I ran across this book at the library looking for substantive books on chickens--the cute cover caught my eye. This is a very entertaining and enjoyable read!

I'd recommend this book as one you'll finish quickly, share with a friend or two, and want to read again yourself one day.

This extremely short book really qualifies as more essay than "book," and as much as I enjoyed it, I wondered who would shell out hard-earned cash for its slim contents.

Then I found myself handing it around to people as I would share a cartoon or funny email. "Zip through it over lunch," I said, "Take it instead of a magazine while you're waiting for your oil change or dentist appointment."

And so I learned what this book is best for: for a few bucks, you can pass a smile around to your friends. The eye-catching cover is hard for anyone to resist, and the illustrations are great. If you know someone who's been adopted by a stray animal, this is perfect for them. But if not, pass it on anyway. It's a light, funny read that will make anyone smile.

In Grime's hands this unusual bird manages a truly universal appeal. I loved the pleasure it seemed to take in sneaking up behind a skittish cat and sending the cat vertically airborne with a sudden cackle. Then there's the pet store employee who tries to explain that they don't carry chicken feed, because a chicken is not a "particular animal." Grimes has an eye and ear for gem moments like these.

This is an absolutely adorable story about a man who comes to know and love a chicken who suddenly appeared in his backyard. I first read the authors article about the enigmatic and willful chicken in the New York Times and I actually saved that article because I enjoyed it so thoroughly. My Fine Feathered Friend is just as charming as that article was and better since the author is able to elaborate more on the chicken's fantastic personality and the personalities of the numerous cats that interact with the tenacious bird. The author really knows how to describe animals and the cats encounters with the chicken are truly vivid and terribly amusing. You will not forget this chicken. Its personality lingers long after the final page. The book is a joy and I highly recommend it. Thank you, Mr. Grimes, for sharing such a delightful story!

Es un libro que no debe faltar en la biblioteca de ningún ornitólogo. Describe casi la totalidad de especies de aves del país con más especies de aves en el mundo. Excelente.

This work is all a bird watcher could wish for. The splendid paintings by Tudor add to the very helpful in-depth descriptions. Completed by nearly 1500 distribution maps there's nothing left to wish, except go out there and see them. I used it when birding in Peru and I could still determine nearly all the birds I saw.
It's an example for every bird field guide.

Since no definitive bird guide is available for the Amazon region and Brazil in general, I was forced to choose between this guide and the Birds of Venezuela. I ended up with Hilty and Brown's book by sheer coincidence, and I was not at all disappointed. The text and information is superb throughout, and I was able to identify several species on habitat description alone. For example, the authors clearly describe the preference of many taxa for varzea (seasonally flooded) or terra firme forests, which made a fleeting glimpse more of a certainty, and the range descriptions were invaluable. If I have only one very minor criticism, it is that I have never found plates in black and white particularly helpful, and since several artists were employed, there were differences in visual interpretation in several groups (e.g. the Picidae). However, these are minor detractions from an outstanding volume.

There are now two editions of Boyle, the older version with an orange cover and the Barred Owl, and a newer version with a photo of a Hooded Warbler on the front. You'll want to make sure you get the latter, since many things have changed over the years.

It is one of the milder species of blasphemy, I suppose, to call any book one's "bible"; but since its appearance 17 years ago (!), Bill Boyle's NJBFG has served thousands of the birding faithful as ritual object and authoritative companion alike. My own copy of the first printing, with its ugly laminated binding in shreds and the bookblock bulging from tipped-in notes, photocopies, and clippings, is probably the single most used volume in my birding library: field guides come and go, but for nearly two decades now, Boyle has come and gone wherever I have.
Just how intensive my use of the book has been came clear to me with the arrival--"long-awaited," in the reviewer's cliche--of the second edition. As I read through the new treatments of areas long familiar to me, I discovered that (like many NJ birders) I'd actually memorized verbatim great chunks of the first edition, and that I noticed every new word and every new turn of phrase in the revised accounts. If it is true that every obsession is at its base religious, then this book truly is the birder's bible.
The birder's bible: divine in inspiration, certainly, but here and there the mortal nature of its human author peeks through. As anyone who has ever written anything knows, it is even more difficult to revise than to write, and this revised edition has some flaws that were not apparent in the first. There are far more copy-editing errors this time around, and the index--more important than ever, given the new book's rather breathless layout--is not an infallible help (just try to find the main entry for Merrill Creek!). Compared to the enjoyably expansive style of the first edition, the new entries strike me as occasionally a bit too concise, a problem that might have been eased by simply eliminating even more of the old sections treating sites that, like the Institute Woods, now offer (in Boyle's words) "the mere shadow" of their former glory; valuable space is also sacrificed to a number of new full-page illustrations.
These things having been said, the book is still an outstanding example of the bird-finding guide. The maps seem to be largely up to date and accurate (Sussex County birders: are Rockport and Blackdirt marshes really the same place?), the annotated species list is even more useful than in the first edition, and the binding isn't likely to crackle and peel. It will take only weeks, I am sure, for New Jersey birders to start quoting this new Boyle, chapter and verse.

