The following is a guest review provided by Frank Lambert.

Families covered in this volume are as follows:

• Family Malaconotidae (Bush-shrikes)
• Family Prionopidae (Helmet-shrikes)
• Family Vangidae (Vangas)
• Family Dicruridae (Drongos)
• Family Callaeidae (New Zealand Wattlebirds)
• Family Notiomystidae (Stitchbird)
• Family Grallinidae (Mudlarks)
• Family Struthideidae (Australian Mudnesters)
• Family Artamidae (Woodswallows)
• Family Cracticidae (Butcherbirds)
• Family Pityriaseidae (Bristlehead)
• Family Ptilonorhynchidae (Bowerbirds)
• Family Paradisaeidae (Birds-of-paradise)
• Family Corvidae (Crows)
• Family Buphagidae (Oxpeckers)
• Family Sturnidae (Starlings)
• Family Passeridae (Old World Sparrows)

The 14th volume of the Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW) once again treats us to a feast of superb photographs, authoritative text and impressive plates. This volume covers a very diverse group of birds, the vast majority of which are Old World or Australasian in distribution. Indeed, of the families covered, only the crow family includes New World species.

Some of the families are relatively poorly known – so that the Vangas (endemic to Madagascar) with 15 species only have a 21 page introduction, whereas the New Zealand Wattlebirds (three extant species with the north and south island saddlebacks recognised as separate species) receive 28 pages. Another New Zealand family, Notiomystidae, with only one species, the Stichbird Notiomystis cincta generates and impressive 14 pages!

The Foreword, in a marked departure from the usual more scientific topics covered, is a short essay on “Birding Past, Present and Future – a Global View”, in which Stephen Moss sets out to show how birding has gone from the “preserve of a few eccentric enthusiasts to the mass-participation leisure activity of today” in the last 100 years. With some 46 million “birders” in the USA (which sounds unlikely, but the figure has been manipulated (by the US Fish and Wildlife Service) by counting anyone who watches birds in and around their homes as a birder) and some 2.85 million “active birders” in the UK, the essay is not surprisingly focused on material from these two countries. Nevertheless, the essay is wide-ranging and contains something for everyone. I found the analysis of how much money birding generates for various economies of particular interest. In the USA, wildlife-watchers (of whom birders form the vast majority) spend almost US$32 billion in pursuit of their hobby (presumably over their lifetime, though this is not stated), of which nearly US$2 billion goes on optics, but even more – $2.2 billion – is spent on bird food. According to the US Fish and Wildlife survey, overall the impact of wildlife-watching on US economic output is apparently even more, at US$85 billion a year, producing $13 billion in tax revenues and creating some 860,000 jobs. Given the number of hunters that I saw whilst birding in the USA it would have been interesting to have seen a comparison here of what their economic contribution might be compared to wildlife-watchers. According to Stephen Moss, however, these figures are likely to be over-estimates because of the very liberal view of the types of expenditure relating to birding activities that were included. Whether this went as far as to include the number of book cases required to hold all of the volumes of HBW that have ever been sold in the USA I can’t say, but it does give food for thought.

The first family covered in this volume, the bush-shrikes, firmly places the taxonomically controversial “Bulo Burti Boubou” (described as a new species, Laniarius liberatus in 1989) as a morph of Somali Boubou L. erlangeri: a taxon itself so recently recognised as a species that it is treated as a subspecies of the widespread Tropical Boubou L. aethiopicus in the Birds of Somalia (Ash and Miskell 1998) and not mentioned by Sinclair and Ryan (2003). But the settling of this taxonomic issue is just the tip of the iceburg – as HBW14 so well illustrates, such species-limits issues now abound and are increasingly the focus of discussion and study by birders who would not consider themselves as scientists – a theme that was unfortunately not explored in the Foreword of this volume. With increasingly easy access to published papers and other information on the internet, and new tools such as instant access to numerous recordings of the vocalizations of closely related taxa (primarily at the incredibly useful website xeno-canto), almost any intelligent birder with an interest can now delve into the realm of the taxonomist and potentially make significant contributions to our understanding of taxonomic issues.

Two families in particular in this volume – the drongos and the crows –include a significant number of taxa for which there are unresolved taxonomic issues, some of which would have important consequences for bird conservation. For example, how many of the eight subspecies of Slender-billed Crow Corvus enca (a group of poorly-known forest corvids that are distributed from the Greater Sundas to islands of the Philippines and Sulawesi region) should be treated as good species? Based on my own field experience in the region I am convinced that there must be at least four! Indeed, the IOC already recognizes one of these, the endemic Seram taxon violaceus as a separate species, Violet Crow. Philippine populations, however, are still treated as Slender-billed Crow, “pending formal breakup of that polytypic species”.

