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Bird art & bird-book list

Long an admirer of John James Audubon's paintings of birds, I was pleased with a recent Times article about his legacy. Be sure to view the slideshow. I have a copy of Shelley's 1946 reproductions of original water colors owned by the New York Historical Society. I also own a larger volume of illustrations; a gift for a stint as a researcher with the Library of Congress.

Image: Audubon Birds - Donald A. Shelley

The Times article presented a short annotated bibliography of bird art books, all published this year: "Humans, Nature and Birds: Science Art From Cave Walls to Computer Screens" - Darryl Wheye; "Birds: The Art of Ornithology" - Jonathan Elphick; "Audubon: Early Drawings" - Richard Rhodes; and "Egg and Nest" - Rosamond Purcell, Linnea S. Hall and René Corado. Having not read any of these books - my interest is based on information in the news article - I am most interested in "Egg and Nest." The images of Purcell's photographs of eggs and nests won me over. Listen to an interview with Terry Gross, host of Fresh Air, about Purcell's then newest book, "Owls Head."

For more on birds, check out our bird-book list, below, part of a series of posts called "Reading list."

  • Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World's Most Revered and Reviled Bird - Andrew D. Blechman
  • Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding - Scott Weidensaul
  • The Pollinators - Stephen L. Buchmann, Gary Paul Nabhan
  • Crows: Encounters with the Wise Guys of the Avian World - Candace Savage
  • American Wildlife and Plants - Frances A. Davis, A. C. Martin, Herbert S. Zim *favorite
  • The Shorebird Guide - Richard Crossley, Kevin Karlson, Michael O'Brien
  • Stokes Beginner's Guide to Shorebirds - Donald Stokes, Lillian Stokes
  • Water Birds of California - Howard L. Cogswell
  • National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America
  • Introduction to California Birdlife - Jules Evens and Ian Tait
  • A Field Guide to Western Birds - Roger Tory Peterson

Comments

Anonymous said…
I'm so going to get that crow book from the library. Thanks for the reading list!