This book is just as useful for seasoned birders as it is for the beginner, or the person new to New Jersey. Beginners will appreciate its review of New Jersey's best birding destinations; seasoned pros will enjoy the depth of the information and the amount of detail on nesting species and accounts of rarities.

For us locals, "Bird Finding" is great for those days when you want to hop in the car and travel to somewhere a little different, or if you want to explore a familiar destination a little more closely. The book offers detailed directions (although some of the exit numbers and streets have changed since its publication date), including which trail to follow, which tree to investigate, etc. Its accuracy is remarkable. It's clear Bill Boyle knows each location intimately and visits them often.

This is a must-have for any birder living in the state (and there are lots), and any vacationer planning to spend more than a weekend in New Jersey.

Excellent reading. Anyone from the lower 48 who has dreams about Alaska should read this book, it will give you a small insight about the Athabaskan's. Who are a giving people once they know and trust you.

This is a wonderful book - I read it in two days because it is so engrossing, I could scarcely put it down. Written by an Athabaskan woman, raised to hate the Inupiat (eskimos), it is a very honest rendering of Athabaskan culture from the last century - honest because it tells life like it was (miscarriages, women treated as propery, intertribal hatred, harshness of life, etc.), and honest because Wallis (an Athabaskan) is also honest about her own anti-eskimo upbringing in that the main characters in this story are Athabaskan, and the "villians" of the story are eskimo. However, this story goes so far beyond any kind of mere race-based narrative. The story is, truly, about what it means to be a person with dreams and a distinct calling in a society that does not honor difference: Bird Girl is a girl who prefers to hunt and run and be active (not a sewer and cook like women are "supposed" to be), and the Man Who Followed the Sun is a boy who has an intense wanderlust and need to explore new areas and learn new thing (and not interested in taking a wife, having a family, or living by the strict community-based rules of his tribe). I am a person who has long followed my own path, and although my path does not include having to hunt carribou or face death from spear impalation, Wallis's writing, and the story, is such that anyone who is a wanderer/explorer/creative will identify with the characters, and feel refreshed and thankful that someone understands them. I feel much better after having read this - not just because I am fascinated with Athabaskan, eskimo, and Tlingit culture, and wish I could live in that fashion for a year, but I feel better having someone write about what it means to be a wanderer/explorer; to whit, that one must leave one's family, leave's one home, and basically give up a very comfortable (but to me very stagnant and unwholesome) social setting, and carve out one's own niche - but to be a wanderer/explorer means, of course, that one's life will be mostly lonely and often filled with the scorn of others who do not understand, who do not comprehend that some people are called to be more than mere worker-bees for the sake of the "stability" of a society.

You, as a reader, will also benefit from the maps, pictures, and historical background that is also included in this book, which will hopefully also help people to realize that cultures like the native Alaskans (and any other culture that doesn't have TV, flush toilets, aluminum siding, strip malls, microwavable food, press-on-nails, or other "civilized" accoutrements) are, in fact, human, and human on a scale that few people who own a housefull of mass-produced paraphernalia that they don't need.

Mostly, though, as I stated before, Wallis has a tremendous sense of prose. Her wtriting is very immediate and unadorned. Many would call it "simplistic", but it is the kind of "simplistic" that is almost impossible to do well - very much like Asimov's writing in that regard. Few authors can manage to write so tightly and without excess and still write damn well, and Wallis is absolutely one of them.

Wallis, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your book, for your sharing, for the culture that raised you, and for your honesty.

I loved this book. It gave me a whole new sense of well being. Thank you Velma Wallis.

This bibliography of Thomas B. Mosher, one of the more interesting actors in the printing and graphic arts at the turn of the 20th century, is an essential tool for collectors, librarians, and book dealers. The author's meticulous, compulsive even, research uncovered much new information, both bibliographic and biographic, and presents a stunningly complete picture of the man, Mosher, and his importance. Bishop investigates, and throw much needed new light on, Mosher's reputation as a "literary pirate." Equally important Bishop examines Mosher's "graphic piracy" and identifies many of the artists, mostly British, whose designs were used by Mosher, often without attribution. Finally Bishop establishes Mosher's importance in disseminating, in America, the works of many known and unknown British writers. The appendices at the back of the book are, alone, worth the price of the book.