Once again I sense some inconsistency in the taxonomic treatments of the various families – no doubt as a result of different approaches by the various authors. For example, within the starlings the Hill Mynas in the genus Gracula are now represented by five species, (including endemic species on the west Sumatran islands of Nias and on Enggano and in Southwest India/Sri Lanka) even though some taxonomists may feel that the justification for this treatment has not been adequately dealt with in the scientific literature. In contrast, when it comes to the black corvids in the genus Corvus, HBW mostly takes a more cautious approach. Hence, as mentioned above none of subspecies of Corvus enca have been split, and nor have they split any of the subspecies of Large-billed Crow C. macrorhynchos, even though the IOC and recent field guides (e.g. Rasmussen and Anderton 2005, Robson 2008, Myers 2009) have recognized a number of different species, most notably Eastern Jungle Crow Corvus levaillantii, and Indian Jungle Crow Corvus culminates. These splits are still controversial, in part because of the complexity of the issues involved, and it is not surprising that HBW has taken a cautious approach. On the other hand, HBW recognizes another black corvid, the Bismarck Crow Corvus insularis (a split from Torresian Crow C. orru) apparently on the basis of two unpublished manuscripts (though I don’t wish to imply here that I don’t agree with treating C. insularis as a good species) .

The Birds-of-Paradise are one of my favourite bird families, and I was interested to see that HBW recognizes one “new” species, the Foja Parotia Parotia berlepschi. However, I was a little surprised that Growling Riflebird Ptiloris intercedens, a split (recognized by IOC) from Magnificent Riflebird Ptiloris magnificus is not recognized here. The vocalizations of Growling Riflebird are so different from those of Magnificent Riflebird that it seems inconceivable to me that they should be treated as the same species (compare recordings XC38119 with XC38120 at xeno-canto). Also in contrast to IOC, HBW has retained the so-called satinbirds (Loria’s Cnemophilus loriae, Crested C. macgregorii and Yellow-breasted Birds-of-Paradise Loboparadisea sericea) within the Paradisaedae (Birds-of-Paradise): IOC put these three species in their own family, Cnemophilidae (see the December 2009 IOC list (version 2.3)) .

Nevertheless, it has to be recognized that the authors and editors of HBW are working in a time of incredible taxonomic change, and deciding what to include as a species versus a subspecies must often be a vexing task. The IOC list is updated every 3-4 months, with changes to English and scientific names, changes to the names of genera and the addition of newly discovered or split species. Keeping up with that is impossible in a “static” piece of work such as HBW, so the taxonomy followed is inevitably going to be recognized as out-of-date very rapidly. For example, within the next decade it seems likely that within the Corvidae alone there will be an additional ten or more species recognized that are not treated as species by HBW. Despite this, HBW has made a very serious effort to illustrate and describe the vast majority of significantly different taxa that may warrant species status, so that they are included in this impressive piece of work even if not as good species.

A few unfamiliar English names appear in this volume, such as Lauterbach’s Bowerbird Chlamydera lauterbachi, which everywhere else in recent times has normally called Yellow-breasted Bowerbird, White Nile Rufous Sparrow Passer shelleyi (Shelley’s Rufous Sparrow in Sinclair and Ryan 2003; Shelley’s Sparrow in IOC) and Small Ground-Sparrow Pyrgilauda davidiana, one of five species of ground-sparrows in this distinctive high altitude genus of Old World Sparrows that were previously called Snowfinches (a name here reserved for three species in the genus Montifringilla). Most unfamiliar English names in HBW14, however, result from the inclusion of newly recognized species, such as the Masked Bowerbird Sericulus aureus (split from Flame Bowerbird S. ardens), Tablas Drongo Dicrurus menagei (split from Hair-crested Drongo D. hottentottus), Arabian Magpie Pica asirensis (split from Common Magpie P.pica), and Iberian Azure-winged Magpie Cyanopica cooki (split from Asian Azure-winged Magpie C. cyanus).

As with all recent volumes of HBW this one is well-researched and mostly up to date. But some of the authors are still perhaps unaware that they can access the vocalizations of many bird species on-line. For example, the vocalization of Long-tailed Paradigalla Paradigalla carunculata is available on xeno-canto (XC26333) but in the HBW species account it simply says VOICE: No information available. Perhaps in the last two volumes of HBW cross-reference to vocalizations that are available on this website and at the upcoming Michigan State University Avian Vocalizations Center (AvOCET) could be included.

