Birding

Australian Bird Names

August 29, 2019

According to the second edition of the Australian Department of the Environment and Energy’s “Numbers of Living Species in Australia and the World,” 2nd edition, there are 828 (plus 13 identified as extinct in the wild and another 27 as introduced) species of birds in Australia. And as with so many other things in Oz, a generous portion of these have names, common or scientific alike, reflective of their Australian home, it’s history, and the languages of its first peoples that simply cry out like a flock of White Cockatoos for an explanation of their origin.

A Field Guide for Our Times

November 27, 2018

Field Guide to Birds of North America cover

Now in it’s seventh edition and continuing under the authorship of Jon L. Dunn and Jonathan Alderfer, with range maps by Paul Lehman and additional artwork by David Quinn, John Schmitt, and Thomas Schultz, this new National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds presents its readers with 1,023 species. Following the taxonomy and nomenclature – both common and scientific – of the American Ornithological (due to an editorial error identified as “Ornithologist’s” in the text) Society, and with a bit of a nod given to the listing areas of the American Birding Association, this is indeed the most appropriate field guide for all who want not only a field reference that can identify any bird seen in its defined geographic area, but can also go deep into the metaphorical tall grass in pursuit of identifications down to subspecies level.

How to Be an Urban Birder

October 11, 2018

David Lindo first came to my attention back in 2012 with his memior “The Urban Birder.” Here, I recall thinking, was a voice that was different, had something interesting to say, and certainly came from a place – both geographically as well as demographically – that was not represented in the previous literature of the bird watching community.

Catching Up With Mark

October 7, 2018

Many of you may be asking right about now “what has Mark Avery been reading recently?” I was curious about that very question myself – so I popped over to his website and as I discovered, he’s been reading quite a lot.