.

5 comments about First Flight: A Mother Hummingbird's Story.

1. First, a wonderful memoir of their cat, "Happy Birthday", and now an even more surprising story, an example of patience, persistence, perception and love. The adventures of hummingbirds, an entire life cycle in vivid beautiful color, and amazingly intimate details (this from a new Yorker whose only contact with bird life is pigeons). I think you'll be as delighted as I was.
   - Jay Maisel



2. This exquisite book is about loving and caring for what one loves. The Carroll's masterpiece springs from their love for Honey the Hummingbird as they daily devote themselves to watching her from her return from wintering in Mexico, the laying of two eggs in a nest on a clothesline which she had previously built and inhabited, the birth of her babies, which the Carrolls named Ray and Zen, and her nurturing of them until and after their fledgling flights.
   
   Everything about this book is done with devotion and great care. The text, written by Noriko Carroll, is a perfect accompaniment to what seems to me genius level photographs taken by Don Carroll. There are special lighting effects as a background to many of the photographs, and Mr. Carroll explains in an afterword called "Photographics Notes" that a mirror reflecting parts of his flower garden was used to create these stunning effects. I plan to order another copy of this book, take it to a framer and request that several of the photographs be removed and framed, to be hung on a wall of my home.
   
   The description on the inside of the book jacket cover is even unique. It is not the standard patois one usually reads. It is done with great care, depth and intelligence. It is the finest of its kind I have ever read.
   
   You will learn a great deal about hummingbirds, and if you have a backyard feeder, you will find out the proper and best way to maintain it. You will become more aware of the hummingbirds in your yard and in your life. And, unless you have a heart of stone, you will end up loving them, if you do not do so already.
   
   I heartily thank the Carrolls for their magnificent undertaking of introducing us to the life and ways of this wonderful bird and her offspring. It is their artistic skills, their intact sense of wonder and awe (which so many tend to lose in adulthood), and their capacity to love which has brought this book to us. Quite a gift!



3. This is a great book - I bought it for my mom and dad as they have lots of hummingbirds. But I had to check it out before I gave it to them. LOVED IT!!



4. We enjoyed this picture-story of a mother hummingbird. Excellent photographs and clear text. A book every (humming)birdlover will enjoy.



5. One of the nicest little books on Hummingbirds I have ever seen. I have just recently become interested in hummingbirds so this is a great little book to have.

5 comments about National Geographic Birding Essentials (National Geographic).

1. Beginners new to birding who want a simple overview of identification techniques and observation plans will find BIRDING ESSENTIALS the perfect starting place. It offers both beginners and elementary-level birders the tools to better their observations, and pairs fine color photos of common birds with tips such as understanding variations in bird color, key identification factors, parts of a bird, and much more. General-interest collections will find it a popular lend.



2. THERE WERE EXCELLENT HINTS FOR BIRDWATCHING I FINALLY UNDERSTAND BINOCULARS AND SCOPES - AND WHAT IS THE BEST FOR VIEWING



3. This is an instructive manual. Not a bird identification guide, it's a "how to", like "how to" decoupage your bread box. It starts out at square one, what to look for, and how to buy binoculars. You want to see the little critters, up close and personal. And goes on, step by step from there. How to use that lovely guide, where to find that startling bird, how to know it when you see it. And unlike the afore said "Idiot Guides", it's beautifully illustrated with photographs and diagramed photographs as you would expect from National Geographic. The information is intelligently presented in a logical manner. There's even a section on field sketching and encouragement for keeping not only lists, but descriptive writing about one's sightings. This is the "how to" for observing nature, can't recommend it highly enough.



4. Wonderful, informative, and easy to read! I haven't been bird watching for years & thought I would check it out again. This book was very helpful especially the section on binoculars.
   
   The chapter on appropriate behaviors of bird watchers was great! These types of tips are needed before you join the Audubon Society and trek in the woods with experienced birders!
   
   Great ref for anyone starting out or reviewing the basics.
   
   A couple chapters were a bit too detailed (bird coloring for example) for my taste but I might go back to them once I get out into the field.
   
   Worth the price and the photos (like all National Geographic publications) are spectacular!



