News

A “press webinar” about the just-published American Bird Conservancy Guide to Bird Conservation is going to be held on November 4th at 3:00 p.m. EST. I just received a copy of this book, and it contains just about everything one would want to know about bird conservation in North America. There are accounts for 212 species on the WatchList, descriptions of twelve habitat types (called “birdscapes” here) including threats to them and accounts for some representative Important Bird Areas, and a comprehensive list of threats faced by our birds. There is also a chapter on international conservation, including habitats and threats.

I’m not sure what the webinar will consist of, but all three of the book’s authors will be participating, as well as acclaimed novelist Jonathan Franzen, who wrote the forward.

Here are the details:

When: November 4th at 3:00 p.m. EST (Washington, D.C. embargoed until 4:00 p.m. EST)
Web Connection: Click here to join
Audio Connection: (US/Canada): +1-408-600-3600 Access code: 669 563 475

If you missed it, the recording of the event is now available.

Here is some more information about the book from the press release:

As populations of many American bird species continue to decline, hope stems from a new book, hailed by critics and described as the most authoritative and definitive work ever to address the many threats imperiling birds in the Americas. The book, entitled The American Bird Conservancy Guide to Bird Conservation, is published by American Bird Conservancy (ABC), the nation’s leading bird conservation organization. The book includes a foreword by novelist Jonathan Franzen, and features over 500 photographs, maps, and illustrations.

“Hands down, this is the most important book of the year, one every birdwatcher should own,” says the December edition of Birder’s World Magazine.

“One third of all American bird species are in trouble and this book is the clearest, most authoritative account ever published of the threats these species face. Until now, remarkably, no single book has tackled the issue comprehensively,” writes Franzen, a member of the ABC Board of Directors. “Particularly valuable is the attention paid to seabirds and Hawaiian birds, whose troubles are severe and often overlooked.”

“This guide presents a comprehensive classification system and threat analysis for bird habitats in the United States, the most thorough assessment of threats to birds published to date, as well as actions needed for priority birds of conservation concern,” said ABC President George Fenwick.

The book also presents a “Strategic Bird Conservation Framework”— a blueprint for the future of bird conservation—that will facilitate the ambitious task of protecting America’s birds and their habitats for the future. This framework is depicted in the form of a “pyramid”, with progressively more bird species being addressed at each level of action from the rarest species at its tip to all species at its base.

The Framework enables conservation practitioners to identify the critical actions that need to be taken for birds at any geographic or biological scale. It provides a simple means of ensuring that all the most significant bird conservation priorities are addressed.

Importantly, the new book also outlines an array of specific actions needed to protect the rarest bird species in the Americas, conserve and enhance bird habitats, eliminate the most damaging threats to our birds, build capacity within the bird conservation community, and garner the science to support the needed conservation work.

The book is divided into five chapters, plus an introduction that features a narrative and pictorial chronology of modern bird extinctions in the Americas, a brief history of bird conservation, and a listing of historic landmarks in American bird conservation. The 446-page, hard-cover was co-authored by ABC Conservation Biologist Daniel Lebbin, ABC Vice President Michael Parr, and George Fenwick. The book editor was ABC Communications Vice President Gavin Shire.

The opening chapter focuses on “WatchList” birds, a subset of species identified by conservation groups including ABC that, without conservation action, are in danger of becoming threatened or even extinct. Information is provided for 212 such species, prioritized for conservation in the United States. Information includes the Watchlist score that concisely summarizes each species’ status, its global population estimates and trends, conservation efforts underway, and significant threats and priority actions needed.

The second chapter focuses on habitats in 12 “Birdscapes”: eleven natural (nine terrestrial and two aquatic) and one “Human Birdscape.” Each of these sections begins with a stunning, two-page wide artistic depiction of the birds, habitats, and threats that occur within the Birdscape and are described in subsequent pages. The sections provide an overview of each habitat, its WatchList birds, threats, ongoing conservation efforts, needed conservation actions, and a listing and description of some globally Important Bird Areas in each Birdscape. Fifty representative Globally Important Bird Areas are described in total, with multiple areas profiled in the states of Hawaii, Alaska, New York, California, Colorado, Arizona, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Delaware.