The illustrations in HBW14 are generally of a very high standard, though there are surprisingly few juvenile plumages depicted. For example, it seems odd that none of the young plumages of Aponis starlings are depicted since these are very distinctive. There is one photograph of an immature Aplonis, but this is hardly that useful. Again, the photography is impressive and there are numerous outstanding photographs, the vast majority taken in the wild (some Indonesian species look like they could be of captive birds). I particularly appreciated the photographs of the variations of bowers and dance floors of the Australasian bowerbirds. They are simply incredible! But I was a little disappointed with a few of the photos of the Birds-of-Paradise and some of one of the world’s most amazing species, the Bornean Bristlehead Pityriasis gymnocephala (the only representative of the only endemic Bornean bird family, Pityriaseidae), since I know that there are definitely better photos available than those that were used. But that is a minor quibble. One photograph that did catch my attention, however, was that of Raggiana Bird-of-Paradise Paradisaea raggiana on page 437: this individual seems very odd and I wonder if it is in fact a hybrid between Raggiana and either Greater Bird-of-Paradise P. apoda or Lesser Bird-of-Paradise P. Minor. As mentioned in the text, members of this genus apparently manage to hybridize regularly.

Overall, as with most previous volumes in this series, Volume 14 of HBW is an outstanding piece of work and will prove to be a major source of reference for birders or for anyone interested in ornithology. I find myself using the various volumes of HBW more often than many of the other books in my library, and I for one am looking forward to seeing the penultimate volume at the end of this year. Unlike some of the other publishers in the bird book business, Josep del Hoyo and his team seem to be incredibly reliable in getting volumes of this series to their readers on time. I guess that means that they have very few siestas in their Barcelona office and are all busy working whilst the rest of Spain is sleeping!

Resources used:

• Ash, J.S. and Miskell, J.E. 1998. The Birds of Somalia. Pica Press, The Banks, Mountfield, UK
• Myers, S. 2009 A Field Guide to the Birds of Borneo. New Holland, London and Talisman, Singapore.
• Rasmussen, P.C. and Anderton, J.C. 2005. Birds of South Asia: The Ripley Guide. Lynx Editions, Barcelona.
• Robson, C. (2008). A Field Guide to the Birds of South-East Asia. New Holland, London.
• Sinclair, I. and Ryan, P. 2003. Birds of Africa south of the Sahara. Struik, Cape Town.

Here’s what I’m currently reading and/or reviewing:

• The Breeding Bird Atlas of Georgia
  Todd M. Schneider, Giff Beaton, Timothy S. Keyes, and Nathan A. Klaus

  Finally, my home state has its own Breeding Bird Atlas. It was worth the wait. Anyone who birds extensively in Georgia should get a copy.

• Afield: Forty Years of Birding the American West
  Alan Contreras

  Part memoir, but mostly just good writing about birding.

• Birding the Great Lakes Seaway Trail

  A guide to birding spots found along the Great Lakes Seaway Trail, which runs along the shorelines of the Great Lakes in Pennsylvania and New York.

• Petrels Night and Day
  Magnus Robb, Killian Mullarney, and The Sound Approach

  A guide to the tubenoses of the Northeast Atlantic. All the reviews that I’ve read have been glowing in their praise for this book, and I can see why. It has a little of everything – cutting edge investigation of species limits, travelogue, identification plates, and, naturally, sounds.

First, Rick Wright announced that there will be a panel discussion on field guides at the Tucson Festival of Books on Saturday, March 13. Wright will be joined by well-known birder and author Jon Dunn, along with Elizabeth Rosenthal, the author of the Roger Tory Peterson biography Birdwatcher. More details are here.

Across the country, the American Museum of Natural History in New York is hosting an evening devoted to the recently released anthology of bird poetry, Bright Wings. Some poets will be there, of course, along with David Allen Sibley, whose paintings grace the book. The event will be at the museum on Wednesday, March 10 at 6:30 pm. More details.

Any warbler is a good warbler. That was my motto when I started birding, and I find that I still feel the same way today. By that, I mean that the sighting of any warbler species, no matter how common, is enough to make my day bird-wise. (Although I must admit that I can get jaded with the hoards of Yellow-rumped Warblers pretty quickly.) If you’re like me in that even a glimpse of one of these sprites gets your heart racing, then these two Watching Warblers films may be dangerous to your health.

Warblers of the family Parulidae (also known as Wood Warblers or New World Warblers, to differentiate them from the unrelated Old World Sylviidae warblers) are small, but usually fantastically bright colored, songbirds. As a whole, they are relatively common across North America, mostly as migrants or summer breeders. You can tell that they are around if you attune yourself to their various trills, buzzes, and chirps. But seeing them is another matter. They are typically small, very active, and remain in dense vegetation or high in the treetops. Photographing them is difficult, getting video footage downright infuriating. But somehow, Michael Male and Judy Fieth have managed to do it on these two DVDs.