5. The pictures and descriptions are outstanding. This book is a great start to learn about birds and how to identify them.
   
   It's also a painless way to learn some basic bird biology.

5 comments about Bird.

1. This is the TOP OF THE LINE Bird Book! It's the perfect 'coffee table', always at your fingertips (but make sure your fingers are strong...being that the book is oversized and very HEAVY)& FULL of the most gorgeous photographs~Lovely to view, to appreciate & to become enthralled with birds, their habits, migration, etc. Even if you are NOT a bird lover, the book has such incredible layouts, that turning each page, seeing the next full page layout is just as breathtaking as the last! A 'museum' type of show. I'd recommend this to ANYONE that loves nature, photography, and appreciates how incredible nature can be.



2. I am a 9-year-old student who likes birds very much. This book my favourite mid-term present. My grandfather bought this book for me. It has colorful photos and very good informations about many species. My favourite birds are great skua, great northern diver, and peacock. It is the book I have got a massive information about these species. I am very surprised of seeing that almost all species worldwide took place in this book. Most of the books I have seen before with a title of "World Birds" contain a less number of birds.
   Kuzey Cem KULACOGLU, Ankara, Turkey.



3. This is a truly wonderfull book.The information is outstanding and the pictures are excellent. Any one interested in ornithology should buy this book.



4. An excellent guide to the world of birds in easy to understand, simple format. Highly recommend for anyone interested in birds; a must-have for your collection if you are a bird-lover. The accompanying CD of bird voices is valuable; but I feel birds of all continents are not equally represented there. But the book is excellent.



5. Dorling Kindersley have become well known for producing clear, visually oriented reference books for adults and children. They had previously published a score of smaller volumes on the subject of birds, but nothing quite like this: a definitive guide, as they claim. The book is best described as an encyclopaedia of birds. Measuring 30 x 25 cm (12" x 10") and weighing over 4.5 pounds, it has the heft of an encyclopaedia and certainly isn't a field guide. At the same time it is an avian art gallery that exhibits some of the most exciting photographs of the world's most wonderful birds.
   
   The book is split into three parts. The 44 page introduction discusses physiology, flight, behaviour, conservation and more. It is nicely concise, making use of numerous photographs and diagrams to explain what birds are. The second, 28-page section explores habitats in the same way. This leaves the lion's share - some 390 pages - for the systematic accounts, which cover all bird families and a selection of over 1,200 species. There is an introductory section for each taxonomic group - species are grouped by Order in the case of Non-passerines and Family for the Passerines. The majority of species are illustrated by a photograph in addition to range map with a short text on the salient features of the bird.
   
   An audio CD prepared by Cornell's Macauley Library of Natural Sounds is included. It is a delightful audio sample of vocalisations from 60 species from around the world.
   
   This is just the sort of book that would have engrossed me for hours as a child. I remember spending many a happy evening poring over my Mitchell Beazley World Atlas of Birds, which would have been the nearest equivalent back then. Already my kids have spent more time looking through the book than I have! It's not too hard to imagine that this book, left idly on a coffee table, will persuade many a non-birding adult to pick up a pair of binoculars for the first time. In fact, it may just be the ideal book to explain to the fascination of birds to the uninitiated. I spend a lot of time watching birds in the wild and even I found myself gasping at some of the photographs. The double page spreads of a hunting Great Grey Owl, King Penguins under water, a Spotted Sandpiper chick hunkered down amongst leaf litter, Toco Toucan, Bohemian Waxwings and Northern Cardinal were, for me, particular evocative.
   
   This is a book I can heartily recommend to birders of all stripes - especially beginning birders, armchair travellers and anyone who likes to celebrate the beauty and diversity of birds. A sort of book equivalent of David Attenborough's "Life of Birds".
   
   Chris Sharpe, 4 June 2008. ISBN: 075663153X

5 comments about A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica (Comstock Book).

1. The plates are very helpful but a number of bird names have changed and splits have occured since publication so many years ago. It's long past time for a new, updated edition.



