Reviews

Petrels, Albatrosses and Storm-petrels of North America; Steve Howell

05 March 2012

Petrels, Albatrosses and Storm-petrels of North America; Steve Howell (Princeton)

There is something magical about the Procellariidae – the tubenoses that wander the world’s oceans. Most birders come into relatively little contact with the group; British birders tend to experience most species as occasional distant shapes on the horizon whilst sea-watching, or perhaps are lucky enough to have experienced somewhat better views on offshore trips off Scilly or in Biscay. In North America, offshore trips are more the norm, as a result of exciting seabird areas situated several hours journey off both Pacific and Atlantic coasts.

Whilst the tubenoses are covered by standard field guides, their observation and identification often requires a rather different approach to land-based birdwatching. Views can be brief or distant, and appearances are more influenced by light and wind conditions. This book is an attempt to provide more detail about this challenging but beguiling group of birds.

The book is authoritative (as one would expect from the author of such works as A Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America) and also attractive and well-produced. It is a large book, not really a field guide. The scope is to cover all species recorded within 200 miles of the North American coast (including as far south as Panama and the Caribbean). The introductory chapters are excellent, with particularly informative sections on “habitat” (i.e. upwellings, currents, thermoclines) and at-sea fieldcraft (including all-important advice on dealing with seasickness of course).

Species accounts form the bulk of the book. There are accounts for 40 petrels, 11 albatrosses and 19 storm-petrels, although the continuing flux in taxonomy of this group is acknowledged throughout, with regular discussion of the most recent research. Howell does not follow the AOU’s species limits, but tries to steer a course as he feels most appropriate. Species accounts include an identification summary; taxonomy; names; status and distribution; similar species; habitat and behaviour; description; and moult. There is a wide range of photos for each species (e.g. 18 within the Black-capped Petrel account), generally of very high quality and mostly taken by the author; each photo is also well-annotated. Distribution maps show the usual at-sea range, breeding areas and moulting areas, with indications of which areas are occupied during which months.

This excellent book is highly recommended for North American birders, but would also be of value much more widely. In a European context for example, there is very helpful discussion of taxa such as Cory’s/Scopoli’s/Cape Verde Shearwaters, Cape Verde (Fea’s), Desertas (Fea’s) and Zino’s Petrels, Madeiran/Grant’s Storm-petrels, and so on. The cost is also remarkably reasonable for the amount of information contained – well worth it! Now where are my seasickness tablets...

You can help support BUBO Listing by buying this book through the BUBO Store. You can browse the BUBO Amazon UK, Amazon US, Amazon Canada or NHBS stores directly, but for quick ordering just click on the appropriate book and store below (check for the best price!).

Hawks at a Distance; Jerry Ligouri

Written by Andy Musgrove 14 May 2011

When I saw the title of this new guide to North American raptors, my mind immediately jumped to the Monty Python sketch "How to recognise different types of tree from quite a long way away" (Number one - the Larch...) So, is this book just an excuse for a collection of fairly distant photos?! Surely we could all produce a book along the lines of "Small Fuzzy Dots in the Distance"?

Well, of course not. The idea behind the book is that raptors are regularly seen at long range, whether on the breeding grounds or from migration watchpoints, a major feature of raptor watching in the USA and indeed in other parts of the world. Having a book showing pin-sharp photos of flying raptors at close range is all well and good, the author argues, but this may not help as much as one might expect in terms of real field identification.

The book covers 29 species of North American raptors, although the amount of detail varies considerably, from a 17-page account for the widespread (and variable) Red-tailed Hawk, down to less than a page for Short-tailed and White-tailed Hawks. Five species that breed in the USA (Snail Kite, Common Black Hawk, Harris' Hawk, Grey Hawk and Aplomado Falcon) are omitted altogether. In general, the focus is very much on the common and widespread species and, especially, on those that might be encountered on migration. I was pleased to see a page of flight photos of Californian Condors, however!

The photos are almost all taken by the author and are well-selected to illustrate a wide range of views of each species, covering differences in viewing angle, lighting angle, flight modes, ages, sexes and colour morphs. They are indeed photos deliberately chosen to be "at a distance" however, and so do give a good field-feel. Not all the pictures are at a distance. Each main species account begins with a fine close-up portrait, that of the Rough-legged Hawk being particularly stunning! Each species account also includes a section of text, in which the experience of the author really shines through, covering key field identification tips. Moreover, at the beginning of each group (Accipiters, Buteos, etc) there are further notes discussing comparative differences between the species in that group.

