A superb and concise bird compendium.
Author-illustrator and conservationist McMullan, with collaborators Derek Sallmann and Ryan Sallmann, offers a wide-ranging illustrated overview of birds in 49 U.S. states and Canada.
The book covers more than 1,000 avian varieties on the North American continent, including all of the United States except Hawaii. Birds are arranged by order and family, but readers may easily search for their common English-language names in an index. The authors describe each bird’s habitat range in detail and accompany it with a map inset, color-coded to show where the bird can be found at which time of year. The text descriptions of species are precise, thorough, and often unexpectedly expressive: a graylag goose, for instance, is said to have the “familiar cackling brays of the farmyard goose” while cedar waxwings are described as “the most bacchanalian of birds,” due to their penchant for getting intoxicated by eating fermented fruit. In a guide such as this, readers should expect detailed graphics of various species, and this book delivers full-color illustrations comparing adult and juvenile plumage, as well as male and female variations. When birds closely resemble other varieties, the authors helpfully show the creatures side-by-side and highlight their distinctness under a “What’s the Difference?” heading. For example, the Savannah sparrow may be identified by a dark eyestripe and buff lines, while a Baird’s sparrow has white lines and no eyestripe. In addition, the book features a glossary of terms, useful maps, and a diagram of the different parts of a bird. At a time when many birders rely on identification apps—some of which can pinpoint an avian species in seconds—a guide like this may seem obsolete. For many enthusiasts, though, it will surely evoke the ineffable pleasure, often established in childhood, of opening an artfully executed reference book and losing oneself in its knowledge. In the preface, the authors express their belief that “birding is an activity that can make people happier”; a guide like this is sure to bring readers hours of delight, whether they’re outside with a pair of binoculars or simply sitting at home.
A superb and concise bird compendium.Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781784275426
Page Count: 376
Publisher: Pelagic Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Are rivers alive? Macfarlane delivers a lucid, memorable argument in the affirmative.
The accomplished British nature writer turns to issues of environmental ethics in his latest exploration of the world.
In 1971, a law instructor asked a musing-out-loud question: Do trees have legal standing? His answer was widely mocked at the time, but it has gained in force: As Macfarlane chronicles here, Indigenous groups around the world are pressing “an idea that changes the world—the idea that a river is alive.” In the first major section of the book, Macfarlane travels to the Ecuadorian rainforest, where a river flows straight through a belt of gold and other mineral deposits that are, of course, much desired; his company on a long slog through the woods is a brilliant mycologist whose research projects have led not just to the discovery of a mushroom species that “would have first flourished on the supercontinent [of Gondwana] that formed over half a billion years ago,” but also to her proposing that fungi be considered a kingdom on a footing with flora and fauna. Other formidable activists figure in his next travels, to the great rivers of northern India, where, against the odds, some courts have lately been given to “shift Indian law away from anthropocentrism and towards something like ecological jurisprudence, underpinned by social justice.” The best part of the book, for those who enjoy outdoor thrills and spills, is Macfarlane’s third campaign, this one following a river in eastern Canada that, as has already happened to so many waterways there, is threatened to be impounded for hydroelectric power and other extractive uses. In delightfully eccentric company, and guided by the wisdom of an Indigenous woman who advises him to ask the river just one question, Macfarlane travels through territory so rugged that “even the trout have portage trails,” returning with hard-won wisdom about our evanescence and, one hopes, a river’s permanence and power to shape our lives for the better.
Are rivers alive? Macfarlane delivers a lucid, memorable argument in the affirmative.Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9780393242133
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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