The third chapter deals with threats to birds including habitat loss, invasive and overabundant species, bird collisions, exploitation and persecution, fisheries, pollution and toxics, and climate change. For each threat, the specific problem is identified, solutions described, and recommended actions listed.

For example, outdoor and feral cats are estimated to number about 95 million in the United States. Using the most conservative predation rate on birds (5.6 bird kills per cat per year), an estimated 532 million birds are killed annually by outdoor cats. Suggested actions listed in the book include education campaigns asking cat owners to keep their cats indoors and making the feeding of feral cats illegal.

The fourth chapter addresses international bird conservation issues. Only about five percent of bird species found in the United States occur in no other country, which means that most U.S. birds also depend on staging and wintering areas far beyond U.S. borders. The International Chapter is organized like the previous three chapters, providing an overview of the most endangered species, habitats, and threats occurring in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The last chapter focuses on bird conservation strategies and actions structured around the “Strategic Bird Conservation Framework,” providing the roadmap for bird conservation and how the reader can become more involved.

Near the end of the book is a handy, quick-reference guide to bird conservation for each state. In California, for example, this section lists 22 WatchList species in the highest (Red) category, including the California Condor and Mountain Plover; cites the most endangered habitats – including oak woodlands and freshwater marshes; identifies the key threats (including fire suppression and invasive diseases such as sudden oak death syndrome), and lists key needed bird conservation actions such as restoring riparian woodlands and San Francisco Bay.

The book was funded by a grant from the Leon Levy Foundation and is published by The University of Chicago Press and Lynx Edicions. It is available through most online book sellers and book retailers. To order, see: www.abcbirds.org/aboutabc/guide/index.html.

American Bird Conservancy conserves native birds and their habitats throughout the Americas by safeguarding the rarest species, conserving and restoring habitats, and reducing threats, while building the capacity of the bird conservation movement. ABC is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit membership organization that is consistently awarded a top, four-star rating by the independent group, Charity Navigator.

For the fourth straight year there’s a new photographic field guide to North American birds. This latest one is by the well-known and highly regarded husband and wife duo of Donald and Lillian Stokes. I haven’t had a chance to really delve into it yet, but so far it’s pretty impressive. I’m planning on doing something different to give everyone a good look at it, but in the mean time, check out the reviews at 10,000 Birds and Birding is Fun!. There’s also a fantastic interview with the authors.

If you’re anxious to get a copy, you can enter to win one through the 10,000 Birds Conservation Club. And if you don’t luck out there, be on the lookout here for a giveaway.

• The Sibley iPhone app has just been updated to reflect the latest AOU taxonomy, including the splits of Winter Wren and Whip-poor-will.
• Birdcountr has been updated twice since my review. The latest version, 1.6, adds some bug fixes and also splits the wrens and whip-poor-will. But the major change is in the export options. You can now export to ebird (yay!), as a Google KML file, or a HTML page with the map and checklist embedded. The latter two are especially promising, especially to bloggers. I’ll definitely be trying them out on Birds on the Brain. Important: if you update, make sure you export all your lists first. After I updated to 1.6, the app wouldn’t start. I had to delete it from the device and reinstall from iTunes. That meant all data was lost. Of course, this could happen with any app, so this is a good policy anytime you update any app.
• Want some free books? Who doesn’t? So join the 10,000 Birds Conservation Club. They’re currently giving away the new Stokes field guide.
• The Atlas of Rare Birds is a new book that I’m very interested in checking out. Even more so after reading this interview with the author.

A while back, I wrote about a promising looking field guide that Richard Crossley was working on. Since then, Princeton University Press has announced that they will publish The Crossley ID Guide.

