Hint — it is one of the Wizard of Oz trifecta…

Click through for the answer and to access a wonderful interview with one of the leading carnivore conservation voices in the world (and coincidentally PUP author), Luke Hunter.

Harry Potter fans and owlers, rejoice! eBird data shows that snowy owls are traveling further south this year which means a lot of birders who formerly haven’t had a chance to see one in the field may actually catch a glimpse this year. So, it’s time to brush up on our snowy owl id by studying The Crossley ID Guide‘s plate below. Aren’t they gorgeous creatures?

And here’s a map of sightings from the eBird site over the last few months showing spots as far south as Kansas and Pennsylvania!

(hat tip to Ian Paulsen, my Birdbooker Report friend for the idea of this post and sharing the eBird link)

(UPDATE! Circling back to this because Ian has now pointed me to The Hedwig Fund notice on his site. This is an open letter to JK Rowling about the possibility of setting up an NGO for the study and conservation of owls. Go read his post and leave a comment)

Continued »

The Crossley ID Guide has terrific visuals — exactly the kind of thing that appeals to kids (of all ages, I’d argue, but in this case, of the younger ages). Check out Fisher’s spot-on IDs of the owls in the Crossley ID Guide in this video.

As we gear up for the holiday season, this  week’s mammal from the popular Mammals of North America App is the Caribou — also known as a reindeer! Caribou are found in Northern sub-polar regions including Canada and parts of Alaska, though they are endangered in certain areas.

Fun facts: The earliest fossil evidence of caribou comes from Germany and has been dated to about 440,000 years ago! Caribou are also the only species of deer where both sexes have antlers.

Check out some of the previous “Mammals Monday” posts:

the chipmunk

the blue whale

Get ready to moonwalk. This video revealing the secrets of manakin mating rituals is amazing! Want to know something else that’s amazing? This forthcoming book from Guy Kirwan and Graeme Green on (you probably guessed it): Cotingas and Manakins!

(hat tip to The Birdbooker Report for the link to the video — thanks!)

Mammals Monday is back! Tune in every week for a screenshot from our exciting new app, Mammals of North America. The app, available for Android and iPhone, is an essential field guide to the land and marine mammals of the USA and Canada.

This week’s featured mammal is the balaenoptera musculus, also known as the Blue Whale. Blue whales are a protected species, and can be found in the Gulf of Maine, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and off the coast of Southern California.

Fun fact: Blue whales can live to be over 80 years old!

FACT: “The largest bird known to have lived: The Giant Moa (Diornis maximus) of New Zealand, a wingless ratite that stood as high as 13 feet with neck extended and weighed over 500 pounds, is the tallest known bird, while the Elephant Bird of Madagascar (Aepyornis titan), which stood a mere 9-10 feet tall but probably weighed over 950 pounds, is the heaviest known.”

The Birdwatcher’s Companion to North American Birdlife
by Christopher W. Leahy
Illustrations by Gordon Morrison

The quintessential A-Z guide, this is a book that anyone interested in birds will want to have close at hand. First published more than twenty years ago, this highly respected reference volume has been fully revised and updated. It captures the fundamental details as well as the immense fascination of North American bird life in a style that is authoritative, yet fresh, witty, and eminently readable.

Both a practical handbook for amateurs and a handy reference for seasoned birders, it provides accounts of the basic elements of birdlife, as well as a wealth of easy-to-access information on such subjects as bird physiology and anatomy, terms and jargon, name definitions and etymology, and ornithological groupings.

Readers will discover everything from the color of a dipper’s eggs (glossy, white, and unmarked) to the number of species of woodpeckers in the world (216). They will also find more than one hundred of the best-known and most colorful colloquial names for birds, alphabetized and briefly defined. Collective nouns relating to birdlife—for example, “an exaltation of larks”—are included in the “Nouns of Assemblage” section. Biographical sketches of persons responsible for describing or naming a significant number of North American species are also included, as well as handsome and accurate illustrations by Gordon Morrison. And for those who want to go beyond reading about their favorite birds and take to the great outdoors, the book offers still more useful information: descriptive entries on a selection of the best-known birdwatching spots of North America.

“A thousand-page A-to-Z guide to all things avian. Leahy clearly loves birds, and this affectionate yet scholarly work offers everything from terse definitions and simple descriptions to thoughtful and authoritative essays. . . . There is much here that will engage every level of birder.”—American Scientist

“This is a reference book for the ages that transcends mere North American use. . . . The entries are informative, easily assimilated, and also written with spirit, humor, and charm as well as authority.”—Henry T. Armistead, Bird Watcher’s Digest

Want to learn more? Be sure to check out PUP’s newest Facebook page—Princeton Birds and Natural History. We’ll be featuring all of our great books, apps, and more on the page, along with some giveaways! There’s one going on right now—2 lucky winners will be selected Monday! Click here for details: http://www.facebook.com/PrincetonUPressBirds.NaturalHistory

Well, at least that’s what a self-serving bird book publicist might say.

A friend forwarded an announcement for the new My Bird World app for iPad. It costs 4.99 and features interactive games that help children (or even novice adult birders) learn basic information about hummingbirds, American goldfinches, sandpipers, and 21 other birds. The app was created using data, photos, and sounds from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology which is the leading birding research facility in the States so you know the content is spot-on. I downloaded it last night and managed to unlock two birds by matching trivia and speed-feeding the right foods to the right birds.

