“Hummingbirds and Butterflies,” by Bill Thompson III and Connie Toops.
Published Sept. 6, 2011, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, “Improve your bird and butterfly eye.”
2014 Update: Both books are widely available.
By Barb Gorges
Hummingbirds and Butterflies (a Peterson Field Guides Backyard Bird Guide), by Bill Thompson III and Connie Toops, c. 2011 by Bird Watcher’s Digest, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing, 288 pages, softcover, $14.95.
Bill Thompson always writes with the casual birdwatcher in mind, the person who appreciates birds but is always saying, “Someday I want to know more.” And then he provides the hook.
This time he has concentrated on hummingbirds and his co-author, Connie Toops, brings us butterflies. First, there is everything you wanted to know about hummers, a few myths dispelled (no, they don’t hitch rides on geese during migration) and the basics of putting up a hummingbird feeder (4 parts water to 1 part white table sugar—no substitutes, additions or changes, please, and keep it clean).
But Bill offers not only a field guide to 15 North American hummer species, he has a chapter on plants hummingbirds like and ideas for your garden so you can maximize your views of them feeding on flower nectar.
Connie does the same things for butterflies in the second half of the book, including how to photograph them.
Is this book worthwhile for folks in southeastern Wyoming? Yes, even if we have mostly broad-tailed hummingbirds during the summer in higher country, along with rufous hummingbirds during migration in July. And keep in mind, only 17 butterflies profiled are expected here in the summer months. The plant information is sorted by parts of the country and as you might expect, all of the recommended species would be colorful additions to your yard.
If you already garden, you’ll find what a little tweaking might do to improve your chances of observing butterflies and hummingbirds. And if you don’t garden, you might be inspired to begin with a container of colorful flowers.
“Field Guide to Advanced Birding,” by Kenn Kaufman
Kaufman Field Guide to Advanced Birding, Understanding What You See and Hear, by Kenn Kaufman, c. 2011, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing, 448 pages, flexible cover, $21.
Kenn Kaufman has totally rewritten his 20-year-old guide to advanced birding. It’s not only because he has better ideas for identifying difficult species, but he understands better the kinds of mistakes birdwatchers make, though perhaps the most important lesson for an ardent birder to learn from this book is that sometimes a bird cannot be identified.
Anyone who has mastered identification of the common and colorful birds soon finds that there are groups that are difficult: gulls, sparrows, hawks, shorebirds, flycatchers, swallows and seabirds.
And what about hybrids? Subspecies? Birds with white feathers where they shouldn’t be? Birds that are molting and missing feathers?
While there are chapters for each of the difficult bird groups and a reader might be tempted to jump right to his nemesis species, the first seven chapters of general information are worth studying, especially the list of 14 Principles of Field Identification and the 14 Common Pitfalls.
Study is key to improving bird identification skills, and not just studying books, but going outside and finding more birds, Kaufman points out frequently.
One frustration with this book is that there are more than a few photos of unidentified birds. The caption might say the four gulls pictured could be identified as five or six different species if compared to various field guide illustrations, but there is no key in the back to check to see if you can identify them correctly. And sometimes Kaufman’s sentences get long and twisty because some bird i.d. problems are as much about the exceptions as they are about the rules.
A lot of information is packed into this book and it can be overwhelming.
But Principle 14 says you don’t have to take on all of the challenges. You can note merely “Gull sp. (species).”
Kaufman says, “As long as you’re not causing serious disturbance to the birds, their habitat, or other people, there is no ‘wrong way’ to go birding.”
Amen.
Cheyenne Bird Banter 