Book Review: Rare Birds of North America

Have you taken the opportunity to see

the delightfully funny movie, The Big Year, starring

Owen Wilson, Jack Black, and Steve Martin?
It's been out a few years now.

If you haven't, you should.

It's not just for birders only!!

 

While most birders do not literally race all over the continent

in an attempt to list the most species in one year,

as this movie depicts,

many birders will drop everything to rush off to see rare birds

for the first, and usually, the only time.

 

If you are one of THOSE birders,

or know of someone who is,

then this book is for you:

 

Rare Birds of North America

by Steve N.G. Howell, Ian Lewington, and Will Russell

 

 

Published by Princeton University Press,

this comprehensive guide to vagrant species in North America

will be on the bookshelves March 5.

 

Vagrant species are accidental visitors from other continents

that might have "followed misguided migration paths",

were perhaps caught up in a storm,

or, as funny as it may seem,

were stowaways on ships.

 

I personally do not have the means

to rush off, to and fro, whenever there is a rare bird alert,

but there were a couple of times that I was in

the right place, at the right time.

 

Once, in northeast Cape Breton,

there was an African Western Reef Heron.

Another time, while passing through Maine

during my own annual migration,

I had the pleasure of seeing a Northern Lapwing

likely from The British Isles.

It would have been such an asset to have had this book available.

 

For those of you who are non-birders,

species accounts of these birds

are not in our normal every day guide books!

 

Rare Birds of North America

explains the hows and whys of vagrancy and

the whens and wheres of occurances,

covering 262 rare species.

 

Included in these species accounts are

patterns of vagrancy, identification,

seasons, regions, and migration.

 

Written in a straight-forward language we can all understand

it is very nicely illustrated with 275 color plates.

 

A big thank you to Jessica at Princeton University Press

for giving me the opportunity to preview this book.