Watching Warblers

Watching Warblers profiles each of the 39 warblers from eastern North America during its 59 minute runtime. Starting in a wooded swamp of the southeast, it works its way north through the various warbler breeding habitats until it reaches the boreal forest. During each of these accounts, you will see the birds, of course, but also hear (and watch) the male sing and learn a little about these birds. Male and Fieth alternate as narrators, teaching viewers about habitat requirements, breeding biology, conservation, and other interesting information.

The “Range Map Movie” (37:09) is a separate program that again iterates through the species, this time focusing on the bird’s distribution. While the narrator describes the range, it is also dynamically displayed on a map of North America. Interspersed throughout is an interview with bird distribution guru Paul Lehman, who produced the maps used here. This is a great feature, but I would have preferred the species-specific information be incorporated into the main program, with the Lehman conversation included as an extra. (Although I have to wonder if it was done this way to get around storage limitations of VHS tapes, the media on which this was originally released.)

When the account runtimes from both programs are added together, each warbler receives an average attention of about two minutes.

But it wouldn’t matter how good the information and presentation is (and it’s excellent), this DVD would not be worth getting without high quality video of the birds. Rest assured, the footage is spectacular. Watching this video, I was constantly catching myself smiling at the sight of these birds, just as if I was seeing them myself in the field. But it will give you a much closer and more intimate look at them than you will get from any but the most exceptional field experience. I can’t imagine how many hours it took, and how much film was shot, to get this amount of exceptional footage, but it was clearly worth it.

Watching Warblers WEST

As good as its predecessor is, Watching Warblers WEST is even better. It clocks in at 1:10:17, and covers 24 species found west of the Great Plains and in Texas. On average, it devotes a little longer time to each bird at 2:30 per species. The format and type of information presented is largely the same, except that the maps are now integrated into the main feature. The photography looked a little improved to me, showing these birds even better than the eastern ones. The maps, now based on NASA satellite images, also looked incredible.

Please note that these are not intended to be video field guides. While some identification information is given, and the video should be extremely useful in studying these birds, this is not the primary purpose of the films. Also, most of the warblers are only shown on their breeding ground (after all, they are much easier to film when singing on territory!). That means you won’t see some species, such as Magnolia and Chestnut-sided, in their drabber nonbreeding attire.

Video Quality

Not only is the video footage itself extraordinary, its presentation on these DVDs is also great. It is presented in anamorphic 16:9/widescreen format. Basically, that means that this is a high-resolution transfer that will fill the screen on a widescreen TV. This isn’t going to look as good as the latest Hollywood blockbuster, but it is still much, much better than I was expecting. Unsurprisingly, the newer western DVD looks better, being clearer and sharper. But all of these warblers are going to look fantastic on any display device, from a cell phone to a home theater.

Sound Quality

The audio is presented in two-channel stereo. While I would have loved a full 5.1 surround mix of warbler songs, I have to admit that would be overkill. As it is, the sound is perfectly presentable.

You can choose to watch the film with or without the narration, which is a very nice option.

Extras

Watching Warblers comes with a decent selection of extras. Chorus of Songs (4:22) is simply a shortcut to the end of the main program where each warbler is shown singing for a couple of seconds each. Fun with Songs (6:13) again shows a select few warblers singing. But after playing the song in real time, it then replays it slowed down to 20% of normal. This reveals intricacies and beauty that our limited sense of hearing can’t notice in real time. Colima Quest (5:19) is a behind-the-scenes look at the effort to video the Colima Warbler in Big Bend National Park. Seeing this increased my respect for Male, Fieth, and their crew; this project was obviously not an easy undertaking. I just wish more behind-the-scenes footage would have been included. Finally, there are some previews of their other films.

This is the only category where the western DVD is not superior to its eastern counterpart. It has its own Chorus of Songs (3:20) and Fun with Songs (7:47).

Recommendation

I really can’t believe how good this video footage is, and the DVD transfer shows it off outstandingly. You could watch warblers for years and not get views as good as these. Combined with the fact-filled narration and extras, these DVDs are a must for warbler aficionados.

You can order these, and other similar DVDs, from Birdfilms.

I think the Sibley guide (the printed one) is the best North American field guide, and I am pleased to see that it is now available in a digital format. I will be posting a full review sometime soon, but in the meantime I’ve added a brief description and comparison to iBird in my iPhone Bird Guide Comparison.

