New books will have birders chirping
Each year always yields an interesting variety of new bird books and 2017 hasn’t disappointed. Here are some of my favourite titles that you or someone on your gift giving list could dive into in front of a winter fire.
I’ve just finished an excellent volume from Greystone Books called Birdmania. I love the culture of bird watching almost as much as I love birds so this title really grabbed me. As the author Bernd Brunner writes, “this book is about people who have been involved with birds in myriad ways.”
It’s a grand tour d’horizon of people from around the world, each of whom had an advanced case of birdmania.
Brunner’s writing brings to life a wonderful range of characters. Among my favourites is Richard Meinertzhagen, a onetime chairperson of the British Ornithologists’ Club who also happened to be a brazen thief who raided museum bird collections in the early 20th century.
I learned more about the historic figure Alexander Wilson as well as extreme lister Phoebe Snetsinger and American novelist Jonathan Franzen, one of the world’s most famous living birders.
Brunner brought to my attention Jeremy Mynott, of whom I hadn’t heard, and I ended up thinking about which birds are charismatic and which are simply beautiful.
While not a central thread of the book, Brunner also writes about the human impact on bird populations and the importance of birds species as bio-indicators.
A solid new field guide entry this year is the second edition of Birds of Canada from DK Canada. This book’s consultant editor is David Bird. The new edition covers the country from coast to coast to coast and includes new bird species and other updated bird data. Many more photos are included, but the most obvious change is the size.
Rather than a field guide that you would tote around in a backpack, this new tome sits by my computer for quick access. I predict that the third edition will include full-page entries for species such as summer tanager, white-winged dove, and black vulture as their ranges expand in the face of climate change.
I was pleased that Kyo Maclear’s book Birds Art Life was nominated last month for the Hillary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction. I read this book in the spring just after it was published by Doubleday Canada and was enchanted at how bird observations poignantly punctuated a year in the author’s life. It reminded me of the power of birds and nature to ground us.
If you want to be taken on an instant globe-circling birding trip, I heartily recommend doing some armchair birding with Noah Strycker.
His Birding Without Borders leads the reader on a 41-country tour. Not only will you encounter incredible bird species, you will be lost in drama.
Another new 2017 book that fits really well into a stocking is Steve Burrows’s latest Birder Murder Mystery, A Shimmer of Hummingbirds. Like the first three novels in the series, Shimmer is a real pageturner that again features Chief Inspector — and expert bird watcher — Domenic Jejeune.
If you are thinking about non-fiction birding books that might stuff a stocking, Ron Ridout’s recently updated Birding Guide to the Long Point
Area is useful for those who bird in Norfolk County.
Good Birders Still Don’t
Wear White from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is a wonderful compilation of bird pieces that is easy to escape into.
For the youngest birders, the PBS Kids Look and Learn Birds kit by Sarah Parvis has my granddaughter’s seal of approval. I got it for her early in the year and she has enjoyed both the book and the starter binoculars.
If your family wants to take bird identification to the next level, consider Sibley’s Backyard Birding Flashcards. It’s a fun way to build your birding IQ.
Nature note
• Impressive birds surfaced across Southwestern Ontario through late November. A Townsend’s warbler persisted at Rondeau Provincial Park, a summer tanager visited a London feeder, London birder Heather Wylie has had a ring-necked
pheasant in her yard, and the season’s first snowy owls have appeared. To the east, a mountain bluebird was in Waterloo and a Northern gannet stayed around the Hamilton area. g.paul.nicholson@gmail.com twitter.com/NicholsonNature