Book Review - Ten Thousand Birds: Ornithology Since Darwin

Ten Thousand Birds: Ornithology since Darwin
Tim Birkhead, Jo Wimpenny & Bob Montgomerie
Princeton University Press (a review copy was provided to me by Princeton University Press)
544 pp. | 8 x 10 | 94 color illus. 60 halftones.
Cloth | 2014 | $45.00 / £29.95 | ISBN: 9780691151977

I will get right to the point - I am enamored by this book. Although the title implies that it is a history of ornithology, the reader will notice that the word "history" does not show up in the subtitle of the book. Perhaps this was by design since this history book does not behave like a typical history book. Rather than the more traditional timeline approach, the book is broken into eleven topic based chapters, each with their story of how the topic evolved through time, an approach the authors thought would be "more interesting for both us and our readers and more meaningful in a broader biological sense."  I believe the have done just that. As noted in the subtitle, the book only covers the history of ornithology since Darwin since "nothing in biology makes sense, except in the light of evolution."

Each chapter begins with a full page of wonderful bird art relevant to the chapter topic. Not just good art, these paintings are also a bit of a tour through the history of bird art. Ranging from Keulemans and Hart (the era when bird art was the only depiction of birds available), to field guide artists Pratt and Tudor, and on to the more modern fine art of Bateman and Ching, each depiction provides visual context for the following text. Each chapter also contains numerous well chosen illustrations and photos of relevant subject matter as well as an informative illustrated timeline of key milestones from 1860 though 2010.

Each chapter is based on the words of the prominent ornithologists working in that field using either direct quotes from published sources or from the authors own interviews with the researchers. These provide a rich mix of context across generations of ornithological professionals and helps frame the context of each discovery and revelation in a meaningful way, often including a description of the initial hesitance or outright derision of new ideas. I particularly enjoyed how this aspect of the book made the history come alive and showed the people and their ideas in the context of the time and state of the science when they were working as well as the fact that as a group they were no different than any other segment of human society and exhibited a wide range of human quirks and foibles . Each chapter also contains a more detailed interview with a couple of the prominent ornithologists working on the subject explored in that chapter. 

Chapter one is, appropriately, a review of yesterdays birds - the paleontology of modern birds (otherwise know as today's dinosaurs). It begins just a few miles south of where I am writing this review and a few months before I was born, when John Ostrom and Greg Myer discovered the animal now known as Deinonychus - sometimes considered the most important dinosaur discovery of the mid-twentieth century. It is a good place to start. Chapter 2 continues with the Origin and Diversification of Species or how modern birds came to be; Chapter 3, Birds on the Tree of Life, explores the view of how modern birds are related to each other; Chapter 4, Ebb and Flow, delves into our understanding of bird migration; Chapter 5, Ecological Adaptations for Breeding, describes the emergence and development of our understanding of breeding biology; Chapter 6, Form and Function, explores our understanding of the internal bird; Chapter 7, The Study of Instincts, describes the journey to understand why birds do what they do; Chapter 8, Behavior as an Adaptation, integrates the discussion of behavior into the realm of the ecological context where the behavior is occurring (one of my favorite chapters); Chapter 9, Selection in Relation to Sex, takes breeding biology, behavior, and evolution and describes how the competition for mates makes many male birds look like they do (a very simple summary of this chapter, I would suggest reading it to get the full gist of the concept); Chapter 10, Population Studies of Birds, is pretty self explanatory - a journey through our understanding of bird number fluctuate what forces drive those fluctuations. The book ends with Chapter 11, Tomorrow's Birds, a sobering view of the conservation of birds and how our interest in birds have changed over the last hundred years.

The authors stated goal was to develop "the history of modern ornithology in a readable fashion." They more than succeeded in that endeavor - I have enjoyed learning of the intellectual journey each of these ornithological concepts has endured to arrive at our current state of understanding. In addition, the authors have also provided a primer on the current state of ornithological science. This book should be required reading for any student of Ornithology as well as anyone who has an interest in birds as the complex ancient creatures we share our world with.    

Petrels, Albatrosses, and Storm-Petrels of North America: A Photographic Guide

Petrels, Albatrosses, and Storm-Petrels of North America: A Photographic Guide. Steve N.G. Howell.

