Subject: [Tweeters] First Bird Book
Date: Sep 17 16:03:24 2006
From: vogelfreund at comcast.net - vogelfreund at comcast.net


==================
9/17/06

Hi Mark (I had a brother named Mark),

I received that same book for my eleventh birthday in 1948, although it wasn't my "first" bird book. I still have it, but it's falling apart. When it comes to birds and mammals, I like to read about the "lore", i.e. nature's ways, and not just given cold field markings.

Cheers!

Phil Hotlen
Bellingham, WA
-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Mark Egger <m.egger at comcast.net>
> I'm a little late on responding to this thread. Since my answer is
> NOT one of the typical answers (Peterson, Golden Guide, etc.) I
> thought I'd share mine. It is also instructive regarding the tendency
> of parents & others to offer simple, "dumbed-down", boring versions
> of books to young people, rather than providing rich, beautiful
> volumes that challenge and stimulate their thirsty young minds!
>
> The book in question was the splendid, 290 page, 8.5x11 inch tome,
> Birds of America, edited by T. Gilbert Pearson and illustrated with
> 106 of the wonderful color plates of L.A. Fuertes. It was given to me
> by my beloved grandparents on Easter of 1960, when I was 9 years old.
> I'd expressed an interest in birds around my yard, and they got me
> this book! The treatments of all species were extensive, in content
> and style somewhat like a one-volume, abridged edition of the Bent
> Life Histories series. While it may seem like too much for a 9-year
> old, I LOVED this book, even inscribing the inside of the cover with
> the following unedited quote: "Date boeat: April 16, 1960, Saterday
> night". From the wonderful plate of exotic Alcids to the illuminated
> text beginning the first paragraph of the Family-level introductions,
> this was a COOL book. Another favorite plate for a 9-year old boy was
> Plate 51, showing a family of Peregrines (then called Duck Hawks) at
> a ledge nest, with one adult in the process of ripping apart a
> meadowlark to feed the nestlings. A drop of blood is dripping from
> the tip of the meadowlark's bill, and a dismembered wing lies off to
> one side. Awesome! A few plates on we have a savage looking Barred
> Owl about to eat a dead Eastern Screech Owl in its talons! This book
> not only taught me about the wonderful variety of birds one could see
> in North America and began a life-long love of birds and all nature,
> but it also stimulated an interest in reading, writing (I sure needed
> help with spelling!), and travel. About the same time,someone else
> gave me a "children's" book about birds that had color stamps that
> one would then paste onto the appropriate blanks in the main text. It
> covered about 40 species and had almost no text. That book was
> quickly left behind for the riches and depth of the Pearson book.
>
> I should also mention that my first real field guide (purchased when
> I was about 20) was the Robbins et al. Golden Guide. While I felt
> mildly positive towards Peterson, I worshiped the Robbins guide. To
> me, the color plates were much better (heresy to some), showed the
> birds in more natural poses, and it covered the entire continent,
> rather than what I considered the stupid decision to split them into
> eastern & western books to make it "easier", this time dumbing-down
> for adults. Were we incapable to looking at range maps?? I loved
> being able to see what birds I would find in Maine, Pennsylvania or
> Florida! The Robbins book also had a continent-wide, nicely presented
> checklist section for keeping the old life list, AND it had the
> intriguing and cool-looking sonagrams of the bird voices. Once one
> learns how to interpret these, they seem a lot more instructive to me
> than do all the subjective "tweet-tweet-toodle-oo" descriptions
> convey nothing regarding pitch, timbre or modulation in delivery of
> the songs. It was a memorable experience for me years later when I
> had the opportunity to do an independent studies project in Gordon
> Orians' lab, wherein I made sonagrams of chickadee vocalizations from
> my own field recordings! These tapes were never published, but I
> donated them to Millicent Fricken's lab, which specialized in Parid
> vocalizations.
>
> Even today I use the Robbins field guide, in conjunction with the
> National Geographic and Sibley guide.
>
> Regards,
>
> Mark
> --
> Mark Egger
> Seattle, WA
> USA
> mailto:m.egger at comcast.net



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Subject: Re: [Tweeters] First Bird Book
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