![\"crossley\"](\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/files\/2013\/05\/crossley.gif\")
<\/a>The new raptor guide is co-authored by Jerry Ligouri and Brian Sullivan.\u00a0 Ligouri has published a raptor field guide of his own and both men are expert in raptor identification.<\/p>\nTo really develop confidence in identifying a bird species, you need to master five views: from above, from below, from head on, from tail on, and from a lateral view (left or right).\u00a0 Crossley and colleagues make sure that views of all of all these perspectives are provided for each raptor.\u00a0 Of course, the plumage of young raptors differs from adults; these different plumages are well covered along with geographic differences.\u00a0 They devote five plates to the Red-tailed Hawk and three to the Rough-legged Hawk.<\/p>\n
The book contains 81 photographic plates.\u00a0 The last third of the book provides an account of each species, including a large map of the distribution of each species.\u00a0 Each account follows a consistent format with sections called Overview, Flight Style, Size and Shape, Geographic Variation, Molt, Similar Species, Hybrids, Status and Distribution, Migration, and Vocalizations.<\/p>\n
An extremely useful feature of the book is a collection of mystery photos.\u00a0 The authors provide a number of composite plates to test the reader\u2019s identification skill.\u00a0 For instance, one plate gives a number of eagles in flight; a reader needs to decide if each is a Golden Eagle or a Bald Eagle.\u00a0 Similarly, one plate pictures 21 accipiters at all different angles.\u00a0 The challenge is to decide if each is a Sharp-shinned Hawk or a Cooper\u2019s Hawk.\u00a0 A key is provided for each plate, giving the species, age and sex of each mystery photo and a brief explanation.\u00a0 These plates are powerful learning tools.\u00a0 From my experience, they will also give you a generous piece of humble pie!<\/p>\n
Thirty-four species are covered including two species of New World vultures, six falcons, and 24 hawks, eagles and kites.\u00a0 The book measures 10×7.5 inches so is really not convenient to carry in the field.\u00a0 Use it as a learning resource and refer to it often.<\/p>\n
The second newly published book is The World\u2019s Rarest Birds by Erik Hirschfield, Andy Swash and Robert Still.\u00a0 The scope of the book is based on the Red List of Birds maintained by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).\u00a0 The IUCN Red List is considered to be the most scientifically objective system for classifying species in terms of their risk of extinction.\u00a0 The Red List incorporates six different levels of concern and this new book covers the 197 species listed as Critically Endangered and the 389 listed as Endangered.<\/p>\n
The book begins with a description of the types of threats on Red-listed birds.\u00a0 These threats include geological events, fishing, damming, pollution, energy production and mining, climate change, logging, and agriculture\/aquaculture.<\/p>\n
The coverage of the species accounts is geographic with the world divided into Europe and the Middle East; Africa and Madagascar; Asia; Australasia; Oceanic Islands; the Caribbean, North and Central America; and South America.<\/p>\n
Four species are covered on each page with a color photograph, a distribution map, an estimate of population size, a listing of threats to the species and a short paragraph on the biology and population changes. Scattered throughout are descriptions of threatened species hotspots.\u00a0 This fine book is simultaneously fascinating and saddening.<\/p>\n
[Originally published on April 27, 2013]<\/p>\n\n
In today\u2019s column, I want to alert you to a couple of recently published bird books from Princeton University Press.\u00a0 The first is The Crossley ID Guide to Raptors.\u00a0 This book follows the format of Crossley\u2019s well-received Crossley ID Guide to Eastern Birds.\u00a0 The Crossley guides use photographs rather than paintings or drawings to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[426,1281],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":580,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579\/revisions\/580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}