I’ve never before assembled a formal end-of-year-list of what I consider to be the best bird books published but, inspired by Ian “Birdbooker” Paulsen’s recent blog piece, “The Best Bird Books of 2014” (and because the holidays are here and people are seeking gifts for the bird-nerds in their lives), I decided to share my bird books choices for this year, too. Ian’s choices are aimed at ornithologists, birders and book collectors, so you will see that my choices are significantly different; almost all of my choices are targeted primarily towards those who seek stories about birds.
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald [288 pages, Jonathan Cape (The Random House Group), 2014; Guardian Bookshop; Amazon UK hardcover/paperback/kindle UK/audio download/audio CD; Amazon US hardcover/kindle US/Audible download/audio CD]
Publisher’s synopsis: “In real life, goshawks resemble sparrowhawks the way leopards resemble housecats. Bigger, yes. But bulkier, bloodier, deadlier, scarier, and much, much harder to see. Birds of deep woodland, not gardens, they’re the birdwatchers’ dark grail.”
As a child Helen Macdonald was determined to become a falconer. She learned the arcane terminology and read all the classic books, including T. H. White’s tortured masterpiece, The Goshawk, which describes White’s struggle to train a hawk as a spiritual contest.
When her father dies and she is knocked sideways by grief, she becomes obsessed with the idea of training her own goshawk. She buys Mabel for £800 on a Scottish quayside and takes her home to Cambridge. Then she fills the freezer with hawk food and unplugs the phone, ready to embark on the long, strange business of trying to train this wildest of animals.
“To train a hawk you must watch it like a hawk, and so gain the ability to predict what it will do next. Eventually you don’t see the hawk’s body language at all. You seem to feel what it feels. The hawk’s apprehension becomes your own. As the days passed and I put myself in the hawk’s wild mind to tame her, my humanity was burning away.”
Destined to be a classic of nature writing, H is for Hawk is a record of a spiritual journey - an unflinchingly honest account of Macdonald’s struggle with grief during the difficult process of the hawk’s taming and her own untaming. At the same time, it’s a kaleidoscopic biography of the brilliant and troubled novelist T. H. White, best known for The Once and Future King. It’s a book about memory, nature and nation, and how it might be possible to try to reconcile death with life and love.
Winner of the 2014 Samuel Johnson Prize for nonfiction.
Shortlisted for the 2014 Costa Biography Award.
.
Ten Thousand Birds: Ornithology since Darwin by Tim Birkhead, Jo Wimpenny and Bob Montgomerie [544 pages, Princeton University Press, 2014; Guardian Bookshop; Amazon UK hardcover/kindle UK; Amazon US hardcover/kindle US]
Publisher’s synopsis: Ten Thousand Birds provides a thoroughly engaging and authoritative history of modern ornithology, tracing how the study of birds has been shaped by a succession of visionary and often-controversial personalities, and by the unique social and scientific contexts in which these extraordinary individuals worked. This beautifully illustrated book opens in the middle of the nineteenth century when ornithology was a museum-based discipline focused almost exclusively on the anatomy, taxonomy, and classification of dead birds. It describes how in the early 1900s pioneering individuals such as Erwin Stresemann, Ernst Mayr, and Julian Huxley recognized the importance of studying live birds in the field, and how this shift thrust ornithology into the mainstream of the biological sciences. The book tells the stories of eccentrics like Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen, a pathological liar who stole specimens from museums and quite likely murdered his wife, and describes the breathtaking insights and discoveries of ambitious and influential figures such as David Lack, Niko Tinbergen, Robert MacArthur, and others who through their studies of birds transformed entire fields of biology.
Ten Thousand Birds brings this history vividly to life through the work and achievements of those who advanced the field. Drawing on a wealth of archival material and in-depth interviews, this fascinating book reveals how research on birds has contributed more to our understanding of animal biology than the study of just about any other group of organisms.
.
