Book Review: Baron, Nancy & John Acorn. 1997. _Birds of the Pacific
Northwest Coast_. Lone Pine Publishing, Renton.

Browsing the book selection at CostCo this morning, I came upon a new
bird book, _Birds of the Pacific Northwest Coast_ ($10.95 at CostCo,
$15.95 list). This book covers the Cascadian Coastline from the Gulf of
Alaska south to California Border (with notable exceptions). The focus
is clearly on British Columbia.

The best thing about this book is the quick-key which basically has a
little tiny pictures of every bird discussed. These are
color-coded to appropriate sections. The text leans toward natural
history rather than identification (which is a good thing). The most
likely birds are presented; no rare stints or lost passerines (this
is also a good thing). The book is clearly targeted toward regional
beginners and ecotourists. It is weak on Oregon Coastal birds (Wrentit
and Allen's Hummingbird are excluded.)

Three artists are credited with the illustrations and the quality of
plates ranges from acceptable to very good. Not surprisingly the
flycatcher plates are bad. There's no way you'd get to Hammond's
Flycatcher or Western Wood Pewee from the pictures and the Pacific-
slope looks more like a Hutton's Vireo (maybe a kinglet) in posture
and rendition (Granny is likely to be reporting flocks of Pacific-slopes
at the back feeder with the chickadees and juncos.)

The differences in style are worth noting. One of the
illustrators is of the soft "feather-free" school of early Peterson.
These plates also often seem a bit washed out. One of the illustrators
is apparently uncomfortable drawing bird feet and cleverly positions
the species he's drawn to avoid getting the feet right. His style
also has many of the birds looking like they've been sitting in the
rain just a little too long or with more feather wear than one expects
from field guide illustrations. The best example is the Killdeer
illustration. This bird looks to be hours away from molting (and,
I think it was drawn this way deliberately, not because the artist is
bad).

This would be a good book to give that relative who retired to
coast and keeps calling with reports of Black Skimmers and American
Oystercatchers. It's easily worth the CostCo price and justifiable
at list price.

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* Mike Patterson, Astoria, OR * What revolutionaries do best
* mpatters at orednet.org * is eat their own young
http://www.pacifier.com/~mpatters