Trevor's Birding

Review: National Geographic Complete Birds of North America

No Comments »1st October, 2014; Category: Birders, Birds, Books, Field guides, Non-Australian birds, Reviews

National Geographic Complete Birds of North America, 2nd Edition

National Geographic Complete Birds of North America, 2nd Edition: Now Covering More Than 1,000 Species With the Most-Detailed Information Found in a Single Volume,
Edited by Jonathan Alderfer, with Jon L. Dunn, maps by Paul Lehman
National Geographic Society, October 2014.
ISBN-10: 1426213735; ISBN-13: 9781426213731
744pages; 10.1 x 7.2 x 1.8 inches

This is a truly magnificent volume and one I am pleased to add to my library. Although I live in Australia and do most of my birding here I have been birding in a number of non-Australian countries. Sadly, I have yet to spend any time birding in the North American continent, a state I would like to correct sometime soon. This wonderful volume just adds a keen impetus to that desire.

I did not buy the first edition of this great work, so I cannot make comparisons. It has been “fully revised and updated” so I will have to take the editor’s word for that. There has been a significant increase in the number of species covered, now numbering over 1000. Edited by Jonathan Alderfer, this volume is a natural companion to the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America.

Look at the numbers

This monumental work stacks up well as far as the numbers are concerned:

a total of 744 pages
Over 1000 species featured (compared with 962 in the 1st edition and 990 in the Field Guide)
Over 800 distribution and migration maps
150 full colour photographs
9 photographers
Over 4000 illustrations
21 artists
89 family groups included
An interesting group of rarities discussed
The text draws on the combined expertise of 25 birding authorities
Two pages of references to Additional Reading

National Geographic Complete Birds of North America, 2nd Edition

Format and layout

Each family of birds has a short introductory essay, followed by thorough coverage of each species in that family. Each species is then given a thorough coverage in the main body of the text, including:

a general introductory paragraph
Identification details (including male/female, juvenile and plumage variations)
Geographic variation (where appropriate)
Details of similar species
Voice
Status and distribution
Population notes, including changes in numbers
Range maps
A small, field guide type illustration
A photograph (selected species)

Range maps

The colour-coded range maps are very detailed and include:

breeding range (salmon)
year-round range (purple)
winter range (blue)
migration range spring and autumn (orange)
migration range mainly in spring (green)
migration range mainly in autumn (yellow)
a range of other symbols (eg arrows showing direction of migration – see below)

Birds in flight

One of the useful details include the illustrations showing different aspects of a species in flight. This is particularly handy for those species birders see more often in flight rather than sitting or perching.

Concluding comments:

Overall, this is not only an impressive publication, it is immensely useful and helpful. It is by no means a thorough scientific handbook featuring and summarising all the current knowledge on each species; other handbooks do not far more effectively. (As an aside, it is nothing like our Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds (HANZAB) which is in 7 volumes, each of over 1000 pages of small print.) It doesn’t pretend to be an exhaustive authority on all things birds in North America. However, it succeeds admirably in being a single-volume reference to all the species of one continent, easy to read, easy to use and a delight to read – or just browse. It will delight all birders, from casual and inexperienced backyard birders through to field-hardened experts.

All I have to do now is:

Find space on my bookshelf for this new volume
Save up for a birding trip to North America.

Simple.

Good birding.

Disclosure: I would like to thank National Geographic for kindly providing a review copy of this book.

Further reading:

Some birds of Centennial Park in Sydney

1 Comment »30th September, 2014; Category: Honeyeaters, Ibises

Hardhead (White-eyed duck)

On our last day in Sydney earlier this year we went with our son and his family to a picnic at Centennial Park, south of the CBD. They were meeting with some of their friends. It was a Sunday and the weather was perfect: a bright, cloudless sky and a gentle breeze. Many other Sydney residents thought so too, and so the park was very crowded.

We had planned to meet near the playground, seeing that children made up half our number. I was on our third circuit of the road through the park when a space opened up about 100 metres from the group. I really think that Centennial Park could do with three or four decent playgrounds scattered in different sections, instead of just one tucked away in a corner with limited parking. Just saying.