Cloth 2012 $45.00 ISBN: 9780691142111 520 pp. 975 photos and figures. 66 maps.

Perhaps the best way to begin this book review is to repeat a quote that Howell included in the front pages - "The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea." from Isak Dinesen because this book certainly made me feel the need for a salt water cure for my longing to be at sea, observing these birds again, this time with this book in hand.

Howell packs so much information into this book. It begins with the Preface, a concise overview of our knowledge of seabirds in general and continues in the "How to Use This Book" section where Howell explains the general outline of this work, including how the book will treat the confusion of common names this group of birds has accumulated as a result of their rather dynamic taxonomic status, names often at odds with current AOU standards. However, I think that H0well presents "a realistic course" through this confusion with the taxonomy and common names he uses. My favorite is the use of Steller's Albatross for the species currently known as the Short-tailed Albatross; a name that epitomizes Howell's belief in using names that "evoke a sense of ocean exploration and discovery". Even the Acknowledgements contain an impressive list of who's who in seabird knowledge from throughout the world.

Early on Howell recommends that the reader takes time to read the Introduction, but this plea is in the "How To Use This Book" section, which like the Introduction, is an often overlooked part of any book so I am going to repeat the recommendation here - READ THE INTRODUCTION. Howell's Introduction is a excellent primer on tubenose birds, oceanography, taxonomy, field identification, bird topography, molt and conservation. All of this is discussed in the context of the seabirds he focuses on in this book, but so much of the information can be applied to birds and birding done away from the ocean that this is well worth the price of the book by itself, even if you never see a tubenose in you life.

However, this book isn't even close to being done with the good stuff at the end of the Introduction. Howell follows with seventy species accounts of the species of petrels, albatrosses, and storm-petrels found within 200 nautical miles of the North American shoreline from Alaska to Panama, including the Caribbean. This is nearly half of the currently recognized tubenose species in the world. Each species account is thorough and includes a species overview of identification summary, taxonomy, names, and status and distribution sections, followed by a field identification section that includes portions on similar species, habitat and behavior, and a description of the bird in flight and on water along with molt information. Following the text is a series of photos depicting the species and often similar species as well. Also included is a distribution map. Often the species accounts also open with an evocative photo depicting the species at a distance. The species accounts are full of identification tips gained from what I can only imagine are countless hours at sea observing these birds. Tips such as noting the relative heavy body and narrow wings of the Hawaiian Petrel for navigating the windy North Pacific versus the lighter body and broader wings of the similar Galapagos Petrel which inhabits less windy tropical regions. Howell has also included a couple of my favorite tidbits of seabird history including the inland record of the Manx Shearwater in Montana and the fact that Steller's Albatross used to breed in the Caribbean.

This book is large and heavy, which somewhat limits it's usefulness in the field, but I am willing to overlook this given the density of information contained within. My only other wish for this book was something that I probably wouldn't have noticed if Howell hadn't pointed it out for me. In the Townsend's Shearwater account Howell has inserted a plate of this shearwater and three similar species painted by one of my favorite field guide artists, Ian Lewington. When I saw this plate I wished that there would have been more of them in this book, just to illustrate what the idealized versions of the different species might look like to compare with the excellent selection of photos. But the book is already big enough and I am not sure what Howell would be able to give up to include more information and keep the book size somewhat manageable.

Howell has done a tremendous job throughout this book in evoking a sense of ocean exploration and discovery through seabirds and I think that he succeeds admirably in his goal of synthesizing the present knowledge of tubenose identification. He has also succeeded in fueling my desire to experience the magic of pelagic birding again, to be back on the ocean and wonder about the lives of these iconic and mostly little know wanderers of the open ocean.

The Crossley ID Guide Review

The Crossly ID Guide: Eastern Birds by Richard Crossley.
Published by Princeton University Press (a review copy was provided to me by Princeton University Press). Cloth Flexibound. 2011. $35.00 ISBN: 9780691147789 544 pp. 7-1/2 x 10 10,000 color images.

