Hi Tweets,

I am writing because I am overjoyed: The Birds of
Washington (book) FINALLY arrived in my mailbox today
-- and it's a good thing, too, because I have been
driving the postmen crazy with my daily requests to
look for a box with my name on it.

The book itself is bigger than I envisioned it would
be and, even though my name is nowhere on the cover (I
was only a contributor) my name does appear next to
all my species accounts. I wrote about common species;
the wrens, chickadees and waxwings (I think those are
all the species that I wrote about, but it HAS been a
few years (five-ish?), five relocations and one legal
name change since I finished all those species
accounts!). Anyway, my first look through the book
makes me very happy and proud to be part of this
project. My sincerest thanks to the editors, Terry
Wahl (my primary contact for the project), and Bill
Tweit and Steve Mlodinow for sheparding this book
through the seemingly neverending editing, "finishing"
and publication process. Without them, this project
would not have happened.

To those of you who wonder if this book is useful for
your purposes, I say this; it contains range maps and
bar graphs that describe the seasonal occurrence of
each species, as well as a species account and
description of its occurrence, and records for both
unusual numbers and unusual geographic sightings. Many
accounts are accompanied by drawings of the birds,
too. The book is packed with references because, as I
can vouch; every sentence in each species account is
supported by at least one, and often more than one,
referenced report.

If you live in Washington and have any appreciation
whatsoever for birds (whether you have only one
birdfeeder on your back porch or you routinely go out
for extended weekend birding trips), if you are a
birder who wishes to visit Washington state or if you
simply love birds and wish to know more about them,
then this is the book for you. It will make a fine
addition to any serious birder's library and is
interesting to just about everyone for a variety of
reasons. Just looking through this book makes me
incredibly homesick and I LOVE NYC; imagine how much
worse I'd feel if I was stuck living in a place that I
hated. (In fact, if I was stuck in a yucky part of the
country, this book would be the last straw; I'd pack
up this very weekend and move back home to beautiful
Seattle).

Also note that I do not receive even one penny for
saying these things about this book (I wish I did). I
am simply enjoying the book as if I was still living
in lovely Seattle, planning and getting ready for a
nice spring weekend of birding in the beautiful PNW.

Have a great day everyone and happy birding to you
all!


Devorah A. N. Bennu, PhD
New York City
birdologist [at] yahoo [dot] com
public blog: http://girlscientist.blogspot.com



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