This bibliography of Thomas B. Mosher, one of the most interesting actors in the printing and graphic arts at the turn of the century, is an essential tool for collectors, librarians, and book dealers. The author's meticulous, compulsive even, research uncovered much new information, both bibliographic and biographic and presents a stunningly complete picture of the man, Mosher, and his importance. Bishop investigates, and throws new light on, Mosher's reputation as a "literary pirate." Equally importantly Bishop examines Mosher's "graphics piracy" and identifies many of the artists, mostly British, whose designs Mosher used, often without attribution. Finally Bishop establishes Mosher's influence in disseminating, in America, works of many known and unknown British writers. The appendices at the back of the book are, alone, worth the price of the book.

Bishop's massive volume breaks new ground in bibliography. Not only is it learned and comprehensive as a whole, individual entries amount to miniature data essays on the Mosher books. Bishop takes bibliography as far as it can go in non-electronic form.

He has many great fiction writings but I would start with this one. Solid, clear, continuously beautiful. 'Fidelity' comes in second place but this by far is leads. Should replace lots of other nonsense in the American lit canon.

...and their sense of place, that runs through his readers like an umbilical spirit to the Earth. Making those connections in ways that move us emotionally and profoundly, from complacency to caring, about how we relate to each other, our communities, and the land that nourishes, sustains, and gives rise to this, and all life. In six finely crafted stories of character, conscience, and enduring values, the author inspires and challenges the reader to think of responsibility beyond their own mortality and how that caring strengthens and enriches their existence and gives it meaning.

My first encounter with Berry's fiction rekindled my appreciation for this genre of writing. These stories are filled with love and emotion while conveying Berry's ideals of community and cohesiveness. They decry materialism and champion mankind. I was inspired to be a better person during this walk through the Port William Membership

Last year, I had the pleasure of meeting and attending a reading by Terry Tempest Williams, author of Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place. At the time, I was unfamiliar with her work, but I was nevertheless astounded by her presentation. Immediately, I bought two of her novels-- one of which was Refuge. When I read it a few months after meeting her, I was amazed at the tone and emotion in the text. Williams' book can be a source of peace or healing to many whether you have experienced cancer, a loss, or just adore nature. The language is rich yet gentle. The structure of the narrative is such that, during reading and after, a reader feels she has experiences a unique marriage of nature and family issues. The way in which Williams weaves the Great Salt Lake and its inhabitants with her own family's suffering is not only amazing but especially touching as well. Just as the waterfowl and other creatures are evicted from their home during the great rise and flood of Salt Lake, so does William's mother fight for the domicile and dominance in her own cancerous body.
This is a must read. A wonderful story of love, hardships, and more love, REFUGE is a truly breathtaking piece of art.

From the refuge of pain and loss in her Great Salt Lake desert world, Terry Tempest Williams weaves a beautiful and lyrical journal from the intricate fabric of landscape. A landscape that is both ravished by natural and perhaps man made destruction. The history of this land is the history of Williams' family and she serves the reader well as journalist, historian and naturalist.

In the spring of 1983 a significant rise in the Great Salt Lake began to flood her beloved Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and at the same time cancer cells began to flood her mother's body. As owls, avocets and egrets struggle to survive the rising waters, Williams' mother struggles to find peace and comfort in dying. Where mother nature is damaged, mother Tempest is too.

Williams has a truly poetic ability to tie the spirit of land and of family into one beautiful image. "I am reminded that what I adore, admire and draw from Mother is inherent in the Earth. My mother's spirit can be recalled simply by placing my hands on the black humus of mountains or the lean sands of desert. Her love, warmth, and her breath, even her arms around me-are the waves, the wind, sunlight, and water.", she writes.

In the process of dealing with so much pain and loss Williams shifts from a casual observer of life's folly to passionate activist. Ultimately she puts the pieces of puzzle together to see a picture of generations of cancer certainly tied to exposure to the on-going nuclear testing by the American government in the Utah desert. William's chilling awakening to the manipulation of the environment by man in the name of progress should serve as our own wake-up call to the capacity of destruction that we have tolerated.

