Bird Books

The latest book by your favorite ornithologist, me, is The Art of the Bird from the University of Chicago Press.

The human history of depicting birds dates to as many as 40,000 years ago, when Paleolithic artists took to cave walls to capture winged and other beasts. But the art form has reached its peak in the last four hundred years. In The Art of the Bird, devout birder and ornithologist Roger J. Lederer celebrates this heyday of avian illustration in forty artists’ profiles, beginning with the work of Flemish painter Frans Snyders in the early 1600s and continuing through to contemporary artists like Elizabeth Butterworth, famed for her portraits of macaws. Stretching its wings across time, taxa, geography, and artistic style—from the celebrated realism of American conservation icon John James Audubon, to Elizabeth Gould’s nineteenth-century renderings of museum specimens from the Himalayas, to Swedish artist and ornithologist Lars Jonsson’s ethereal watercolors—this book is feathered with art and artists as diverse and beautiful as their subjects. A soaring exploration of our fascination with the avian form, The Art of the Bird is a testament to the ways in which the intense observation inherent in both art and science reveals the mysteries of the natural world.

In Flights of Fancy, Richard Dawkins explains how nature and humans have learned to overcome the pull of gravity and take to the skies. From the mythical Icarus, to the sadly extinct but spectacular bird Argentavis magnificens, from the Wright flyer and the 747, to the Tinkerbella fairyfly and the Peregrine falcon. But it is also about flights of the mind, about escaping the everyday – through science, ideas and imagination. Fascinating and beautifully illustrated, this is a unique collaboration between one of the world’s leading scientists and a talented artist.

A gorgeously illustrated and interactive full-color guide to more than 181 birds of North America, based on the bestselling board game, Wingspan.

Praised for its gorgeous illustrations, accurate portrayal of bird habitats, and its gameplay, the bird-focused board game Wingspan has become an international sensation, available in a dozen languages and selling more than 200,000 copies its first year. Celebrating Birds is the ultimate companion to the game for fans, as well as a beautiful and in-depth field guide for avian and nature enthusiasts.
In addition to large-size representations of each bird and the most up-to-date bird descriptions provided by Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Celebrating Birds includes a step-by-step guide that can be used to take the game into the real world. Players can collect points based on the birds, nests, and various habitat and feeding clues they find outside.
Artists and best friends Natalia Rojas and Ana Maria Martinez collaborated to create the beautiful depictions featured in the original Wingspan board game. Celebrating Birds features larger illustrations of the 170 North American birds from the game, plus eleven exciting new birds.





Captivating views of birdlife In photographs that surprise with their eye-catching composition and amaze with their detail, The Art of Birds captures the beauty of birds as most people never see them. …

Fifty years ago, a young ornithologist named Steve Kress fell in love with puffin. After learning that hunting had eradicated their colonies on small, rocky islands off the coast of Maine, he resolved to bring them back. So began a decades-long quest that involved collecting chicks in Canada, flying them to Maine, raising them in coffee-can nests, transporting them to their new island home, watching over them as they grew, and then waiting—for years—to see if they would come back. This is the story of how the Puffin Project reclaimed a piece of our rich biological heritage, and how it inspired other groups around the world to help other species re-root in their native lands.

Fifty years ago, a young ornithologist named Steve Kress fell in love with puffin. After learning that hunting had eradicated their colonies on small, rocky islands off the coast of Maine, he resolved to bring them back. So began a decades-long quest that involved collecting chicks in Canada, flying them to Maine, raising them in coffee-can nests, transporting them to their new island home, watching over them as they grew, and then waiting—for years—to see if they would come back. This is the story of how the Puffin Project reclaimed a piece of our rich biological heritage, and how it inspired other groups around the world to help other species re-root in their native lands.

Renowned for their dazzling plumages and elaborate courtship displays, birds of paradise and bowerbirds exhibit some of the most astonishing behaviors in the natural world. Birds of Paradise and Bowerbirds is the ultimate identification guide to these marvelous birds. This beautiful book features stunning color plates that depict all 108 recognized taxa in these two groups along with more than 200 color photos that showcase a broad range of racial and age-related plumage varieties. The comprehensive text covers identification, taxonomy, and ecology, and is accompanied by detailed distribution maps. Birds of Paradise and Bowerbirds is the product of more than two decades of research and field observations, and is a must-have guide for birders, ornithologists, and anyone interested in these sensational birds.

Another book from Princeton University Press, Birds of Central America by Andrew Vallely and Dale Dyer is the first comprehensive field guide to the avifauna of the entire region. Handy and compact, the book presents texts and illustrations for nearly 1,200 resident and migrant species, and information on all rare vagrants. The guide also contains up to date range maps and concise notes on distribution, habitat, behavior, and voice. An introduction provides a brief overview of the region’s landscape, climate, and biogeography.

