"The Birder's Bible" for over sixty years. All the birds of eastern and central North America--including accidentals, exotics, and escapes--shown in full color and described in detail. 390 complete, easy-to-read range maps showing summer and winter ranges, breeding grounds, and other special range information. Easy-to-use facing-page format.

    Presenting a field guide to Australian birds, this illustrated handbook is useful for birdlovers in Australia.

    1,675 extraordinarily beautiful illustrations rate this definitive work of bird literature, the first truly comprehensive one-volume encyclopedia to provide rich, concise, authoritative information on the birds of North America.

    

    This complete guide to 150 species of ducks, geese, and swans provides color illustrations of all major plumages and subspecies and offers informative details on voice, population, distribution, range, habits, and habitats--for beginners and experts.

    This extensively revised and enlarged second edition takes full account of important new developments in the story of this bird during the years since the first publication. Many of the tables and figures have been revised and brought up-to-date so that this volume is by far the most detailed and readable reference on this most evocative of birds. Donald Watson's color paintings, monochrome washes and line drawings, as well as the original photographs, illustrate the book as before. Key Features: * The long awaited up-to-date revision of the classic bestseller * Latest information on status and distribution of the species * Updated information on all aspects of the species biology

    In his near century-long life Skutch published hundreds of papers and books that more or less single-handedly jump-started studies of the avifauna of Costa Rica and Central America. here he reflects on his life on the small farm where he spent the last 60 years of his life, using his home as a base from which he could venture out to collect new species of plants and describe the life-histories of the birds that frequented the jungle and farmland around him. Skutch is very much a naturalist in the tradition of Thoreau or Darwin-he is a keen observer who relies on qualitative description to carry a point. he was actively opposed to overly much reliance on technology in doing field biology. Throughout this book his care for the landscape and its non-human inhabitants acts as a linking motif, and he confronts his own inconsistencies -he loved wild things, but hated snakes, frequently killing them if they threatened nesting birds, with humility and wonder. This is a great book for anyone who wonders what central America might have been like before the advent of "eco-tourism" transformed bird-watching into a contact sport.