The guide isn’t coming out until next year, but some details have already been released, and now I really can’t wait to get my eyes on this thing. There are some excerpts and a great video interview with Crossley at Barnes and Noble.

It should be interesting, to say the least.

As I was writing my review of Birding from the Hip, I started wondering about the portions ostensibly written by the author’s wife. While reading the book, I didn’t doubt her authorship. But now something was off. Maybe it was the fact that her name wasn’t included in the credits. I asked around and found out that my doubt was justified – Anthony McGeehan wrote those essays as his wife. Definitely adds a new wrinkle to them.

The Prairie Keepers review has also been updated to mention an epilogue added to the paperback reprint edition.

I wish I could attend these two events, but alas, I will be at home, far away from either. But if you’re any closer, check them out!

First, Rick Wright announced that there will be a panel discussion on field guides at the Tucson Festival of Books on Saturday, March 13. Wright will be joined by well-known birder and author Jon Dunn, along with Elizabeth Rosenthal, the author of the Roger Tory Peterson biography Birdwatcher. More details are here.

Across the country, the American Museum of Natural History in New York is hosting an evening devoted to the recently released anthology of bird poetry, Bright Wings. Some poets will be there, of course, along with David Allen Sibley, whose paintings grace the book. The event will be at the museum on Wednesday, March 10 at 6:30 pm. More details.

You knew it was bound to happen. Earlier this month, The Sibley eGuide to the Birds of North America iPhone app was released.

I think the Sibley guide (the printed one) is the best North American field guide, and I am pleased to see that it is now available in a digital format. I will be posting a detailed review sometime soon, but in the meantime I’ve added a brief description and comparison to iBird in my iPhone Bird Guide Comparison.

Update: here is the full review of The Sibley eGuide.

I’ve finally created a Facebook page for The Birder’s Library. I’m still trying to figure out the best usage of it, so if anyone has something they’d like to see there, please let me know. Feel free to add a discussion, or comment on the Wall. You should be able to do that if you have a Facebook account and become a fan of the page. But everyone should be able to view it.

And please check out my status update to help decide what gets reviewed next.

The Well-read Naturalist just posted about a new FTC ruling regarding endorsement disclosures. The intent seems to be to make sure that relationships “between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed”. We’ve all seen celebrities endorse products in commercials, on talk shows, etc, without being clear if this is their own opinion, or if they’re just getting paid to say it. Online, there are all kinds of websites talking about products. Sometimes it is hard to tell if they are by a legitimate third party, or just some kind of shill-site created by the manufacturer.

It’s hard to argue against attempting to clear these muddy waters. But these guidelines seem ambiguous to me, such that I wasn’t sure at first if they would apply to a site like mine. After looking through them more, I think they might. Regardless, as annoying as it is, in a situation like this I’d rather be safe than sorry.

I do not get paid to write reviews, or receive any sort of payment from publishers. However, I do receive complementary review copies from publishers and authors. Many of the books I review now are such review copies. But whether a book I review is sent to me by the publisher or bought with my own money, it does not affect how I review it. I don’t do this to get free books; I just want to provide a service for fellow bird bibliophiles. Honestly, when I started this site almost three years ago, it never even occurred to me that I would eventually be getting free review copies.

To comply with the FTC, I will now add a statement to each review where the product was provided by the publisher or author. And I will be going back and doing the same to previous reviews.

The Sibley Guide to Trees

by David Allen Sibley
September 15, 2009; $39.95

Nine years ago, The Sibley Guide to Birds was published and quickly became generally regarded as the best North American field guide. And now Sibley turns his tremendous talent to a very different group of organisms.

The Birder’s World magazine blog has an excellent multi-part interview with Sibley. In it, he discusses why trees, the process of creating the guide, why birders will enjoy it, and much more. It’s a fascinating interview, and made me really look forward to the guide. Amazon also has a video interview.

I’m very excited about this, since I’ve been telling myself for some time that I need to learn trees better.