Landscape becomes refuge and offers hope of healing. Williams writes, "It's strange how deserts turn us into believers. I believe in walking in a landscape of mirages, because you learn humility. I believe in living in a land of little water because life is drawn together. And I believe in the gathering of bones as a testament to spirits that have moved on. If the desert is holy, it is because it is a forgotten place that allows us to remember the sacred. Perhaps that is why every pilgrimage to the desert is a pilgrimage to the self. "

This book is a wonderful testament to life and to the power and capacity for regeneration and healing. The book also provides very poignant and heartfelt lessons on embracing our dying and our loss and celebrating life in every moment.

Now that I have read Terry Tempest Williams' excellent book on finding refuge in the areas around the Great Salt Lake, I find I want to visit, to see for myself the stunning landscape and myriad of birdlife. I also find myself drawn to this courageous woman who lets us into this difficult part of her life, as her mother passes into the shadow of cancer. Not for the first time, we learn, and not such a rare occurrence in her family, we discover; a discovery that, for me, evoked anger at the unfairness of exposing human beings to atomic bomb test fallout. There is so much in this book: the detailed descriptions of the birds and their habits, the extraordinary unfolding of the progression of cancer and its effect on the family, the interplay of three women -- grandmother, mother, daughter -- and through it all, the gentle and exquisite writing carried me nearly effortlessly, yet with great strength. I can find no fault with the writing, the evocative images, the revelation of relationships, and the treatment of this undoubtedly amazing place. Thank you, Terry, for writing this book.

It's the most complet guide of parrots and raptors publicated in the world.

This has been a great book for reference. It is very organized. I wrote a report about a Scarlet Macaw and it was a big help. I hope bird-lovers everywhere read this book!

My mother bought me this book for my tenth birthday and my appreciation of it has grown each year as I am now twenty. As a child I enjoyed it's fantastic illustrations and as an adult I've used it as a reference in my college research papers. I recomend it highly to anyone of any age with a love for parrots.

Book groups in Austin are loving the book. Jean sleeping with St. Joseph and hitting that whizzing forehand in her holy nun garb are delightful stories. We can not wait until Wiliam writes another book to help us all journeying to find home. He is a most gifted writer and sensitive author. I hope it becomes a movie someday.

William Fiennes has just taken me on a trip from his boyhood home,Broughton Castle in England,to Texas and from there 3000 miles north to the nesting lands of the Snow Geese.This extremely well written book will capture the imagination of those who read it.His thorough,very descriptive,account of his journey and the people he met,and sites he saw along the way,kept my interest from beginning to end.This book is more than just about Geese.It contains tender ,heart warming, messages for all.Congratulations to you,William,on your first book and it's widespread appeal.

Snow geese, or "wavies," as they are known due to their wave-like up and down movements during flight, are reputed to be the most abundant goose in the world (an estimated six million breed in the Arctic each year) and come in two varieties. "'White-phase' snow geese have white plumage and black wing tips; 'blue-phase' geese have feathers of various browns, greys and silvers mixed in with the whites, giving an overall impression of slaty, metallic blue. Blues and whites pair and breed together; they roost and migrate in mixed flocks. Both have orange-pink bills, narrower than the black bills of Canada geese, with tough, serrated edges for tearing the roots of marshland plants. A conspicuous lozenge-shaped black patch along each side of the bill gives them a grinning or leering expression."

So William Fiennes defines his quarry, not to hunt, but to observe, as he follows them on their 3,000-mile spring migration from the Gulf of Mexico to Baffin Island where their breeding grounds are located. Just as certainly as the geese desire to return to familiarity, so does the author. Having just recovered from a lengthy illness before starting on his trek, he writes, "my frustrations were mollified but not resolved by the kindness of those close to me, because no one, however loving, could give me the one thing I wanted above all else: my former self."

Nipped by the same bird-watching bug as his father, Fiennes found himself curious about "the mysterious signals that told a bird it was time to move, time to fly," and asking, "Why did birds undertake such journeys? How did they know when to go or where?"

But mostly it would seem he just wanted to be part of the adventure, for early on he provides this textbook answer to his own questions: "A snow goose, like all migratory birds, inherits a calendar, an endogenous program for fattening, departure, breeding, and molt. This schedule is essentially fixed, but it can be fine-tuned by environmental conditions." Interspersed throughout the book - between his tracking of the geese by car, bus, train or plane, and conversations with those he meets in transit - are snippets of information about how these migrating habits came to be known.

The obvious question would seem to be if they can winter comfortably in Texas or Mexico, why would the geese want to make such a jaunt in the first place? The answer: "In the high Arctic latitudes, snow geese find large areas of suitable nesting habitat, relatively few predators, an abundance of food during the short, intense summers, and twenty-four hours of daylight in which to feed."