This guide has been out for a while and has garnered a fair amount of press and hype. I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical about it being able to live up to the promise of being a "revolutionary" field guide before I even saw it despite the author being a co-author on another guide that I really grew to like after initially having some hesitation (The Shorebirds Guide). I am inclined to be more critical of anything that is over-hyped and I have hesitated to do this review because I wanted to see if my initial bias would temper over time like it did with the Shorebirds guide.
I was not overwhelmed by my initial impression of the book although there were aspect of the book that I liked. I was surprised by the size of the book - certainly not a a guide I would take on a walk with me which limits it's field utility from the start.
After quickly scanning through the pages I started reading the Introduction, an often overlooked but important part of a field guide. I found it peculiar that Crossley began with a section titled "I Don't Like Text" - in which he proceded to state that he "soon get(s) bored with the introductory section of any book" - and then followed that with more introductory text than either my field guide standard, the Birds of Europe by Sevensson, Mullarney and Zetterstrom, or The Sibley Guide to Birds. The good news is that, despite his dislike of text, Crossley delivers a good introduction to his book and birding in general.
The plates are intended to be the "heart and soul" of the book and they are an impressive accumulation of photos taken by mostly one person. The Introduction proceeds to explain the intent of the plates including the explanation that the plates were not fully captioned to help the reader learn from the captioned images. The only problem with this idea is that there is no feedback to ensure that the readers guess on the age and/or sex of the bird is either verified or rejected. This is one of the strengths of the Shorebird guide - the answers to the quiz photos are located at the back of the book. There are also a number of plates where it is obvious that all the photos were taken on the same occasion and the diversity in lighting and and individuals is limited. This could have been rectified by bringing in photos from other photographers, but it seemed more important for Crossley to claim that he took most of the photos than provide better photos for his guide.
I also still cannot see how I would use this book to better identify a bird I have observed in the field. I rely on my field guide to help me make an educated guess on the identity of a bird I am observing, usually by helping me differentiate between similar species. First, as I noted above, I wouldn't have this book in the field and once I would be able to consult this guide, I still have a hard time figuring out how to use this book to aid in bird identification. Perhaps I am just unable to connect with Crossley's plea to "think of and use this book differently than any other guide" I own. And perhaps that is the issue. He states a few times that the book is intended to be interactive, but then really misses being interactive. Maybe this shouldn't have been a guide book in the traditional sense. Maybe Crossley should have created a guide that was revolutionary and different. What if it could be really interactive? A few years ago that might have been a moot question, but today it isn't.
I agree with Rick Wright that this should have been the first truly electronic guide and his assessment that all that is good with the book would get better and most of the shortcomings would disappear (see his review linked above for a more thorough discussion of this concept). Maybe then this guide would truly be interactive and could have really lived up to its hype of being revolutionary and turning birding upside down. I have a feeling I would have really liked (and used) this guide like that. As it is, I may refer to it occasionally if I am looking for another reference when I am working on an identification, but it will not be the first book I turn to, nor the second either.

Antarctic Widlife - A Visitor's Guide

Antarctic Wildlife - A Visitor's Guide. Published in the U.S. and Canada by Princeton University Press (a review copy was provided to me by Princeton University Press). First published by WILDGuides in the U.K.
Paper 2011 $22.95 ISBN: 9780691150338 240 pp. 5 x 8 159 color photos.

I like this book. I was a bit skeptical that the promised information could be packed in this small of a book, but it delivered. This is a big plus for those of you planning a trip to Antarctica where packing a heavy book (or books) in addition to the litany of required outdoor gear and cameras can be quite a chore. To date, the best Antarctic wildlife book is The Complete Guide to Antarctic Wildlife: Birds and Marine Mammals of the Antarctic Continent and the Southern Ocean by Hadoram Shirihai. It is complete, but it is also heavy. The Antarctic Wildlife A Visitor's Guide can't compete at this level, and it doesn't even try. At the onset the author states that this book is not a comprehensive biological reference work, nor is it a site by site visitors guide or a guide to the amazing underwater life of Antarctica. It is, as stated, a photographic field guide to wildlife of the Antarctic peninsula, "devised to meet the wildlife watching needs of passengers on Antarctic cruise ships leaving from South America" And it is all of that. The author does a nearly impossible chore of providing enough information to satisfy the advanced and well prepared wildlife watcher as well as those whose interests in Antarctic wildlife are peripheral to setting foot on their seventh continent.