Flying Dinosaurs: How Fearsome Reptiles Became Birds by John Pickrell [256 pages, University of New South Wales Press (NewSouth Books), 2014; Guardian bookshop; Amazon UK hardcover/paperback/kindle UK; Amazon US hardcover/paperback/kindle US]
Publisher’s synopsis: The discovery of stunning, feathered dinosaur fossils coming out of China since 2006 suggest that these creatures were much more bird-like than paleontologists previously imagined. Further evidence -- bones, genetics, eggs, behavior, and more -- has shown a seamless transition from fleet-footed carnivores to the ancestors of modern birds.
Mixing colorful portraits with news on the latest fossil findings and interviews with leading paleontologists in the United States, China, Europe, and Australia, John Pickrell explains and details dinosaurs’ development of flight. This special capacity introduced a whole new range of abilities for the animals and helped them survive a mass extinction, when thousands of other dinosaur species that once populated the Earth did not. Pickrell also turns his journalistic eye toward the stories behind the latest discoveries, investigating the role of the Chinese black market in trading fossils, the controversies among various dinosaur hunters, the interference of national governments intent on protecting scientific information, and the race to publish findings first that make this research such a dynamic area of science.
.
Welcome to Subirdia: Sharing Our Neighborhoods with Wrens, Robins, Woodpeckers, and Other Wildlife by John M. Marzluff [320 pages, Yale University Press, 2014; Guardian Bookshop; Amazon UK hardcover/kindle UK; Amazon US hardcover/kindle US]
Publisher’s synopsis: Welcome to Subirdia presents a surprising discovery: the suburbs of many large cities support incredible biological diversity. Populations and communities of a great variety of birds, as well as other creatures, are adapting to the conditions of our increasingly developed world. In this fascinating and optimistic book, John Marzluff reveals how our own actions affect the birds and animals that live in our cities and towns, and he provides ten specific strategies everyone can use to make human environments friendlier for our natural neighbors.
Over many years of research and fieldwork, Marzluff and student assistants have closely followed the lives of thousands of tagged birds seeking food, mates, and shelter in cities and surrounding areas. From tiny Pacific wrens to grand pileated woodpeckers, diverse species now compatibly share human surroundings. By practicing careful stewardship with the biological riches in our cities and towns, Marzluff explains, we can foster a new relationship between humans and other living creatures — one that honors and enhances our mutual destiny.
.
A Message from Martha: The Extinction of the Passenger Pigeon and Its Relevance Today by Mark Avery [304 pages, Bloomsbury Natural History, 2014; Guardian Bookshop; Amazon UK hardcover/paperback/kindle UK; Amazon US hardcover/kindle US]
Publisher’s synopsis: September 1st, 2014 marked the centenary of one of the best-documented extinctions in history -- the demise of the Passenger Pigeon. From being the commonest bird on the planet 50 years earlier, the species became extinct on that fateful day, with the death in Cincinnati Zoo of Martha -- the last of her kind. This book tells the tale of the Passenger Pigeon, and of Martha, and of author Mark Avery’s journey in search of them. It looks at how the species was a cornerstone of the now much-diminished ecology of the eastern United States, and how the species went from a population that numbered in the billions to nil in a terrifyingly brief period of time. It also explores the largely untold story of the ecological annihilation of this part of America in the latter half of the 19th century, a time that saw an unprecedented loss of natural beauty and richness as forests were felled and the prairies were ploughed, with wildlife slaughtered more or less indiscriminately. Despite the underlying theme of loss, this book is more than another depressing tale of human greed and ecological stupidity. It contains an underlying message -- that we need to re-forge our relationship with the natural world on which we depend, and plan a more sustainable future. Otherwise more species will go the way of the Passenger Pigeon. We should listen to the message from Martha. [My review]
.