My Bird World is a fun way to engage younger birders and the perfect gateway into the world of birding (and hopefully to the broader natural world, too). For kids intrigued by the game, the perfect next step will be a good identification guide that is also built around the way kids learn. The Crossley ID Guide with its layered photo plates appeals to younger readers comfortable in a photo-shopped world and provides them with just enough information to spur their own observations of unlabeled birds in the book. At the events I’ve attended with Richard Crossley, children are almost universally interested in this book — drawn to its highly visual layout and the “Where’s Waldo”-esque tiny birds in the background.

So a thumb’s up for My Bird World and its attempt to get a younger audience engaged in bird watching.

This week’s book giveaway is twice the fun! We’ll be selecting two winners from those of you who have liked our newest Facebook page—Princeton Birds and Natural History.

The first winner will receive a great poster, along with an author-signed copy of The Crossley ID Guide by Richard Crossley.

The second winner will receive a different poster, featuring some more of the beautiful birds found in this book.

The Crossley ID Guide: Eastern Birds
by Richard Crossley

This stunningly illustrated book from acclaimed birder and photographer Richard Crossley revolutionizes field guide design by providing the first real-life approach to identification. Whether you are a beginner, expert, or anywhere in between, The Crossley ID Guide will vastly improve your ability to identify birds.

Unlike other guides, which provide isolated individual photographs or illustrations, this is the first book to feature large, lifelike scenes for each species. These scenes—640 in all—are composed from more than 10,000 of the author’s images showing birds in a wide range of views—near and far, from different angles, in various plumages and behaviors, including flight, and in the habitat in which they live. These beautiful compositions show how a bird’s appearance changes with distance, and give equal emphasis to characteristics experts use to identify birds: size, structure and shape, behavior, probability, and color. This is the first book to convey all of these features visually—in a single image—and to reinforce them with accurate, concise text. Each scene provides a wealth of detailed visual information that invites and rewards careful study, but the most important identification features can be grasped instantly by anyone.

By making identification easier, more accurate, and more fun than ever before, The Crossley ID Guide will completely redefine how its users look at birds. Essential for all birders, it also promises to make new birders of many people who have despaired of using traditional guides.

“[Richard Crossley] tries to squeeze in as much reality as he can onto every printed page…. Why put such images in an identification guide? Crossley calls it reality birding. He believes that you can become a better birder by studying the distant birds and comparing them to the larger close-up images. By noticing the similarities between the different images, you will learn to focus on the features that remain constant for a particular species. The rationale is compelling, and I think Crossley’s approach might actually work…. And, in case you were wondering, I love [this book].”—Michael Szpir, American Scientist

“What’s so different about the Crossley ID Guide? Everything. Crossley has designed his guide to reflect the way we see and identify birds. We identify birds by their size, shape, structure, behavior, habitat, and field marks. We [see] birds at close range, at middle and long distances, on the ground, in flight, in trees, and on the water…. If you want to be a better birder you will find the new Crossley ID Guide to be [a] major innovation and a valuable tool.”—Wayne Mones, Audubon.org

The two lucky winners will be selected next Monday, October 31^st. Be sure to like the Princeton Birds and Natural History page on Facebook if you haven’t already to be entered to win!

You missed it? Don’t feel too bad — it’s really quick, but you can see Richard in two flashes to a Nikon ad in a magazine.

If anyone happens to find a screen shot of Richard’s .2 seconds on screen, send it along so I can post it (jessica_pellien@press.princeton.edu).

So, the movie did fairly lackluster business at the box office this weekend, but it seems many of my birding friends did get out to see it. Here are some of the early reviews (watch out for spoilers on these sites).

Birdbooker Report: http://birdbookerreport.blogspot.com/2011/10/big-year-movie.html
The Birdchick: http://www.birdchick.com/wp/2011/10/the-big-year-movie-review/
Birding Is Fun: http://www.birdingisfun.com/2011/10/review-big-year-movie.html
10,000 Birds: http://10000birds.com/the-big-year-review.htm
Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Round Robin: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/roundrobin/2011/10/15/the-big-year-our-movie-review/
Mon@rch’s Nature Blog: http://monarchbfly.com/2011/10/15/birdwatchers-movie-review-the-big-year/
ABA’s Jeff Gordon: http://blog.aba.org/2011/10/the-big-year-time-to-dance.html (which is more of a call to arms, but an effective and well-aimed call to arms — let’s make hay while the sun is shining).

Could this really work? Next spring, Mark Berres, a University of Wisconsin–Madison ornithologist, will release an app called WeBird that identifies birds by call. I can’t wait to give it a try in my backyard! In the meantime, though, studying id books seems to be the way to go, so check out our full catalog of bird books here: http://press.princeton.edu/birds/.

Sometimes it seems as if days have themes — or at least days of blog postings have themes. Whacky Shorts Creations asked the authors of Viewpoints for their earliest drawing memories, and in this terrific review of Avian Architecture, Ken at Rosyfinch Ramblings also looks back at his earliest memories of birds and nests. He recalls watching a rooftop “nest” of a nighthawk before he was four years old and other memorable nests since as he presents lovely pages from our book. I hope you will check it out and then share your earliest bird or bird nest memory below.