It didn’t take long for news of the forthcoming publication by Little Toller Books of Peter Marren’s “Emperors, Admirals and Chimney-Sweepers; the Naming of Butterflies and Moths” to spread across the land like a flock of migrating Monarchs.
Whenever I find myself looking at a gull and not being able to put a species level identification to it, I invariably think back to my childhood alongside the mouth of the Columbia River and lament how much of my youth was wasted in things other than learning to identify the ever-present and seemingly endless numbers of gulls in the area.
I’m beginning to wonder if Mark Avery has even risen from his reading chair for the past fortnight as he posted three new book reviews to his blog this Sunday: Tessa Boase’s new “Mrs Pankhurst’s Purple Feather,” Seán Lysaght’s “Eagle Country,” and an updated and reissued edition of David Lack’s classic 1956 work “Swifts in a Tower.”
Even though it’s only February, I’m beginning to hear my local birds becoming far more vocal each morning; which tells me that it’s time to think about the spring migration. It’s also time to begin thinking about new field guides – the most recent example of which to arrive on my desk being the new The Stokes Essential Pocket Guide to the Birds of North America.