Much of the book is composed of well done species accounts of the animals you might encounter while on a cruise, each accompanied by representative photos. The more popular species such as the penguins have a greater number of photos which illustrate behaviors and life history, while others like the albatrosses have more photo to help differentiate species. The information and accompanying photos are concise, but are more than adequate to identify most of the species you could encounter, from flowering plants to albatrosses and elephant seals, and everything in between.





The visitors guide also breaks down a typical trip to Antarctica into species associated with the Beagle Channel, the Drake Passage, and the Antarctic Peninsula to help refine your identification possibilities and provides a description of each of these distinct regions. In addition the book also describes conservation in Antarctica, what a typical trip to the Peninsula entails, what the trip might look like at different times of the year, how to enhance your trip, and much more.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone planning on making a trip to Antarctica. I have made this trip a number of times over the last 15 years. Early on I didn't have many field guides to pack because there just weren't any to be found. Then came the time when I had at least three, if not more, on each trip. Now, if I could only take only one book with me, this would be it for sure. Now I just need to figure out how to field test it.....


Light-mantled Sooty Albatross. Antarctic Peninsula, December 2008.

Birdwatcher: The Life of Roger Tory Peterson

Birdwatcher: The Life of Roger Tory Peterson
By Elizabeth J. Rosenthal

If one of the criteria for a good biography is that it makes you feel like you personally knew the person profiled, then Birdwatcher most certainly is a good biography. Although I never knew Mr. Peterson and cannot judge to the accuracy of this portrayal of his persona, Rosenthal’s depiction of his life certainly transformed my view of the man from a rather compressed image of a childhood icon, into a colleague (albeit a very respected and revered colleague) I never knew.
Birds and art were two of my strong passions as a child, but unlike my interest in football or hunting, they weren't something that I was able to share with my friends. Although growing up in Eastern Montana has plenty of benefits for a child, finding others with interests in hobbies that aren't mainstream is not one of them. Therefore Rodger Tory Peterson became much more to me than my childhood football heroes, he became an icon of my not so normal passions, someone (along with my Dad) who made it seem less abnormal. But he was still someone I only knew from afar and in abstract. I even wrote a letter to him when I was ten year old. I don’t have a copy of the letter I wrote, but I do have a copy of the letter I received from him. Even though he was away when my letter arrived in Connecticut and the reply is from his secretary, it still has a special place in my personal treasures.



Rosenthal gave me a chance to know a more dimensional Roger Peterson - a man of passion and problems, feelings and faults. She did an excellent job of portraying the events and people in Peterson's life. I particularly like the way the author wove stories told by others about Roger throughout the text. She also profiled a number of people who Roger influenced during his lifetime. I have a feeling that this chapter could have easily been a book in itself. She introduced me to so much that I did not know about Roger Peterson's life and I particularly was impressed with the role that he played in the conservation movement of his time. I also felt the frustration with his desire to be thought of as an artist rather than an illustrator (a distinction I feel is often made without merit).

In particular, I relished the portions of the biography that dealt with Peterson’s infatuation with Antarctica and the iconic Antarctic birds – penguins. He even took King Penguin as his pseudonym - his favorite species in his favorite family of birds. That this fascination was enhanced by his relationship with Lars Eric Lindblad was even more of a treat since I have worked for Lindblad Expeditions, often with naturalists who worked with Roger Peterson during his travels in Antarctica on the original Antarctic tour ship, the Lindblad Explorer. I took this book with me to Antarctica this year to work on this review with the inspiration of being surrounded by a place so special to Mr. Peterson on a Lindblad ship. It was ironic that during our first landing this year we were greeted by an unexpected out of range King Penguin.