A Sparrowhawk’s Lament: How British Breeding Birds of Prey Are Faring by David Cobham [256 pages, Princeton University Press, 2014; Guardian bookshop; Amazon UK hardcover/kindle UK; Amazon US hardcover/kindle US]
Publisher’s synopsis: Britain is home to fifteen species of breeding birds of prey, from the hedgerow-hopping Sparrowhawk to the breathtaking White-tailed Eagle. In this handsomely illustrated book, acclaimed British filmmaker and naturalist David Cobham offers unique and deeply personal insights into Britain’s birds of prey and how they are faring today. He delves into the history of these marvelous birds and talks in depth with the scientists and conservationists who are striving to safeguard them. In doing so, he profiles the writers, poets, and filmmakers who have done so much to change the public’s perception of birds of prey. Thanks to popular television programs, the Victorian myth that any bird with a hooked beak is evil has been dispelled. However, although there are success stories -- five birds of prey that were extinct have become reestablished with viable populations -- persecution is still rife: so much so that one bird of prey, the Hen Harrier, became extinct in England as a breeding bird in 2013.
Featuring drawings by famed wildlife artist Bruce Pearson, this book reveals why we must cherish and celebrate our birds of prey, and why we neglect them at our peril. In A Sparrowhawk’s Lament, you will learn how the perfection of the double-barreled shotgun sounded a death knell for British birds of prey in the nineteenth century, how the conscription of gamekeepers during two world wars gave them a temporary reprieve, how their fortunes changed yet again with the introduction of agricultural pesticides in the 1950s, why birds of prey are vital to Britain’s ecosystems and cultural heritage -- and much more.
.
Hummingbirds by Ronald I. Orenstein [256 pages, Firefly Books, 2014; Guardian bookshop; Amazon UK hardcover; Amazon US hardcover]
Publisher’s synopsis: A comprehensive natural history of nature’s smallest bird species.
The tiny hummingbird has long been a source of fascination for birdwatchers and naturalists alike. They number 300 species and Ronald Orenstein has a passion for all of them.
Hummingbirds are the smallest birds in the world. A hummingbird egg is the size of a pea, barely, and the chick that emerges will be smaller than a penny, if that. But these tiny birds pack a powerful engine: a hummingbird’s heart beats more than 1,200 times per minute.
Nicknamed the “avian helicopter”, a hummingbird’s wings beat from 70 times per second in direct flight, to more than 200 times per second when diving. Not surprisingly, that whirlwind of wing power creates a humming sound. To fuel such energy, hummingbirds must eat as much as eight times their body weight on a daily basis, which means visiting an average of 1,000 flowers -- every day -- to get enough nectar.
Hummingbirds are found in North and South America, with the greatest number in Ecuador, although some species breed as far north as Canada. Most species migrate from Mexico to Alaska, a distance of more than 5,000 miles.
In this book Orenstein covers all aspects of hummingbird natural history, their relationship with the plants on which they feed, the miracle of their flight, their elaborate social life and nesting behavior, and their renowned feats of migration.
More than 170 color photographs of these magnificent creatures, taken in the wild, adorn the pages of Hummingbirds. Birders and natural history readers alike will gain new insight into the tiny bird and revel in the stunning images.
.
The World of Birds by Jonathan Elphick [608 pages, The Natural History Museum, 2014; Guardian bookshop; Amazon UK hardcover; Amazon US hardcover]
Publisher’s synopsis: The World of Birds is a groundbreaking guide to every aspect of bird life and a complete survey of the world’s orders and families of birds. Written by eminent natural history expert Jonathan Elphick and with special photography from award-winning wildlife photographer David Tipling, it is the ultimate companion for birders, wildlife enthusiasts and anyone wanting an accessible and accurate acccount of these amazing creatures. The book begins by examining the evolution of birds since the age of the dinosaurs. It then explores in greater detail each of the significant elements of bird life: bird biology including anatomy, physiology, the brain and senses, plumage, calls and songs; flight techniques and styles; food and feeding; bird lifestyles and social relationships; breeding, growth and development; bird geography and habitats; and migration. The second part of the book provides a comprehensive survey of the world’s birds which includes an introduction to the 32 orders and a detailed account and concise fact panel for every one of the 195 families. A glossary, further reading list and two indexes ensure easy reference. With its clear, lively text and fact boxes, and sumptuous illustrations throughout -- over 1,000 photographs, maps and diagrams -- The World of Birds is a book everyone interested in birds should own.
