Birding (Nature Company Guides)
October 19, 2008
Customer Review: An interesting bird book for beginners
I’ve sent this book along with a wren birdhouse to my friends to enjoy backyard birding. I send it to those who have a tree or an eave for the birdhouse. They’ve delighted in the book and have had wrens in the house. It’s very exciting for them to know so much about many common birds they see. They’ve had fun with this book.
Customer Review: Birding
The first three chapters (83 pages) deserve a top score. The remainder of the book has problems that would barely earn a two on a one-to-five scale. Overall, a three is generous.
The first three chapters are as good a tutorial on birding as you will find anywhere. It begins with a chapter on understanding birds. Some readers may find it dry but should read it anyway. They are probably the same readers that have skipped the front material in every field guide they ever owned. Next comes a section on birding at home. For a beginner living anywhere other than a cave in Manhattan, observing neighborhood birds is a great start. This second chapter then provides ideas for attracting more birds to your backyard. The material on feeders and feeds is excellent and the information on planting and landscaping will get you started.
The third chapter is on actual birding. It is practical and covers all aspects of importance. There isn’t any need for birding to be complicated and it should be available to everyone. It is difficult to conceive of a handicap that would preclude a person from enjoying birds. For starters, binoculars and a field guide is all that one needs. Some sort of notepad is a good addition. The book covers these basics, and then expands to a discussion of spotting scopes, birding by ear, photography, and getting more involved in bird study. Conservation should be mandatory in any discussion of birding and this book does not disappoint.
The remainder of the book is a sort of field guide arranged by habitat. The concept seems to be that an inexperienced birder can choose a habitat, look over the book’s subsection on that habitat, and be better equipped to identify the birds found there. The problem is that birds do not always respect habitat. Every habitat I have visited has had birds not particularly identified with that habitat. Certainly, a beginning birder will find the order used by most field guides confusing; but it is better to have the hawks together, the sparrows together, etc. than to have them separated.
This “Birdfinder” section has 148 pages, each highlighting a species. Since this is far short of even the common species of the United States, many species are added as adjuncts to a related species or omitted all together. The golden-crowned kinglet becomes a footnote to the ruby-crowned kinglet. The red-breasted nuthatch is added to the white-breasted nuthatch’s page, with no mention of the other nuthatches. Woodpeckers are a strange case. Downy woodpeckers get a page in the urban habitat and hairy woodpeckers get a mention on the same page. The rest of the woodpecker clan is represented solely by the acorn woodpecker and the northern flicker in the woodlands habitat.
Another objection is that the Birdfinder section is oriented to eastern birding without admitting that is the case. For example, the eastern phoebe gets a page but the Say’s phoebe doesn’t get a mention. Meadowlarks are represented by the eastern species, although the western species gets a mention. The same is true of the Baltimore and Bullock’s orioles. Bluebirds get a page devoted to the eastern bluebird; the western bluebird gets a mention and a picture, while the mountain bluebird that is dominant in some areas isn’t mentioned. Bluebirds are identified in the woodlands habitat; I find all three species more associated with grasslands, although they are cavity nesters.
While teaching a class on birding, I held up this book and said that it included nearly everything I had told them. To cover my conscience in even showing it, I added most of what I have covered in this review.
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