This photographic guide to the Birds of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh is the only comprehensive photographic field guide to the birds of the entire Indian subcontinent. Every distinct species – 1,375 in all- is covered with photographs, text and maps. This guide features more than 4000 stunning photographs, many never before published. The result is an encyclopedic photographic guide that is essential for everyone birding in the subcontinent .

Rare Birds of North America is the first comprehensive illustrated guide to the vagrant birds that occur throughout the United States and Canada. Featuring 275 stunning color plates, this book covers 262 bird species originating from three very different regions–the Old World, the New World tropics, and the world’s oceans. It explains the causes of avian vagrancy and breaks down patterns of occurrence by region and season, enabling readers to see where, when, and why each species occurs in North America. Detailed species accounts describe key identification features, taxonomy, age, sex, distribution, and status. Read more.

10000birdsTen Thousand Birds provides a thoroughly engaging and authoritative history of modern ornithology, tracing how the study of birds has been shaped by a succession of visionary and often-controversial personalities, and by the unique social and scientific contexts in which these extraordinary individuals worked. This beautifully illustrated book opens in the middle of the nineteenth century when ornithology was a museum-based discipline focused almost exclusively on the anatomy, taxonomy, and classification of dead birds. It describes how in the early 1900s pioneering individuals such as Erwin Stresemann, Ernst Mayr, and Julian Huxley recognized the importance of studying live birds in the field, and how this shift thrust ornithology into the mainstream of the biological sciences.

Latinforbirdlovers

In every scientific discipline there is an official language formed of words derived from Latin. Ornithology is a perfect example of how these words can be illuminating. Take Anas acuta, better known as the Northern Pintail, whose scientific name means duck and refers to the male bird’s tail. Or pelagic (meaning of, related to, or occurring in sea), an important term for ocean-focused bird lovers.

Latin for Bird Lovers explores and explains over 3,000 Latin words used to describe birds. It is information that is invaluable to birdwatchers worldwide: the words help define the identity and relationships among the nearly 10,000 known bird species, as well as color, pattern, size, parts of the body, the name of the ornithologist who discovered the bird, where the bird is found, or even specific behavior. The book also profiles twelve great ornithologists, has in-depth features on 20 beloved birds, and is gorgeously illustrated. Latin for Bird Lovers is for birdwatchers, nature lovers, and anyone interested in words about birds.

waterfowl

Waterfowl of North America, Europe, and Asia is the ultimate guide for anyone who wants to identify the ducks, geese, and swans of North America, Europe, and Asia. With 72 stunning color plates (that include more than 920 drawings), over 650 superb photos, and in-depth descriptions, this book brings together the most current information on 84 species of Eurasian and North American waterfowl, and on more than 100 hybrids. The guide delves into taxonomy, identification features, determination of age and sex, geographic variations, measurements, voice, molt, and hybridization. In addition, the status of each species is treated with up-to-date details on distribution, population size, habitats, and life cycle. Color plates and photos are accompanied by informative captions and 85 distribution maps are also provided. Taken together, this is an unrivaled, must-have reference for any birder with an interest in the world’s waterfowl.

The Ornithologist’s latest book is Beaks, Bones, and Birdsongs, published  June 2016 by Timber Press.

They may seem not to have a care in the world, but birds face arduous challenges every moment of every day. Using only senses and instincts, they have to find food, migrate, withstand the weather, and avoid predators—competing with each other and countless other species for survival. Today, after evolving for more than 200 million years, birds are challenged by a new set of obstacles brought about by humans.

How do they make their way in the face of these trials? Navigating by smell and changing their songs in noisy cities are just a few of the remarkable ways birds cope with a changing planet. Marvel at their resilience, as ornithologist Roger Lederer shares an insider’s appreciation for the most uncommonly common creatures on Earth.

New from Princeton University Press

birds-horn-of-africa

The Top 10 Books Every Birder should own ( American Birding Association)

Places to Review and Purchase Bird Books

10,000 Birds Reviews
ABA Blog Reviews
Allaboutbirds 
Audubon

Avian Review 
Birdbooker Report   

Birdbookshop 

Birdfreak

Birding Magazine

BirdingAbout.com

Birds and Blooms Magazine

Birdwatcher’s Digest

Birdwatching Daily 

Buteo Books

Discover Magazine

Fatbirder

Goodreads 

NHBS Environment Bookstore

The Bird Chaser 

The Birder’s Library

Wild Birds Unlimited

Wildbird Magazines 

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