Over a half century has passed and we are pleasantly surprised with Pete Dunne’s and Kevin Karlson’s “The Shorebirds of North America: A Natural History and Photographic Celebration.” Peter Matthissen’s “The Shorebirds of North America” has been replaced and will be missed, but we have entered the Anthropocene Era with every move of our shorebirds captured as only the digital age can. Readers will be treated to 304 pages of well-received new knowledge, that could only have been made available through the hard work of biologists and significant ornithology over long time periods.
We are taken to new heights and developments with habit, defense, plumage, feeding, courtship and breeding, migration, winter habitat, and mortality data, including remarkable and one-of-a-kind photographs that only those close to the source could obtain through fieldwork. Profiles come beautifully to life with detailed accounts about the five remarkable family groups of all fifty-two species of breeding shorebirds known in North America. We are treated to the American Woodcock, whose secretive story unfolds in a forest clearing, as the audience shivers in the chilly early morning air, while “peent, peent, peent” turns into upward momentum followed by descending twittering as he zigzags back to earth.
This is one of two unfortunates who is a game bird and can be legally shot. If you don’t know the other species, the book will inform you. Your dream may transport you to the wide-eye.