Those of us who have been bitten by the bug can attest that bird watching is a great hobby; it’s educational, takes you to some wonderful places, and fun. And to get started, all you have to do – it’s right there in the name – is watch birds. Easy, right? Well, not so fast. First, you have to find a bird, then you will need to see it well, and you’ll probably want to pin a name to it. And that’s just for starters. Thankfully, would-be and beginning birders have a slew of how-to guides for getting started available to them, including this latest one by Stan Dryden.

Birding Lite presents the items and knowledge readers will need to start birding. The chapters on bird identification, field guides and other references, and optics are good primers on the subjects. Attracting birds, both through sounds (i.e. pishing and recordings) and backyard enticements, is given a very brief overview.

A chapter on “whole-brain birding” was a surprising inclusion. In it, Dryden encourages birders to appreciate birds both analytically (left brain) and intuitively (right brain). This would be an intriguing topic for an article, but I’m not sure that it belongs here. On the other hand, a chapter on bird names was a really good idea. The author separates common names into 10 categories. Some are obvious, like those that describe appearance, or birds that are named after people. Others, like “names with fascinating derivations”, are bizarre but interesting. I can see how this section would be a great help for new birders.

The final three chapters show the prospective birder what the future may hold for them. More advanced topics like listing, rarity chasing, and competitive birding are outlined. And a book about how to bird just wouldn’t be complete without a discussion of some difficult identifications. Well, it’s more of a brief mention than discussion; gulls, sparrows, and warblers are the only groups given much attention at all.

Birding Lite keeps well away from any of the more technical topics like migration, variation, or (eep!) molt. There is nary a topography diagram to be found. In fact, there are very few illustrations, other than some black-and-white photographs and drawings. Birders need to understand these concepts, thus this guide is far from complete. But that also makes it unintimidating and accessible. Whether this is a pro or a con largely depends on your level of experience and interest in birding.

However, there are a few omissions that are really surprising. Portable CD players and digital voice recorders (introduced earlier in the book) are the only methods of playing bird sounds in the field that are mentioned! Umm, iPod? MP3 devices are so much easier to use for this (while many recorders can store and playback prerecorded mp3’s, they aren’t nearly as easy to use for this purpose). Also, no internet sites are given as further references. In fact, very few websites are mentioned at all. Some links to birding organizations or other places that new birders can get connected would have been useful.

It is unlikely that experienced birders will find anything here to make them “better”, at least in terms of finding and identifying birds. But I think every birder could do well by modeling Dryden’s attitude toward birding: “perhaps those of us who spend time watching birds could take a cue from them and make this pastime as enjoyable and stress-free as possible”. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the best birders I know, along with many famous birders I’ve heard like Pete Dunne and Kenn Kaufman, really enjoy watching birds. Although it’s a serious pursuit for them, or even a full-blown profession, they don’t loose sight of the “lite” side of birding. More so than any specific tip in the book, the author’s overall approach is probably the most valuable insight, and equally applicable for novices and experts alike.

This attitude is also evident in the author’s words. His writing style is very casual and conversational. But I found the book to be more lighthearted than truly humorous. It elicited a chuckle every now and then, but don’t expect to be rolling on the floor.

Recommendation

Birding Lite is perfect for those who are curious about bird watching or just getting into it. They will find the information required to get started presented in a fun, though shallow, manner.

But if you’re already sure that birding is for you and want to dive right in, then I’d recommend skipping this primer and proceeding directly to more meaty guides, particularly Pete Dunne on Bird Watching and National Geographic Birding Essentials.

More information, including chapter summaries, are available on the Birding Lite website.

Here are some more Books for Beginning Birders

And please check out my status update to help decide what gets reviewed next.

• 

  Falcons, by Kate Davis, is an overview of the biology and ecology of these charismatic birds, focusing on the six North American species. Accompanying the text is a ton of incredible photos, some of which are just unbelievable. Full Review

• 

  Prairie Spring is another great read from Pete Dunne. Dunne takes the reader along on a tour of the North American prairie in spring. Dunne is one of my favorite authors, and does not disappoint here. Full Review. Note: this is an advance reading copy paperback.

So how can you win them?

1. Be a member of the 10,000 Birds Conservation Club
2. Follow the instructions here

Membership in the Conservation Club costs $25 per year. Back in December, I wrote about the benefits of joining the Club. This is a great way for birders to do something to help birds in trouble. Plus, you get to enter great contests like this one! They’ve already given away over a dozen prizes, and have even more contests open right now. If you win just one contest, you’ll get your money’s worth. And even if not, you’ll be supporting a very innovative approach to help out worthy causes, namely the birds that we all love.