Book review: Two new books will help amateur birdwatchers identify what they’re seeing and whip up food their feathered friends will love.
WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE A BIRD: FROM FLYING TO NESTING, EATING TO SINGING – WHAT BIRDS ARE DOING, AND WHY
Author and Illustrator: David Allen Sibley
Knopf, 203 pages, $35
HOMEMADE BIRD FOOD: 26 FUN & EASY RECIPES TO FEED BACKYARD BIRDS
Author: Adele Porter
Adventure Publications, 87 pages, $12.95
If there were perfect books for these unusual times, they’d be David Allen Sibley’s "What It’s Like To Be A Bird: From Flying to Nesting, Eating to Singing – What Birds are Doing, and Why" and "Homemade Bird Food: 26 Fun & Easy Recipes to Feed Backyard Birds" by Adele Porter.
Sibley is the quintessential birder and a passionate proponent of this growing pastime. His latest book is a collection of short, easy-to-read essays in a special, large-format volume about what he finds interesting and amazing about our winged friends. After writing several comprehensive guides, he explains in a preface how this evolved:
"My plan to make this volume more than an identification guide led to the idea of adding short essays … to try to give readers a deeper appreciation of the birds they are identifying… The more I worked on those essays, the more I learned, and the more interesting the essays became. Eventually the essays became the entire book."
"My hope now is that these pages will give readers some of the sense of what it’s like to be a bird… a bird’s experience is far richer, more complex, and more ‘thoughtful’ than I’d imagined. And if that was news to me after a lifetime of watching birds, it must be surprising to other people as well."
In addition to essays about feathers, coloration, senses, migration, food, behavior and survival, the book includes a portfolio of 87 life-size paintings featuring 96 species of familiar birds with a paragraph introducing each.
Great information and advice from a master for the entire family on how you can become part of this fascinating avocation.
In "Homemade Bird Food," award-winning science educator Adele Porter has produced a creative cookbook that serves up a buffet with ingredients to attract 70-plus species so you and your family can become birders without leaving your backyard.
"Bird feeding is both a craft and a science. It can be as simple as setting out a sock feeder of thistle seeds and watching finches and chickadees. It may be as involved as understanding bird biology and the life histories of different species and the setting up feeders to attract specific birds in each season… involving a fill menu: insects for wrens, warblers and creepers; suet for nuthatches and woodpeckers; fruit for mockingbirds, orioles, cardinals and robins; acorns scattered on the ground for wild turkeys and jays; and nectar for hummingbirds."
So turn off the TV and let’s get birding.
C.F. Foster does his birding in Riverside.
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