2. This is an outstanding reference manual for the serious birder. Many of our naturalist guides in Costa Rica carried copies of it. Some of them had removed the plates and laminated them to make them more durable. The drawbacks are the size and weight, as well as the fact that the illustrations are not on the same page as the descriptions. If you want a small, light field guide, try "A Photographic Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica" (Susan Fogen). It uses the same classification system as the Stiles book, but includes only the common bird varieties, and has a photo for each of them.



3. This guide to the birds of Costa Rica contains a wealth of information on where to find the birds, apart from their habits, how to identify them easily in the field, and their typical habitat in Costa Rica. The colored plates are good, although in the case of one or two species, a little on the small side. Overall, outstanding value for money and a tribute to years of painstaking research in the field.



4. Outstanding bird guide;accurately illustrate birds allowing me to identify birds that I had never seen before. The book is full of information as to the clima, geography, avian habitats and identifies the names of the birds both in Spanish and English. A must have!



5. Yes, it's too big for the field. Yes, it was published in 1989, and no update is imminent (presumably). But no birder traveling to Costa Rica should do so without this work (and Amazon offers a great price). It's also true that Garrigues and Dean have now offered a much more portable guide that can (and should) be carried in the field, and for that I'm especially grateful. But when puzzles arise (as they invariably do), the encyclopedic information from Stiles & Skutch must be readily available (in the car or hotel room). The supplementary information offers an insightful view of a country that for many of us is the ultimate tropical prototype. The species profiles are detailed and yet concise, and the illustrations are both beautiful and representative. If you're a birder going to Costa Rica, don't leave home without it.
   
   One additional note - I did buy an inexpensive, worn used copy from which I had a copy service separate the plates from the text and bind each separately. The plates will accompany me in the field. Those plates will probably help me narrow down my diagnostic choices more quickly. For examples, in Garrigues-Dean I have twelve plates for woodcreepers and antbirds, while I have to peruse only four plates from Stiles-Skutch.

5 comments about Birds of Ecuador Field Guide.

1. This is really the only option if you're traveling to Ecuador to bird and it's a great book as those before me have said. It's very hefty, both in information and in physical size. It's overwhelming sure, but so is birding in the tropics. The plates are pretty good, though some are laughably awkward, the raptors for instance. I didn't choose to bind the plates separately in my copy when I went, I carried the whole text in my backpack. It was heavy and sort of obnoxious to keep pulling it out to refer, but what are you gonna do?
   
   Those are really the only complaints, and by and large it's well worth the money and there's nothing else you would choose to take to Ecuador. I'm certainly glad I have it.



2. This is an exhaustive book with brilliant drawings - but not a field guide. Forget what the publishers say about two volumes and this one being the field guide. It's hideously impractical. It's over 700 pages, thicker than your fist, and a HEAVY load to be lugging around and getting it into an out of your backpack, especially when hiking or navigating slippery jungle trails in the sweltering heat. That said, I don't know of any other field guide and let's face it, we birders need a field guide. As many others I have had the plates with the drawings taken out and bound into a 'new' book, and brought only that with me. It's suboptimal, but hey, what can you do.



3. The book is an excellent guide. I could see the pictures and description of the birds I was lucky to see in my last trip to Ecuador.



4. Actually, this is volume 2 of a set of two books. But it is this volume that is meant to be taken to the field. For the first time, there is a full set of very useful color plates for one of the core South American countries. It is certainly a great accomplishment to have all the species pictured in color and on a more or less consistent standard. However, I do not agree with other reviewers who rave about the plates. Too many of the bird pictures have an overall flat appearance, with the color rendition being too simplistic or too bold. And while a good number of the birds are depicted in good or even in unnecessarily large size, others would have benefitted from a larger sized rendition. Just because a species is small does not mean it has to be depicted in a diminutive size, unless there are larger species of the same group on the plate. Thus, while the plates are most useful, it is nevertheless disappointing to see that the overall standard (except for the plates being all in color) is rather lower than what was already published decades ago e.g. in "Birds of Colombia".
   The book has excellent range maps and very helpful comprehensive texts. However, a somewhat more compact layout would have allowed for a smaller overall size of the book. The way to do it is being demonstrated in the book itself. The texts facing the plates use the suggested compact layout most convincingly. Spanish bird names are given in the main text, but, unfortunately, there is no index for them.
   
