Birds of Berkeley
By Oliver James
5/5
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About this ebook
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.
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
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- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Author feature 25 Bird of Berkeley - detailed, erudite and enlightening with lovely drawings.
Book preview
Birds of Berkeley - Oliver James
Birds
of
Berkeley
illustrationThanks 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
(510) 549-3564, Fax (510) 549-1889
www.heydaybooks.com
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
illustrationOnce 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
illustrationCONTENTS
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.