.
The Owl Who Liked Sitting on Caesar: Living with a Tawny Owl by Martin Windrow [320 pages, Bantam Press, 2014; Guardian bookshop; Amazon UK hardcover/paperback/kindle UK; Amazon US hardcover/paperback/kindle US]
Publisher’s synopsis: “Perched on the back of a sunlit chair was something about 9 inches tall and shaped rather like a plump toy penguin with a nose-job. It appeared to be wearing a one-piece knitted jumpsuit of pale grey fluff with brown stitching, complete with an attached balaclava helmet. From the face-hole of the fuzzy balaclava, two big, shiny black eyes gazed up at me trustfully. Kweep, it said quietly.”
When author Martin Windrow met the tawny owlet that he christened Mumble, it was love at first sight. Raising her from a fledgling, through adolescence and into her prime years, Windrow recorded every detail of their time living together (secretly) in a south London tower block, and later in a Sussex village. This is the touching, intriguing and eccentric story of their 15-year relationship, complete with photographs and illustrations of the beautiful Mumble. Along the way, we are given fascinating insight into the ornithology of owls -- from their evolution and biology to their breeding habits and hunting tactics.The Owl Who Liked Sitting on Caesar is a witty, quirky and utterly charming account of the companionship between one man and his owl. [My review]
.
A Conspiracy of Ravens: A Compendium of Collective Nouns for Birds by Bill Oddie [128 pages, The Bodleian Library, 2014; Guardian bookshop; Amazon UK hardcover; Amazon US hardcover]
Publisher’s synopsis: ‘A murder of crows’, ‘a charm of goldfinches’, ‘an ostentation of peacocks’: collective nouns for British birds have existed since at least the mid fifteenth century. They are thought to originate in texts about hunting, but have since evolved into evocative, witty and literary expressions, each striving to capture the very essence of the animal they describe. Some are portentous -- ‘a conspiracy of ravens’ perfectly evokes this sinister bird -- others convey sound, such as ‘a murmuration of starlings’ or ‘a chattering of choughs’. Yet more reflect with a flourish the beauty of the bird itself: what could be more celebratory than ‘a crown of kingfishers’, or ‘an exaltation of larks’? The best of these imaginative expressions are collected here, illustrated with charming woodcuts by Thomas Bewick, the renowned naturalist engraver of the eighteenth century. Featuring songbirds, aquatic birds, birds of prey and garden favourites, this beautifully presented book will delight both bird-lovers and word-lovers in equal measure.
.
.
HBW and Birdlife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World: Non-Passerines by Josep Del Hoyo and Nigel Collar [904 pages, Lynx Edicions, 2014; Amazon UK hardcover; Amazon US hardcover]
Publisher’s synopsis: The first ever Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World is really two works in one. It is a complete checklist whose taxonomy incorporates the most up-to-date information and an exhaustive methodology (Tobias et al. 2010) in an entirely systematic and consistent way. At the same time, it contains illustrations and distribution maps for every bird species in the world. This includes the original artwork from the HBW series, as well as hundreds of new illustrations, all in two compact volumes.
.
You may also be interested to peruse my choices for Best Nature Books, Best Popular Science Books (Biological sciences), Best Popular Medicine Books and Best Popular Science Books (Physical sciences) for 2014.
Did I miss something? Feel free to add it in comments below, so other readers can check it out.
.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
When she’s not got her nose stuck in a book, GrrlScientist is very active on twitter @GrrlScientist and lurks on social media: facebook, G+, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