Perhaps the best compliment I can give Rosenthal is that this book was so effective in painting the person who was Roger Tory Peterson that shortly after I finished reading it I had a very vivid dream in which I had a conversation with Mr. Peterson. In the dream we were on a rocky beach in Antarctica, Mr. Peterson was sitting on a rock and I was standing to his right. There were Gentoo penguins walking past us on the beach and we had a very pleasant conversation about penguins (the details of which have unfortunately not stuck in my memory). Thank you very much Elizabeth

Return to Warden's Grove

Return to Warden's Grover: Science, Desire, and the Lives of Sparrows by Christopher Norment. University of Iowa Press. 2008






I thoroughly enjoyed Return to Warden's Grove, probably because it reminded me so much of my own experiences, thoughts, and emotions resulting from conducting my own field work. Christopher Norment uses his own experiences conducting research on Harris Sparrows in the barren grounds of the Northwest Territories to explore the logistical and intellectual challenges of basic natural history field work. Even more so he shares the emotional challenges of conducting research on which a career is based and he explores his internal struggle to fulfill the need for a settled family life with the ache for wild places and a hidden connection to life sought in places internet and telephones can't (shouldn't ?) reach. It is an annual journey I also take with my work in Antarctica.

Return to Warden's Grove explores the role of naturalist and descriptive science in a world of "sexy" science. Norment weighs the importance of his research against the ecological science of expensive equipment and complex methodology in labs far removed from the actual lives of the organisms being investigated and it is somewhat ironic that I was reading this book when news came of a recent genetic study that found some very interesting and unique relationships between different families of birds. The results of the genetic relationship work made national news but the breeding season feeding habits of two Zonotrochia sparrows did not. Both are important in our understanding of the world around us. I confess I much prefer the idea of enduring blackflies and mosquitoes to examine the intimate details of a little known sparrow to working in a sterile lab but I value the results of both arenas.

He also explores the role of killing animals for science. Again, not in the lab setting but field collection for specimens and stomach samples. His exploration is reminiscent of my own feelings having been employed to collect specimens on a few research expeditions. There is also an excellent chapter which compares the "real" story of a dying musk ox with the dispassionate, removed version of the story that appeared in a scientific journal. How many excellent stories of events, emotions, adventure and loss are behind the varnished methods, results, conclusions and discussions in any paper describing the results of field work in any discipline?

Norment also writes of the need to simply watch. He describes how the nature of his research with uncooperative animals forced him into a self described slowness resulting from his focused work. It reminded me of hours spend at the edge of a penguin colony waiting for an incubating bird to adjust something so I could catch a peek underneath to see how many eggs or chicks remained. It was definitely a slowness forced by the work I was doing but I gained so much in understanding by really watching the lives of those birds. He says

"This "need to hold still," to fall into slowness and simply watch, is a chief blessing of focused work in both descriptive natural history and hypothesis-based research. It is a skill that both scientist and non scientist need to cultivate, a vital way to pay attention to the world. Perhaps it also is where science and art can interact with one another - sensory experience as a synthetic, creative process that grows out of watching and waiting, listening and coming into patience. Through observation, it is possible to develop a richness of texture and nuance, substance and form in our understanding of the animate and inanimate residents of this world - and our place in it. It is how we become informed."

Return to Warden's Grove reminded me of a Wendell Berry passage from a work entitled "Healing" from the book What are People For. Berry writes:

"And by it we enter solitude, in which also we lose loneliness.

Only discord can come of the attempt to share solitude.

True solitude is found in the wild places, where one is without human obligation.

One's inner voices become audible. One feels the attraction of one's most intimate sources.

In consequence, one response more clearly to other lives. the more coherentone becomes within oneself as a creature, the more fully one enters into the communion of all creatures.

One returns from solitude laden with the gifts of circumstance."

Christopher Norment has shared with all of us his gifts of circumstance and you should partake in this gift by reading Return to Warden's Grove.

Albatrosses, Petrels & Shearwaters of the World

I finally got around to using my Father's Day gift certificate lately and one of my purchases was the new book by Derek Onley and Paul Scofield, Albatrosses, Petrels and Shearwaters of the World, a Princeton Field Guide.




I really like this field guide and will probably use it on my upcoming trip to Antarctica. However, I do feel there is a bit of room for improvement. I generally do not like the softer style of illustration as done by Derek Onley but it works fairly well in this book. One area where it doesn't work is in the lack of contrast between the background and the birds on some of the plates. In particular, the large, mostly white, albatrosses are painted on a white background and it is hard to discern the bird from the background. I am a fan of small vignettes of the birds in their habitat among the identification illustrations and their are a few scattered throughout the plates which adds to the appeal of the illustrations (the best example of using vignettes in field guide plates is the Birds of Europe by by Killian Mullarney, Lars Svensson, Dan Zetterstrom and Peter J. Grant. I also consider it the best field guide I have seen).


