HAWKS at a Distance

HAWKS at a Distance

by Jerry Liguori

Circumstances while traveling, and inclement weather, have kept me from actively birding these past few months.  Literally, spring migrants came to me this year, as I had the good fortune to spend a few weeks in a delightful log cabin at the forest’s edge in central Maine.  It was only a matter of stepping out the front door, listening, and then searching amidst the branches of the trees.


Spring, however, did not follow me across the border and onto the shores of eastern Cape Breton, where the cold, wet, and windy days lend themselves, instead, to nestling in front of a warming fire for some quiet reading time.

On the very top of my ‘must read’ pile has been Jerry Liguori’s new book, HAWKS at a Distance, published by Princeton University Press.  Although I not have yet needed to reference this book, as the few raptors I have had the pleasure of observing have been easily identifiable, I am delighted with what I have found between the covers.  Perhaps they were easy because I’ve been reading this book!

Obviously, considerable forethought took place at the conception of the idea for this book, because it is easy to read and to understand, making it a viable resource for the beginner and the experienced birder alike.  This endears the book to me even more, reflecting Jerry’s attitude that anything is possible, even working through and overcoming the difficulties that accompany hawk identification.   I will be an apt pupil, because they almost all look the same to me at a distance!

Jerry uses key identification traits in bold print and keeps the text short, sweet, and to the point, accompanying the well-thought out and expertly displayed images, of which there are many.  In his own words, the purpose of this format is “so that it is easy to remember and so that the book is uncluttered.”


As he points out in his introduction,  people can identify friends and family from a distance because they are so familiar with them - the way they walk or stand or gesture when speaking. His intention is to provide the reader with that same sense of familiarity that is required to identify these magnificent birds from afar, which is where we usually see them.  Consequently, this book is more than a field guide, more than a reference book, and one that should be read and reviewed repeatedly, making it a valuable resource to be included on every birder’s bookshelf.  I will treasure my copy for many years to come.


I have developed the habit of using sticky notes to add key information to the pages of the field guides I carry along with me, and while reading HAWKS at a Distance, I have added many more notes to my birding field guide to help me tease out the difficulties in identifying hawks 'on the spot' until my memory kicks in and hawk identification becomes second nature.   It’s tough getting old!