At the end of the book, there are a series of 19 plates containing over 40 small monochrome photos of the common species from almost every angle imaginable. These are a little over-powering at first glance, but are useful in portraying the much wider range of flight shapes shown by each species than is illustrated in a typical field guide.

This is a worthwhile book if you're watching raptors in North America, and is a sensible size to take and use in the field. There is clearly a degree of overlap with raptors elsewhere in the world (Peregrine, Osprey and Golden Eagle, for example, are all very widespread species), but an equivalent Western Palearctic guide would be extremely useful for birders watching the raptor bottlenecks of Falsterbo, Eilat, Batumi and elsewhere. Alternatively, it does occur to me that although this book does convey to the reader a great amount of the field-jizz of these species, this is still not the whole story. The missing element is movement; the speed of the bird, the tightness of its thermals and the frequency of its wingbeats are all of huge importance in flight identification of raptors. Perhaps the next step is to produce a digital book, for an iPad or similar, with video incorporated too.

You can help support BUBO Listing by buying this book through the BUBO Store. You can browse the BUBO Amazon UK, Amazon US, Amazon Canada or NHBS stores directly, but for quick ordering just click on the appropriate book and store below (check for the best price!).

The Crossley ID Guide – Eastern Birds; Richard Crossley

Written by Andy Musgrove 16 March 2011

To most birders, having been brought up on a diet of the standard fieldguides of Peterson, Heinzel/Fitter/Parslow, the Shell guide, Sibley, the Collins guide and, of course, the mighty "Large" Jonsson, the first reaction on opening this new field guide to the birds of eastern North America may be something along the lines of "woah!" The style of presentation is so different, that it feels like a mental gear-shift is required to comprehend exactly what it is you’re looking at. And then you get sucked in...

Richard Crossley's book (published by Princeton University Press) is an incredible piece of work. There have been several field guides over the years that have claimed to present a new approach, but this one really does so. There are two reasons that this guide stands out. The first is the novel approach to presenting the photographs. For each species, a selection (often a sizeable selection) of photos are shown superimposed against a background habitat photo. However, the bird photos have been positioned and appropriately sized within the background image so as give both perspective but also, in the intention of the author, a more real-life birding experience. Inevitably, the scenes are not quite lifelike. In fact, some are so full of birds in a single view that the impression is more that of a surreal birder's dream, in which the sky is full of Cooper's Hawks, for example, all at different ranges and of different ages. But it's not sensible to get hung up on the fact it’s not 100% realistic – it's a field guide and it's there to learn from. There's a relatively small amount of text below each set of photos, although on a quick skim, this looks extremely well-focused and is useful in pinpointing key differentiating features. Crossley writes in an informal but concise style. There are also good distribution maps, along with some brief but focussed notes on status (e.g. I didn’t know that Smooth-billed Ani had become so localised in Florida).

The second amazing thing is that the vast majority (over 99% apparently) of the photos were taken by the author. It really is an incredible quantity of work for one person to have generated. Amazing enough for one person to have generated decent portraits of each species in the region. But there are so many photos of each species, depicting different plumages, different behaviours, different stances. Crossley says that it was the flight photos that were often the real challenge. Clearly his residence at Cape May has been a huge help here, but a field guide with five different flight photos of Nashville Warbler is certainly different! I don't know enough about the American avifauna to know how many of these flight shots are likely to be useful to the novice birder for identification purposes, but it's still pretty cool to have them all included and it is a great resource to have in one place.

So, it's a huge amount of work and it's a novel guide. But is it any good? I suspect some will hate it, but I think it's great. There's such a lot of information in here that I'm sure one would go on learning from it for years. The range of photos really allow an appreciation of jizz, but also of the appearance of the species in real-field conditions, sometimes distant, sometimes partially obscured, sometimes with heavily-worn plumage. I enjoyed searching through the background of each picture, looking for more hidden individuals; there's a presumably very real-life view of a Black Crake for example!

One of the only potential downsides is that it is a reasonably hefty book, not something that could be stuck in a jacket pocket. However, it should fit effectively on the dashboard of a standard American gas-guzzler! And all this for less than £20 from the BUBO Store – what are you waiting for...?

You can help support BUBO Listing by buying this book through the BUBO Store. You can browse the BUBO Amazon UK, Amazon US, Amazon Canada or NHBS stores directly, but for quick ordering just click on the appropriate book and store below (check for the best price!).