Birds in Winter is the first book devoted to the ecology and behavior of birds during this most challenging season. Birds remaining in regions with cold weather must cope with much shorter days to find food and shelter even as they need to avoid predators and stay warm through the long nights, while migrants to the tropics must fit into very different ecosystems and communities of resident birds. Roger Pasquier explores how winter affects birds’ lives all through the year, starting in late summer, when some begin caching food to retrieve months later and others form social groups lasting into the next spring. During winter some birds are already pairing up for the following breeding season, so health through the winter contributes to nesting success.
Today, rapidly advancing technologies are enabling scientists to track individual birds through their daily and annual movements at home and across oceans and hemispheres, revealing new and unexpected information about their lives and interactions. But, as Birds in Winter shows, much is visible to any interested observer. Pasquier describes the season’s distinct conservation challenges for birds that winter where they have bred and for migrants to distant regions. Finally, global warming is altering the nature of winter itself. Whether birds that have evolved over millennia to survive this season can now adjust to a rapidly changing climate is a problem all people who enjoy watching them must consider.
Filled with elegant line drawings by artist and illustrator Margaret La Farge, Birds in Winter describes how winter influences the lives of birds from the poles to the equator.
"The material is well organised with a sensible, progressive arrangement of chapters, plenty of subheadings and a useful summary to round off each section. The text is pitched roughly at the level of a ‘New Naturalist’ volume, bridging the gap between professional ornithologist and interested amateur. . . . [An] accessible and useful reference."—Ian Carter, British Birds
"New facts on every page!"—John Miles, Birdwatching Magazine
"This book is as broad ranging as it is deeply informative. . . . You cannot read this one without learning a great deal and, despite the author’s undoubted expertise the touch is light enough to make it an accessible read too."—Bo Beolens, Fat Birder
"[Birds in Winter] is assiduously underpinned with scientific references, but at the same time takes the reader on an accessible and fascinating tour."—Paul Nicholson, The London Free Press
"[A] highly informative, detail-packed, research-based description of bird behavior."—Donna Lynn Schulman, 10,000 Birds
"[The] topic . . . is well served by the author who clearly demonstrates that it genuinely deserves a whole book, and that it is not off-beat at all."—Anthony P. Payne, Glasgow Naturalist
"A . . . welcome publication on a previously neglected topic. I found it a tremendous compilation of ideas and facts about wintering birds and I think it deserves to be very widely read."—Tony Gaston, The Canadian Field Naturalist
"An admirable treasure trove and summation of what is known about wintering birds for all biologists, climatologists, birders, ecologists, environmentalists, and conservationists."—Choice
"The author has put together an impressive account of a bird’s year. . . . A novel approach to the ornithological literature and an instructive read."—Christopher Perrins, IBIS Book Reviews
"We owe the author a debt of gratitude for his thorough and earnest overview of the “other” half of the lives of birds. I highly recommend this book for its shift in perspective."—P.A. Bednekoff, Ornithology
“For birds, warm-blooded creatures like us, survival through winter is one of their greatest challenges, especially for those that cannot or will not undertake the hazards of migration. They face often equally challenging problems in staying, as their world changes drastically with the seasons. What is so special about what they do to survive, where others would die? Read this book and be amazed, inspired, and touched with awe.”—Bernd Heinrich, author of Ravens in Winter and Winter World
“For years, what most northern birders knew about where many birds 'winter' could be summarized as blobby imprecise range maps covering some portions of more southerly latitudes. Even less has been known about the Southern Hemisphere birds that move north for their winter. This imbalance has finally begun to change. Importantly, because most migratory birds spend far longer on their wintering than on their breeding grounds, and their conservation depends substantially on what happens to wintering habitats. Birds in Winter summarizes the best science on this topic to date—during an era that is sure to see a global expansion of wintering bird data. This book will be a foundational publication for years to come. Congratulations to Roger Pasquier for assembling this comprehensive trove of biological and ecological information. It will interest birders everywhere and will be of vital use to students, scientists, land managers, policymakers, and conservationists alike.”—Mike Parr, president of the American Bird Conservancy
