cover image Birds of North Amer

Birds of North Amer

Noel Grove. Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, $60 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-88363-796-8

Grove, a former staff member of National Geographic magazine, here assembles a spectacular collection of 188 color photographs that show birds in remarkable detail. He organizes the text by informal groups: songbirds, raptors, gamebirds, specialists (e.g., hummingbirds and woodpeckers), shore- and water-birds. He offers tidbits of information and lore seldom seen in more conventional books. He tells us that more mourning doves are shot than any other game bird, that a woodpecker's tongue may be four times the length of its bill. Grove discusses the beak adaptations of wading birds and describes how raptors locate and capture prey. The text is lucid, but it is the photographs that capture and hold our attention. (Nov.)