Pete Dunne's Essential Field Guide Companion : a Comprehensive Resource for Identifying North American Birds
In this book, bursting with more information than any field guide could hold, the well-known author and birder Pete Dunne introduces readers to the "Cape May School of Birding." It's an approach to identification that gives equal or more weight to a bird's structure and shape and the observer's overall impression (often called GISS, for General Impression of Size and Shape) than to specific field marks. After determining the most likely possibilities by considering such factors as habitat and season, the birder uses characteristics such as size, shape, color, behavior, flight pattern, and vocalizations to identify a bird. The book provides an arsenal of additional hints and helpful clues to guide a birder when, even after a review of a field guide, the identification still hangs in the balance. This supplement to field guides shares the knowledge and skills that expert birders bring to identification challenges. Birding should be an enjoyable pursuit for beginners and experts alike, and Pete Dunne combines a unique playfulness with the work of identification. Readers will delight in his nicknames for birds, from the Grinning Loon and Clearly the Bathtub Duck to Bronx Petrel and Chicken Garnished with a Slice of Mango and a Dollop of Raspberry Sherbet
Downloadable Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ebooks
General adult.
1 online resource (736 pages)
9780544135680, 0544135687
904820098
Acknowledgments
Introduction
A guide to the guide : how to make this book work for you
Species accounts
Waterfowl
geese, swans, and ducks
Game birds
chachalaca, quail, pheasant, and grouse
Loons
Grebes
Albatrosses
Petrels and shearwaters
Storm-petrels
Tropicbirds
Sulids (boobies)
Pelicans
Cormorants
Herons, egrets, and ibis
Storks, vultures, and flamingos
Diurnal raptors
kits, hawks, eagles, and falcons
Rails, coots, limpkin, and cranes
Shorebirds
plovers and sandpipers
Skuas and jaegers
Gulls
Terns and skimmer
Alcids
auks, murres, and puffins
Pigeons and doves
Parrots and parakeets
Cuckoos, roadrunner, and anis
Owls
Nighthawks and nightjars
Swifts
Hummingbirds
Trogons
Kingfishers
Woodpeckers
Flycatchers
Shrikes
Vireos
Jays, crows, and ravens
Larks
Swallows
Chickadees, titmice, verdin, and bushtit
Nuthatches
Dipper and bulbul
Kinglets
Old World warblers and gnatcatchers
Thrushes and wrentit
Mimids
catbirds, mockingbirds, and thrashers
Starlings and mynas
Wagtails and pipits
Wood-warblers
Tanagers
Seedeaters, towhees, sparrows, juncos, and longspurs
Cardinals, grosbeaks, buntings, and dickcissel
Icterids
blackbirds and orioles
Finches
Old World sparrows
Index