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Droppings:
06/27/2008 On Feathered Wings Birds in Flight
For your summer viewing: there's a very handsome new book available written by Richard Ettlinger with photographs by the author, Rob Palmer, Miquel Lasa and K.K. Hui. Many of the images are truly astonishing. Raptors, unsurprisingly, get most of the space, but shore, sea and wetland birds, along with a few songbirds, are also presented. The text is informative but it's the photographs that make the book. For more on "On Feathered Wings" see here.
06/23/2008 New, Skinny, Convenient eBird Summaries
In preparation for the ""internet-in-your-pocket" era here are a couple of skinny-format eBird summary pages. The first, eBirdSidebar, uses Javascript behind the scenes and so might not work on many mobile devices (maybe the iPhone) but is convenient when opened in a browser sidebar (for more convenience, put a bookmark to it in your "personal" bookmarks bar). The second, eBirdSummary, is plain-old-html (no maps) and should do fine in most mobiles (but also works in a sidebar). Both of these, as well as the previously released eBirdMap are updated hourly.

Let me know how it works, or doesn't, on your mobile.

Don't forget to register with eBird and submit your observations faithfully.
06/12/08 A New Field Guide songs and calls included
Ted Floyd, editor of the ABA's "Birding", has written The Smithsonian Field Guide to Birds of North America. It's very handsome--photographs rather than drawings, range maps, call and behavior descriptions, and essays on groups. It's light enough to carry and reasonably priced. What sets it apart from most other field guides is the accompanying DVD which contains 500+ vocalizations for 138 species; an image of the relevant bird is embedded in each sound file. This makes it easy to transfer image and sound to iTunes or iPod and see the bird as you listen to the song.
06/05/08 June Bulletin
The latest "Birding Community Electronic Bulletin" is here with many informative and entertaining bits including the visit to Delaware of a Wood Sandpiper. More on the sighting can be found at Jeff Gordon's Flickr site.
04/17/08 Woodland Birds of North America a new guide
A very fine guide-but-not-a-field-guide is "Woodland Birds of North America", a paperback written by and with terrific photographs by Scott Leslie. More than 100 woodland species are presented with each entry including short but information-packed paragraphs on appearance, habitat, behavior, calls, food, family life and conservation concerns. Further information is here .
04/03/08 Kenya Birding Today
I received the following email today:
From isabelnanton Wed Apr  2 22:11:06 2008
Subject: Birding in Kenya
I just returned from my homeland, after 10 weeks during which the
country went through post-election upheavals. At no time, while
there, was my activities as a keen, but amateur birder disrupted. In
fact, there has probably never been a better time to go birding in
Kenya: the parks are empty, Kenyans' tourism industry has been
decimated by the media reports and yet, the birding remains some of
the most rewarding on the planet...
I hope keen birders will feel encouraged to book that trip to Kenya
and help in the restoration of the tourism economy (each Kenyan
employed supports 8-10 people) and keeps those lovely birds visible.

isabel nanton
journalist
04/01/08 Bermuda Petrel comes back
BirdLife International reports on the encouraging comeback of the once-thought-to-be-lost-forever Bermuda Petrel. Thanks to Dot Robbins for spreading the news.
03/31/08 Buy My House

Having concluded that it's time to consolidate and simplify but unwilling to leave the world's best neighborhood for some bucolic "retirement village" we're leaving our house of 36 years for a 6th floor aerie 2 blocks away. So the house is FOR SALE (picture from street-- 426 S 47th St, 19143; picture of house from new place-- 4631 Pine St, 19143 ). It's within minutes of birding at Bartram's Garden and Heinz (Tinicum) NWR and an easy daytrip to birding locations from Sandy Hook to Cape May to Bombay Hook. Write if interested for further details. MAP
SLIDE SHOW & VIRTUAL IMAGE

03/21/08 A New Peterson Field Guide for Birds Scheduled for August
Last night at the DVOC (Delaware Valley Ornithology Club) meeting Jeff Gordon spoke about (among other things) the forthcoming (August) modernized edition of the classic Peterson field guide and showed us one of the videos that will be downloadable by purchasers. I was much impressed - there are the classic Peterson touches (little arrows, etc) but enhanced by voice-overs, compare-and-contrasts, and birdsong/call audios on demand. Watch the Houghton Mifflin site and Jeff's blog to see if video examples show up.