The introductory chapters are quite good and provide an excellent overview of current seabird taxonomy. The authors do a good job of providing the reader with information on taxonomic debates with a number of species in each family of seabirds. The introductory section on seabird identification provides the best overview of seabird identification problems I have read and includes identification problems caused by conditions, lack of scale is open ocean environments, and plumage variation such as phases, morphs, age related plumages, molt and feather wear. There is also a section on conservation including a well done discussion on current threats to many seabirds, reasons to be optimistic for the future of seabirds, and ways you can help seabirds. The species accounts are generally well done and have distribution maps associated with them. I would rather have the maps with the illustrations though. I noticed a few problems with distribution maps on a few of the species I am familiar with. Despite the statement in the text that the breeding grounds of the Hornby's Storm Petrel is still unknown, the distribution map depicts the Atacama Desert as the breeding range with no indication of the uncertainty in the designation. The breeding range of the Antarctic Petrel also appears to have some errors. The text correctly states that this species breeding colonies are confined to coastal Antarctica but the map wrongly depicts a number of sub-antarctic islands in the south Atlantic as having breeding populations. These errors in the small sample of maps I am familiar with and checked leads me to wonder about the accuracy of the other maps.


Overall I feel this is an excellent field guide for these birds and I would highly recommend it for your next pelagic trip. The authors more than redeem the errors in the book with the statement that this book is not the final word on seabird ID and their encouragement to discuss the book in a friendly and enthusiastic nature over a beer or two!

Two new books

The first book is one that I have been looking for for my boys since late last year. It is Fidget's Freedom, a children's book written by Stacey Patterson and illustrated by the excellent wildlife artist Vadim Gorbotov (here and here) with a dust jacket endorsement from Steve Bodio. I found it at the San Pedro House visitors center at the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area. It is a relatively simple story of a young Peregrine Falcon being reintroduced into the wild as part of the Peregrine Fund's very successful conservation success story concerning the recovery of the Peregrine Falcon in the United States. The illustrations are superb depictions of birds of prey from someone intimate with these animals. Vadim has obviously spent a lot of time observing wildlife and knows how to transfer those observations into art. It has become one of Benton's favorites and one that I don't tire of reading to him either. The next book in the series of three will be titled Fidget's Folly and illustrations for the book can be found here.

An example of Vadim Gorbatov's work

During my travels home from Arizona my plane out of Tucson was delayed about an hour causing me to miss my connection in Denver by a few minutes. I had to wait nearly four hours for the next plane to Billings. This wasn't all bad. I have made very little time for reading for myself lately, and the missed connection provided me the perfect opportunity to indulge in a good book. I had seen a book on whales and whaling in the airport bookstore during my layover on my way south, but upon entering the bookstore this time I realized I was in the mood for some good fiction. As I maneuvered my bags through the narrow aisles and dodge fellow bag-laden travelers, I noticed The Road perched on an overstock shelf above me. I was familiar with Cormac McCarthy's writing after being introduced to his work by Steve Bodio a number of years ago, and I was familiar with the gist of this story, but felt it might hit close to home for me with my young boys at home. I nearly passed it up. I am glad I didn't. I was right though, it did hit really close to home.

It is a story of a father and son journey through a future world devastated by an unnamed disaster that introduced enough dust into the atmosphere to effectively stop photosynthesis. The world that the father and son traverse seven or eight years after the event is harrowing, frightful, and all too possible. I was reminded of the post Katrina events on the Gulf Coast and how rapidly society degenerated into a free-for-all. I was also forcefully reminded of our dependence on sunlight and photosynthesis through the foreboding world McCarthy so simply, yet powerfully, described. The lack of animals of any sort, other than humans, was disturbing (I have no desire to go to the South Pole for the very same reason). McCarthy also pegged the relationship between a father and a young son. That was the hardest part of the book for me. He captured so well the terms of a relationship I am in the middle of right now that it made the book even more real and frightening for me. It still haunts me.