Down and Dirty Birding: From the Sublime to the Ridiculous (1996),
by Joey Slinger

	Buy Down and Dirty Birding: From the Sublime to the Ridiculous, Here's All the Outrageous but True Stuff You've Ever Wanted to Know About North American Birds (1996), a cheerful delight by Joey Slinger.
	Weather of the San Francisco Bay Region by Harold Gilliam for study of Santa Cruz Mountains and the California Central Coast. Weather: How to Observe and Predict the Weather by Storm Dunlop Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet (2008) by Mark Lynas.

Down and Dirty Birding is a treat. Six spritely chapters:

1. Birders — how to recognize birders and how to be one.
2. Bird behavior — what birds do.
3. Bird parts — bills/beaks, feathers, feet, cloaca (general-purpose canal/sewer), skeleton, skull, syrinx (tube from each lung entered by air crossing a membrane), wing, etc.
4. Deep background — how birds began; the extinct; the introduced; the passerine.
5. The hit list — how to figure out what bird you have: pp. 177-209 are the very practical and useful core of the book.
6. The ten North American hotspots a birder absolutely has to see before dying —
   1. Aransas, Texas. Whooping cranes (Dec to May) and almost 270 other birds.
   2. Cape May, New Jersey. Over 320 bird species. Fall hawk migration.
   3. Cheyenne Bottom, Kansas.
   4. Churchill, Manitoba. "Every bird is a quality bird, particularly the Arctic species."
   5. Ding Darling (Sanibel) and Corkscrew Swamp (Naples), Florida. Two sites in this hotspot.
   6. Jamaica Bay, New York.
   7. Point Pele, Ontario. Includes 41 warbler species. A 100-species day is a "slow day".
   8. Ramsey Canyon, Arizona. Only 150 species on its list, but some good ones: Elegant trogon; 14 species of humming birds.
   9. Salton Sea, California. 227 feet below sea level and saltier than the sea. Species list of 380.
   10. Witless Bay, Newfoundland. Puffins. Leach's storm-petrel. other birds.

Also see:

• Marbled Murrelets - California's Fog Larks by Pamela Conley.
• Northern Spotted Owl: Will the Northern Spotted Owl Survive? by Pamela Conley.
• Books on Birds and Forests: Will the Northern Spotted Owl Survive? by Pamela Conley.

The bottom line: A delightful way for you to enter the birding world — or for you to pull in an innocent friend or relative.

Buy Down and Dirty Birding: From the Sublime to the Ridiculous, Here's All the Outrageous but True Stuff You've Ever Wanted to Know About North American Birds (1996), a cheerful delight by Joey Slinger.

Weather Glossary

Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

Links and References

• Home and Index of Articles.
• Book Review of Deforesting the Earth: From Prehistory to Global Crisis by Michael Williams.
• Review of America's Ancient Forests: by Thomas M. Bonnicksen.
• Species:
  1. Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens).
  2. Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides).
  3. Pine Trees - Your 60-Second Guide to Naming your Pine.
  4. Got Conifer -- How You Can Tell What Kind of Conifer You Have.

Forest and Tree Home, Glossary pages: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

Copyright © 2010 by J. Zimmerman.

[Thanks for visiting.]