Birds of Berkeley

By Oliver James

This charming, full-color field guide to 25 birds easily found in Berkeley proves that even the city's avian residents are a little quirky. Meticulously detailed illustrations capture each bird's distinctive physicality and temperament. A Burrowing Owl faces you in a full-on head shot, perhaps having just raised its raspy, chattering alarm call as you trespass on its last remaining Bay Area foothold at the Marina. The Anna's Hummingbird gives you a coy backward glance to assess if you've properly admired its flashy throat feathers, maybe having just performed its signature J-shaped courtship dive. Even in composition, each bird is strikingly individual, whether depicted in mid-dive or creeping into frame. While descriptions of identification and vocalizations are straightforward, author-illustrator Oliver James takes a delightfully creative approach to his write-ups of each species. He invites you to imagine that a Cooper's Hawk, for example, is Steve McQueen in a '68 Mustang, and you, “a pigeon in a rental car with a poor turning radius,” are fleeing through traffic: “It's all over in a matter of seconds.” A joy to read and pore over, Birds of Berkeley will enchant readers far beyond the city limits with its findings gleaned from painstaking and patient wildlife observation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Heyday
• Release date: Feb 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9781597144520

Oliver James

Oliver James trained and practised as a child clinical psychologist and, since 1988, has worked as a writer, journalist, broadcaster and television documentary producer and presenter. His books include the bestselling They F*** You Up, Affluenza, Contented Dementia and Office Politics. Visit his website www.oliver-james-books.com

Book preview

Birds

of

Berkeley

Thanks to the following photographers, whose photographs informed the illustrations:

American Robin © Dave Spates

Anna’s Hummingbird © Tom Sanders

Bufflehead © Chris Lue Shing

Black Phoebe © Bill Holsten

European Starling © Jason Jablonski

Forster’s Tern © Trent Bell

Golden-crowned Sparrow © Tom Grey

Oak Titmouse © Greg Lavaty

Red-breasted Nuthatch © Earl Orf

Ruby-crowned Kinglet © Maria De Bruyn

Townsend’s Warbler © Craig Kerns

© 2018 by Oliver James

All rights reserved. No portion of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from Heyday.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

Cover Art: Burrowing Owl by Oliver James

Book Design: Ashley Ingram and Oliver James

Orders, inquiries, and correspondence should be addressed to:

Heyday

P.O. Box 9145, Berkeley, CA 94709

[phone], Fax [phone]

www.heydaybooks.com

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Once again, to Rich Stallcup

The Pirate of Point Reyes

1944–2012

I hope you love birds too. It is economical.

It saves going to heaven.

—Emily Dickinson

CONTENTS

AUTHOR’S NOTE

INTRODUCTION

Presentation and Organization

How to Use This Field Guide

Bird Topography

Glossary

Some Brief Advice on Approaching Bird Identification

SPECIES

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Cedar Waxwing

Western Gull

Chestnut-backed Chickadee

Anna’s Hummingbird

California Scrub Jay

Wrentit

European Starling

Forster’s Tern

White-crowned Sparrow

Cooper’s Hawk

Golden-crowned Sparrow

Hermit Thrush

Bushtit

California Towhee

Western Meadowlark

Townsend’s Warbler

Black Phoebe

Oak Titmouse

American Robin

Snowy Egret

Burrowing Owl

Western Sandpiper

Bufflehead

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

NOTES AND CITATIONS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

AUTHOR’S NOTE

It is the province of this work to appreciate and, so far as it is possible, to express, not alone the conceptual entities of science called species, but the very persons and lives of those hundreds of millions of our fellow travelers and sojourners called birds.

—William Leon Dawson, The Birds of California

Back on inauguration day, January 20, 2017, as the maelstrom of punditry reached its crescendo, the Ecology Center here in Berkeley posted a short entry to its blog, dusting off an old truism: positive change has, and always will, begin at the community level, regardless of who’s in office. Recommit to those around you.

We live in a society that slumps toward placelessness and namelessness. The Dakota Access Pipeline is rerouted from Bismarck to land that is ostensibly valueless. Our bombs, as if bombs were somehow discerning, fall only over terrorists; over countries that, ironically, we cannot recall. Closer to home, we repeat these names, lest their lives cease to matter: Jordan Edwards, Alton Sterling, Alejandro Nieto, Oscar Grant…

In a system that peddles anonymity, the work of resistance begins by becoming a student of place—its history, its people, its ecology. If, for you, local familiarity extends merely to the vegetables in your CSA box, think again.