The Princeton Encyclopedia of Birds
consists of over 600 pages of fantastic coverage of all the bird families of the world. Instead of covering each individual species, the family accounts provide general information about the behaviors, habitat, distribution, and conservation status with some individual references to specific species.
“Factfiles”, highlighted boxes of information, include maps, number of species in the family, voice, plumage, eggs, diet, and more. These provide an excellent quick reference to information without reading the whole section. (Essential for a good encyclopedia.)
Each family includes fabulous photographs and illustrations to showcase the unique features of that group of birds. Larger families are covered more extensively but no special favor is paid to any one group. However, some highly interesting topics are covered in much more detail in “photo stories” and “special features”.
In all, some 9,850 species are covered with more than 1,000 color photos and illustrations. Overall The Princeton Encyclopedia of Birds
is an excellent tome of material and a stepping point for inspiring further knowledge of various bird families.
The Princeton Encyclopedia of Birds
Edited by Christopher Perrins
Princeton University Press – 2009
ISBN: 978-0-691-14070-4
Order from Amazon.com – The Princeton Encyclopedia of Birds
Sounds like a nice book to own! Well written and concise review.
I’m an estonian ornithologist, 77, honor member of Estonian Ornithological Society. I’ve translated a half dozen of books about birds into estonian. I’m interested for newly printed birdbooks.
Olav – that is really amazing… there are so many field guides and other bird books, worldwide, that it is difficult to keep up with all the new ones 🙂