   (This is an adapted review I originally published in 2002 for the so-called slipcased two-volume edition. As it concerned the fieldguide, but disappeared, here it is again.)



5. I used it in Sumaco, Podocarpus and Mindo area in Ecuador in 2003 while working on Golden-winged Manakin display behavior stuff... and this was a perfect book!... illustrations use the page space very well, love that!...

5 comments about Ornithology.

1. 
   Wow! I was knocked out when I received this book. I was afraid it would be far too technichal, and geared exclusively for biologists and zoologists. It is actually written for undergraduate level students interested in bird behavior and physiology. I highly recommend this book, but beware! This is not some light reading! It's a very serious text, but very readable and well illustrated. Love it!



2. It is more "scientific" that Cornel Lab's "Handbook of bird biology". Chapters 16 through 21 are the most iteresting for ecologists and evolutionary biologists. Is is usefull for teaching on higher education level.



3. Wow! How our knowledge of birds has increased over the past decade since the last edition! Written with charm and warmth, flows well with loads of details; this book is a must for the shelf of every bird enthusiast whether professional or kitchen feeder watcher. Only complaint: I wish this Edition III had the engaging taxonomy section (at end) of the older editions, updated with all the new revisions in bird relationships hinted at in the previous editions. My copy doesn't have the promised CD of that section. The cover is stunning - out of the gloom of night comes a Barn Owl to pounce the author! - worth the price only. Some color photos of spectacular birds and their actions inside would brighten the inside.



4. It was my ornithology text book. This covers everything that any bird enthusiast would ever want to know including anatomy, evolution, adaptations and species specific info. I would definitely recommend it!



5. A book written old style ; it means old pictures , no color pictures
   A book for ornithologues , not for birders
   A book with many many details on molts , incubation , breeding , anathomy , .... but nothing on wings description
   A book revised 2007 , but with nothing really new

5 comments about Stokes Field Guide to Bird Songs: Western Region (Stokes Field Guide to Bird Songs).

1. The only critique I have is that some of the western birds are not in this guide. They are in the eastern guide. You actually need them both. I highly recommend this set of guides.



2. There is a pretty limited selection when it comes to birding sound cds. This is a good choice because each bird is given about 30 seconds of calls. I placed the entire cd into my iTunes library, then downloaded them into my iPod for field use. Really, calls and songs are the only sure way to identify birds when the bird could be one of several that look alike. (as most do).



3. The Stokes field guide to birdsongs of eastern and western north america are an excellent way to learn how birds attract mates and communicate to announce and protect their territory.



4. Great product. Only negative is that the cd case doesn't open and close easily. Fast shipping. Product as described. Would recommend.



5. Very handy and easy to use as a reference and for use with the BirdJam for iPod, but not as good for a starter just learning.

3 comments about Best-Ever Backyard Birding Tips: Hundreds of Easy Ways to Attract the Birds You Love to Watch (Rodale Organic Gardening Books).

1. This book provides good basic information on many types of birds, and lots of tips for becoming bird-friendly. I have been "birding" for several years now, so I was already informed about much of the information provided. It is a good source for what plants/trees/landscape will attract birds and what each species likes to eat. Be aware that it is mainly "black and white" type (actually blue and white) with very minimal color pictures/photos. Pretty good source, especially for a beginner.



2. Great book. Very informative. Started to order this from another source and as always checked with Amazon first and found it for a fraction of the cost.



3. This bok is jam packed with Ideas and tips for the bird lover in all of us. This is a great book!

1 comments about Birdscapes: A Pop-Up Celebration of Bird Songs in Stereo Sound.

1. Birdscapes combines engaging pop-up landscapes with stereo sound bird songs. It is a great activity for families as kids, parent and grandparents will find something compelling in the book. It would also be a great teaching tool in schools or libraries. When you open a spread, you hear each bird's song. There is an on/off button so you can control the sound. I have turned it off and left it opened to a spread as a decorative element in my home. It catches visitor's attention. The back has more information on each bird in the book. Very unusual and appreciated gift item.