Ornithological Literature

Abstract

BRINGING BACK THE BIRDS: EXPLORING MIGRATION AND PRESERVING BIRDSCAPES THROUGHOUT THE AMERICAS. American Bird Conservancy. Braided River, an imprint of Mountaineers Books, Seattle, Washington. 2019: 208 pages, 225 color photographs.— This handsome coffee-table book (123 10 inches) features the bird photography of Owen Deutsch and the writing of Jonathan Franzen, Margaret Atwood, Peter Marra, Michael Parr, John Fitzpatrick, Clare Nielson, and Kimberley and Kenn Kaufman. This is the kind of book where the text happily makes way for the imagery and design. This work is reminiscent of another book published by Mountaineers Books—the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s The Living Bird (2015). This book begins with an elegiac poem about bird–window collisions by Margaret Atwood and an inspirational foreword by Jonathan Franzen that speaks to the threats of climate change and the solutions being tested by the American Bird Conservancy (ABC). Michael Parr’s chapter speaks to the wonder of birds and their diverse colors, forms, and behaviors. John Fitzpatrick’s chapter is ‘‘The Power of Birds.’’ The power he speaks of is the power to engage and fascinate us. Fitzpatrick engages the reader with the story of the wonderful and terribly sad recording of the very last Kauai O-O that, alone in the late 1970s, sang in the remote Alakai Swamp. Hearing the haunting recording of the very last O-O is something like watching a clip of the Zupruder film—the experience of being there for the tragic last breath of something beautiful and cherished. In the case of the Kauai O-O, this was the last individual of an entire familial lineage of birds, a family only recently identified by pioneering molecular systematists. Now this species and its close relatives are gone forever from their Hawaiian haunts. Fitzpatrick ends with a discussion of how birds are our ambassadors into the precious natural environments upon which we all depend. Fitzpatrick rightly believes that birds will help humankind save itself and in so doing save most of the myriad species on Earth. Kenn and Kimberly Kaufman have a chapter on the Neotropical migration system—highlighting the stupendous physical and navigational accomplishments of some of the species, as well as the substantial physical infrastructure American societies have constructed that now threaten migrants (e.g., cell towers, reflective windows, and much more). They stress that more Americans need to understand and appreciate the migration system, because only then will there be a strong voice in support of the birds that pass over our homes in the millions twice a year. Peter Marra’s chapter elucidates migratory connectivity. Knowledge of the details of the seasonal movement of the birds, plus the geography of their breeding and wintering homes as well as their passage stopover sites, provides the data to formulate full-life-cycle conservation plans for our birdlife. For those who wish to ensure the conservation of the bird populations that breed, for instance, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, it is necessary to know and preserve a whole series of specific sites that these birds depend upon throughout the year across their huge year-round range, north and south. Marra’s own field studies have shown that the nutritional well-being of a wood warbler on its wintering ground in the tropics is an important determinant of its breeding success the following summer in the far north. More and more research groups are looking at migratory connectivity across North America. This is the first step toward ensuring the well-being of the migratory species being studied. Clare Nielsen, of ABC, has written the final 2 chapters of the book, first explaining ABC’s concept of birdscapes, and, second, answering the pressing question ‘‘what can we do to help our birds?’’ ABC’s birdscapes are large tracts of habitat that have been identified in the United States, Middle America, and northern South America as critical to migratory birds. These birdscapes are receiving special attention from a consortium of conservation groups. So far, 52 birdscapes have been identified and another 21 are under consideration. In her second chapter she