The most complete handbook for rehabilitators of diurnal and nocturnal birds of prey. Very good information on all possible aspects of determining and healing all kinds of problems which could occur in this field. Good tables and figures complete this significant work and is a must have for laboratories and rehabilitation centers working with raptors and owls. Also falconers will gain a good impression on the possible diseases and illnesses of their most beloved birds. The only minus could be its presentation being ringbanded and if written by a typewriter but this should be forgotten as the information included is yet the best in its field in addition with previous work of these authors.

I bought this book when I visited the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum. It was nice and short to read, with a variety of topics covered. I really enjoyed it, and the pictures were great too.

David Hagerbaumer's books are an act of faith; faith in his vision of a natural world where birds of his long memory roost and faith in his medium of watercolor to put wind under their wings. When he selected game birds for this book, you know very well that his history with each is intimate. David Hagenbaumer's work has truth that only a gentleman afield can reveal. Buy this book - this senior statesman is at the top of his form.

Deals with 10 different areas such as doubles, signalling, etc that can help an intermediate player get to the next level. Definitely recommended!

It's great for people that just got their first pet.If you don't know what to do just look at the book.It's really worth it.

This is the second book in the "Monks of St.Titus" series in which we see the Abbot and his community spending as much time at the Bridge table as at Prayer. The book is presented as a collection of individual or grouped hands and there is no need to tackle these books in sequence. The hands are interesting and the presentation is very funny indeed.

The material originally appeared as a series of articles, written by David Bird, in various Bridge magazines. Terence Reese is credited with adding some polish and a famous name, to the book form.

The great appeal of this book is that the characters seem so real. Of course, you do not meet that many monks at the local bridge club, but you do meet people just like the Abbot and so on.

By setting part of the book with two monks working as misisonaries, the authors also have an opportunity to introduce a fair share of the zany too though.

The highlight of this book is the section in Africa where the missionaries win the trials to represent Upper Bhumpopo in the African championships and then travel to Tunis to play as internationals and have a shot at qualifying for the Bermuda Bowl. It's very funny and the hands are also interesting.

The hands are well chosen and the play problems presented all fit to the characters of the players involved. Often this gives a clue if you are trying to solve the problems before reading about them.

Any Bridge player with a sense of humour will love this book.

a book with depth I find in this book so many attributes of preservation of more than just wildlife. The book tells a great story of a man's dream, a kid's growth, and about how a bird brought them together. The man was real and was influential in bringing a lot of publicity to a beautiful place and a beautiful bird where I grew up as this man's son. this is a fitting tribute to him and all he cared about, before his time was up as it's caretaker. Especially when he never asked for the credit, or prestige for himself for what he considered a privilege and part of his job as a human on this planet.

This is a nice book and well worth the money; but if you are looking for the "one" field guide my recommendation is to select the National Geographic Society (NGS) Birds of North America or the Golden Field Guide.

Here is why. Sibley is very large--about 13 sq inches larger the BNA and 18 sq inches large than Golden, too large to fit in any pocket and it is "heavy".

The art work is good with many more view than either of the other two books, but the descriptive text is very limited.

Here is an example: Huttons vireo.

There are five pictures in Sibley. Two in NGS and one in Golden. But in my opinion only one of this bird is all that is required. Others may disagree. Sibley has one sentence describing this bird 15 words. NGS has 85 words. Golden, 79 words. All three note that Huttons vireo is similar to the ruby crowned kinglet, but Golden and NGS show you a picture of the kinglet right beside the vireo and explain how to tell them apart. Sibley just says to compare it to the kinglet.

I fell in love with this book the moment I picked it up and opened it. The pictures of every type of plumage and sexes were great in helping to more accurately identify different birds, however the lack of information on these birds disappointed me. I still have to use my husbands other two bird books "National Geographic Birds of North America, Vol. 3" and The Birders Handbook: A field guide to the natural history of North American birds". The Birders handbook has much needed information about such things like nesting, number of broodes, food types, etc. The information in the Sibley Guide mostly compares one species with another. Don't get me wrong this book is wonderful and is my favorite but I recommend buying another book as well if you want more in depth information about birds and their lifestyles.

Before reviewing The Sibley Guide to Birds, I would like to note that David Allen Sibley has done an outstanding job of research, illustration, and description in this unique resource. He should be commended and honored for his contribution!

Think of this guide as an encyclopedia for experienced bird watchers that you would feel comfortable having with you in your car for checking birds you do not already know well. As such, it will be of most value for those who are doing extensive bird watching in distant geographic areas which are new to them, north of Mexico in North America. The book is too large, bulky, and heavy to be easily carried by most people during actual bird watching activities. If you are making extensive sketches or taking photographs with appropriate lenses, you can probably wait to do your identifications until you get home. If you already have a good guide for identifying rare birds in your library, you can probably skip this book. If you don't have such a guide, this book is for you!

As a true, carry-along-with-you field guide, I would rate the book a three star effort for beginning bird watchers because it is well beyond their needs or easy ability to use. A beginner would still be trying to find the right section long after the bird was gone, as Mr. Sibley points out in his excellent inroductory remarks on how to identify birds.

The book has many commendable features. The Guide's best feature are the more than 6600 illustrations of 810 species and 350 regional populations. The illustrations also cover each bird during its development to full adult markings and characteristics. Each one is carefully done to capture the bird both sitting and flying from the same perspectives, to make comparisons easier to do. The beginning of the book has a superb, brief description of how to identify the feathered and bare sections of the various major feather groups.

