A Guide to Southern Arizona Bird Nests & Eggs

Rating:
Summary: Praise for Merlin's Guide
Review: A must for everyone who enjoys bird watching and takes pleasure in studying and observing nature. Nicely organized and easy to use. The book teaches you how to look and catergorize bird nests, creating formulas which can then be applied anywhere you travel. The basic principles set a very good standard for all future guides. In addition, there are numerous and facinating entries about various species. For instance, the cow bird, never building his own nest and laying an egg a day in other species nests who then do all the work of incubating and feeding. While some birds make layered nests with a warbler observed being 6 layers deep. The comparative facts, for instance the Anna vs.Costa hummingbirds, were very interesting and helpful for field study. Excellent for both the novice and the more expert. The information, photographs and excellent drawings only make you want more.

Rating:
Summary: One for the pocket
Review: Just why this attractive little book should have appeared on a library shelf in central New Jersey I don't know, but it's an unexpected treasure. Convenient in size and layout, beautifully illustrated by Narca Moore-Craig and with handsome color photos of birds at the nest, this booklet will definitely be added to my own traveling library as soon as I'm back in se AZ. The brief descriptions of nest site and character should make it possible to plausibly identify even unattended nests, and the short, clearly written sketches of each of the 50-some covered species' life histories are full of precisely the information that birders (well, I, at least) so easily forget. Well done, and highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: One for the pocket
Review: Just why this attractive little book should have appeared on a library shelf in central New Jersey I don't know, but it's an unexpected treasure. Convenient in size and layout, beautifully illustrated by Narca Moore-Craig and with handsome color photos of birds at the nest, this booklet will definitely be added to my own traveling library as soon as I'm back in se AZ. The brief descriptions of nest site and character should make it possible to plausibly identify even unattended nests, and the short, clearly written sketches of each of the 50-some covered species' life histories are full of precisely the information that birders (well, I, at least) so easily forget. Well done, and highly recommended.