As we ate our lunch and chatted I kept an eye scanning the park and the sky for birds. As the afternoon wore on I managed quite a respectable list of species. My camera was also kept handy, focussing particularly on those species which were quite at home mixing with the human visitors. Many times we had to shoo away the White Ibises and Noisy Miners attempting to raid our friends’ picnic food when they were too busy talking, or were watching the children play.

Later in the afternoon I took a short walk towards a nearby small lake. (There are about 9 of these of varying sizes.) It was here that I managed a few extra photos, mainly of water birds. It was a wonderful conclusion to four lovely weeks staying with our son and his family.

The following photos are just a sample of those taken. I’ll share more tomorrow.

White Ibis

Purple Swamphen

Little Pied Cormorant

Common Myna

White Ibis

Rock Dove (Feral Pigeon)

Pied Currawong and that glaring eye

No Comments »28th September, 2014; Category: Bush birds, Magpies and Currawongs

Pied Currawong

While we were having afternoon tea in the Lane Cove National Park in Sydney a Pied Currawong flew into a bush nearby. It stayed for a few moments before flying off again. When ever I see this species – and its cousin the Grey Currawong – I am taken by that glaring eye. It almost looks malevolent in intent.

Now it is very unscientific of me to assign human characteristics to a bird, but I can get away with it here because this doesn’t pretend to be a scientific site by any definition one cares to dredge up. I just want to share with the world my bird sightings, illustrating them where possible with photos I have taken.

Having said that, I must say that describing the currawong as being malevolent from a human point of view is not all that far from the truth. Granted – the currawong is not intentionally being nasty; it just seems that way from the viewpoint of compassionate humans – and a whole host of small birds and animals.

Currawongs eat a wide range of creatures, including smaller birds, bird eggs and nestlings, small reptiles, spiders, insects and will even ~~steal~~ take food at picnics, fruit from trees and garbage. All that may seem nasty and cruel to compassionate, animal-loving humans, but for the currawong it spells survival. The nestling of a honeyeater may mean the survival of the nestling of the currawong. It’s a huge, wild, nasty world out there.

And I still think its eye is rather evil.

Pied Currawong

White-throated Treecreeper

No Comments »26th September, 2014; Category: Bush birds, Flowers, Plants, Treecreepers

White-throated Treecreeper

On my recent visit to the Lane Cove National Park in Sydney a spent a half hour or so slowly walking along one of the roads through the park, trying to find and photograph some of the birds present in the park. It was a rather frustrating time and although I managed to add a few birds to my list, I wasn’t very successful at getting many photos.

The above shot of a White-throated treecreeper – a poor shot at that – was the only one I can use here. So instead of returning to the car without any photos, I turned my attention to some of the flowers.

Sewage plants and parrots

No Comments »25th September, 2014; Category: Migratory birds, Parrots and Lorikeets

What does a highway, a sewage plant and an endangered parrot have in common?

Not much if you think about it – except if the bird in question is an Orange-bellied parrot.

Although I have been birding in the places where this very rare and beautiful bird spends its winters, I have yet to observe one in its natural environment. They spend their winters along the southern coast of Victoria and the south eastern coast of South Australia, including the Coorong which is just over an hour’s drive from my home. In the summer months the little population flies over the wild and stormy Bass Strait to Tasmania where they breed.

When I say “little population”, latest counts suggest that as few as 75 individual birds exist in the wild. That is is getting perilously close to extinct.

So what about that question I posed at the beginning? To answer that question you need to read an interesting article called “A highway, a sewage plant and an endangered parrot.” One very interesting fact I learned from the article is that the Orange-bellied parrot is one of only two parrots world wide which migrate.

I don’t have a photo of an Orange-bellied Parrot – not even of one in a zoo – but below I have included a photo of a very similar species, the Rock Parrot. You will just have to imagine an orange patch on the belly!

Rock Parrot