Good Birders Don't Wear White: 50 Tips From North America's Top Birders edited by Pete Dunne. First published 2007.
I was reminded to write this short review from a recent Facebook meme, whereby one takes a certain line from a certain page from the nearest book and posts it as a status update. Mine was "Never go out with someone who has been looking for the Mangrove Cuckoo for twenty years with no success." This line is from Don and Lillian Stokes' hilarious essay Follow These Rules to See a Mangrove Cuckoo.
Good Birders Don't Wear White is a fun collection of short essays on birding by some of the top names in the field. I'm still a new birder so I kind of expected to pick up some tips reading these essays, but many of the pieces are more humor oriented than practical. I should have realized - a blurb on the back reads "In these 50 light and fun original essays..." I found most of the more practical tips kind of obvious, but the essays are all very well written and in fact birding humor is great, too. I enjoyed this book as a very light, easy read.
The fifty essays are grouped into categories including backyard birding, listing, and identification. My favorite ones usually included a bit of practical advice told in an engaging way, like Bill Thompson III's piece on keeping optics clean. Even if I couldn't relate to or benefit from the advice in every article, it was still interesting to read what were very often personal birding anecdotes from well-known names in the birding community like Clay Sutton, Sheri Williamson, Ted Floyd, Lang Elliott, and Julie Zickefoose.
I give Good Birders Don't Wear White 3 and a half Goldfinches out of five.
The American Bird Conservancy Guide to Bird Conservation by Daniel J. Lebbin, Michael J. Parr, and George H. Fenwick. First published 2010. Hardcover, 456 pages. As a reader of this blog, chances are that you do something to help birds. There are a lot of ways to help, and...
Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding by Scott Weidensaul. First published in 2007. From shotgun ornithologists collecting bird skins to the "angry ladies" that rebelled against the fashion industry's use of bird feathers, and from the first citizen scientists sharing bird sightings to the development...
How to Be a Bad Birdwatcher by Simon Barnes. First published 2005. Look out the window. See a bird. Enjoy it. CONGRATULATIONS! You are now a bad birdwatcher. Throughout How to Be a Bad Birdwatcher, Simon Barnes shares his premise that birdwatching should simply be done for the joy...
Nightjars, Potoos, Frogmouths, Oilbird, and Owlet-nightjars of the World by Nigel Cleere. First published 2010. I'm still pretty new at this birding thing, so I'm still enjoying learning about the history of the hobby and of ornithology. The more I read, the more I come to understand everything I...