Put that in your travel brochure and you'll find the place swarming with geese every year around the end of May!

The birds typically leave the south in late-February or early-March to embark on their 3-month odyssey north. Last year, Fiennes, who is from Britain and had never seen a snow goose, carefully scheduled his time so he could accompany them.

He describes their first meeting in Texas: "Drifts of specks appeared above the horizon ring. Each speck became a goose. Flocks were converging on the pond from every compass point..." until finally, "whole flocks circled over the roost, thousands of geese swirling round and round, as if the pond were the mouth of a drain and these geese the whirlpool turning above it."

Lesson #1 in bird watching: it can be a messy avocation. The next time the geese return to their roost, Fiennes says, "I took shelter inside the car, wise to the turd squalls."

He spots other species in his travels, describing them just as beautifully as he does the geese. For example, he shares, "when I saw eight tall, slender birds with the long necks, legs, and bills of herons, and shaggy tail bustles, and the dainty gait of ballerinas, I knew instantly that they were sandhill cranes, the oldest species of bird in existence...which, it was once believed, helped smaller birds migrate by carrying them on their backs. These sandhill cranes would themselves soon be leaving for Arctic Canada...."

The trip doesn't entirely go the way he thought it would ("On maps the flight of snow geese...was a flawless, unbroken arc, the curve of time from one season to another. But the reality was different...a stop-start, stage-by-stage edging towards the north, with geese flying from one resting area to the next, proceeding only as far as the weather would allow"), but there are little victories along the way. Soon after Fiennes arrives in Aberdeen, South Dakota the local newspaper reports 340,000 snow geese have arrived at the Sand Lake National Wildlife Refuge within the last 24-48 hours. "I couldn't believe it," Fiennes exudes, "I'd reached South Dakota on the same day as the geese."

The sojourn could also be fraught with peril, more so for the geese than for Fiennes, as he relates, "Once, near Elgin, Manitoba, snow geese were seen flying northeast during an electrical storm. The flock, 300 yards wide and three-quarters of a mile long, was flying at about 180 feet. Witnesses described a flash of lightning, a thunderclap, an entire portion of the flock falling to the ground, struck dead."

Finally reaching Baffin Island, Fiennes found himself in a different world: "It was ten o'clock, evening, but the light still held to the idea of day, with no sign that night was imminent or ever expected," and "The silence was something you could hear...a steady white drone." His guide confides, "Sometimes I'm out there. I'm out on the land, and it's like the void. It's like a sentence or two before Genesis."

This is a good book to be reading with spring approaching - or when you want it to approach - for following the migration of the geese is akin to tracing the permeation of warmer weather as it spreads across the continent. With winter still clinging to parts of the landscape, we need to hear phrases like: "The afternoon was beautiful: unambiguously spring."

Harris' knowledge and research, coupled with an excellent artistic hand made this book a critical element to my Patagonian journey. Most notably, his plates are exceptional, and although not nearly as extensive, they are in most cases far superior to the recently released Collins Illustrated Checklist covering birds in the same region. Harris also includes solid notes on each species, sometimes going into very good depth. One frustration was the limits of Harris' coverage: the book is very much "coastal" Patagonia, and omits several species such as Andean Condors, or the beavers and woodpeckers of the Nothofagus forests. Know that Harris specifically covers Argentine Patagonia from Peninsula Valdes to Tierra del Fuego. Despite this constraint, the book aided me in identifying many species throughout inland Chile and the Chilean seaboard. Overall the guide made for a phenomenal travel companion.

Highly recommended for anyone traveling to Patagonia. The drawings are exemplary in comparison to any other available field guides to the region, particularly when used in combination with the de La Pena and Rumboll guide 'Birds of Southern South America and Antarctica'. I found Harris's illustrations and detailed descriptions to be much more extensive and truer to color and features than de La Pena. Particularly interesting was the inclusion of line drawings of mammal skeletons, which were much more common in the region than I ever imagined, and these drawings were extremely helpful in identification. However, a complementary bird guide is necessary when traveling south to the Beagle Channel, and toward the Andes, the route most vistors to Patagonia take. If you are limited to only one guide to the region, bring this one. If you have room for two, include de La Pena.

This book has good quality pictures. Its strong point is the text for each bird and mammal. The real value of having this book on a recent trip to the Patagonia area was our ability to narrow down our choices of birds for identification making the process easier and speedier. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to read about and identify wildlife in the Patagonia area.