Clearly, anyone could enjoy this book simply to view at home in front of the fire on a cold winter's night. The illustrations evoked in me many of the same feelings of wonder that I feel when looking at Audubon's illustrations.

The habitat and migration maps are detailed and well done.

The voice descriptions are excellent.

Many of the species also have good general descriptions.

If you are not sure about a person's familiarity with identifying birds, you may not want to give this book as a gift. You may unintentionally provide a volume that will not be very helpful.

If someone tells you they want this volume, they will be delighted to receive it as a gift because they will have a practical use for it and will appreciate its beauty.

After you have had a chance to look at these gorgeous illustrations, I suggest that you think about the other potential appeals of bird watching. Bird behavior to me is far more interesting than bird identification. I also enjoy watching nesting behavior more than feeding behavior. How can you capture more kinds of fun and learning from your bird watching? What lessons does that hold for observing people, as well?

Capture all of your importance experiences in a way that's meaningful to you!

David James Duncan is one of those rare writers that leaves you forever changed after encountering their work. I know I will gratefully never be the same after reading this book. I walked into it one person, and upon completing it, was another. His perceptions of the world are so rare that the fact he can write them down with such fathomless talent, passion and care, verges on unbelievable. I only come across writing this powerful once every five to ten years and count it a true blessing when it happens.
The portion titled "A Prayer for the Salmon's Second Coming" should be read by every single American period. In another chapter called "When Birdwatching Is a Blood Sport" he writes, "When wild elk, to remain alive, are forced to wipe out wild salmon, it is time, in my book, to get sad".
This book woke me up to many things I'd slept through. If you are more fortunate than I, and already awake, the words in this book will make your own words even more powerful. Buy it, read it, treasure it, share it. You'll never regret it.

My Story as Told by Water covers a varied terrain ranging from environmental activism to the virtues of fly-fishing without a hired guide. The book is really a collection of essays (many published in other books and periodicals) about rivers in the Northwestern United States. Duncan shares much of his early life growing up in neighborhoods just beyond the growing tentacles of Portland, Oregon. He writes openly about this family, including his bitter confrontation over the war in Vietnam with his dad, and the loss of his brother. Given such a backdrop, it's easy to understand how Duncan turned to the solitude of fishing local streams to deal with the pain of his youth.

Later in the book, Duncan finds his stride writing about the not-so-bright outlook facing wild salmon along the Columbia and Snake Rivers. You can almost feel the tears welling up in his eyes as he describes their near exit from his world. He sums up the disaster of the salmon run on the Snake River this way: "The babble of 'salmon management' rhetoric has taken a river of prayful human yearning, diverted it into a thousand word-filled ditches, and run it over alkali. When migratory creatures are prevented from migrating, they are no longer migratory creatures: they're kidnap victims. The name of the living vessel in which wild salmon evolved and still thrive is not 'fish bypass system,' 'smolt-deflecting diversionary strobe light,' or 'barge.' It is River."

Duncan opens his heart to the connections he has to rivers and wild fish. But more importantly, he gives us inspiration for making our own connections to those wild places.

Once again, David James Duncan captures most eloquently the inherent spirituality of nature. This collection of essays, speeches, and 1 song has moved me just as much as "The River Why", perhaps even more so, as this book is set in beautiful, raw, besieged reality. I dare you to read this book and not be inspired to make your corner of the world a little better, and a little more hospitable to every living thing. Duncan writes that he "became a nonfiction writer--after no apprenticeship whatever--at the age of 40. I did so not out of a sense of calling, but out of a sense of betrayal, out of rage over natural systems violated, out of grief for a loved world raped, and out of a craving for justice." This is the passion that forms this book, a book created in love for the rivers his writing sings for, and anger for the desecration of those same rivers. BUY THIS BOOK!

Disappointing. Many pictures are dark and/or fuzzy. I find that hard to distinguish features of different hawks.

HAWKS IN FLIGHT by Peter Dunne is a useful book because it includes many photos and drawings of various species of Raptors in flight. When you see a Raptor, you generally have no way to identify it except by it's flight profile. Feather markings simply cannot be seen when a bird is sailing on a current of air or scuttling after prey. Once in a while I've surprised a hawk at rest, but generally it is well hidden in the leaves of a tree and takes off before I can get a good look. Even the Cooper's Hawk I see on my morning commute along the parkway is usually sitting back on a branch waiting for road kill (he is one fat lazy bird).

The photos in HAWKS IN FLIGHT show the birds as seen from the side flying close to the ground and as well as overhead. The book also includes drawings showing birds that resemble each other juxtaposed side by side as they would never appear in nature. Some of the photos are not very clear and the drawings are darker than I like, but no less a birder than Roger Tory Petersen recommended this book which nicely complements his own books.

Although the title includes the reference to hawks, the chapters cover Buteos, Accipiters, Falcons, Kites, Harriers, Eagles, Ospreys, and Vultures. The chapter on Accipiters covers the Cooper's Hawk, the hawk I see by the roadside in Washington DC. We also see Falcons chasing our song birds. A whole lot of back-stabbing goes on in this town.

There is no other guide which even approaches Hawks in Flight for thoroughness, clarity, and utility. Anyone who seriously pursues the sport of hawk watching must have this book.

For those just starting out in hawk watching, and for general use by even the most serious hawk watchers, I strongly recommend another work by Dunne et al., Hawk Watch: A Guide for Beginners, which is a large-format condensed version of Hawks in Flight. this book does focus exclusively on eastern species, however. Having both books is ideal.