According to David Bird, author of Bird's Eye View, "One in every four North Americans now casually watches birds, and bird watching is only secondary to gardening as the number-one recreation world wide." Readers never seem to grow weary of reading about birds and millions of them spend a considerable amount of their recreational time bird watching in various regions of different countries. "In 1991, almost 25 million Americans travelled somewhere specifically to watch birds. Twenty-five million! In that year, birders spent a half-billion dollars on goods and services related to bird feeding and watching."
David M. Bird, the author of Bird's Eye View, A Practical Compendium For Bird-lovers, is professor of Wildlife biology and Director of the Avian Science and Conservation Centre of McGill University in addition to being the author of many bird books, a columnist on birds for Bird Watcher's Digest, and for sixteen years a contributor to The Montreal Gazette. Dr. Bird has eclectic interests and a quirky writing style. He covers more ground pertaining to the habits and nature of birds than anyone would imagine is possible. Dr. Bird takes the reader into the complex, never boring world of bird behaviour, which is probably as complicated as human behaviour. Read about the sexual and social lives of birds, their ability to beat the winter, to use tools, their remarkable functionality and disfunctionality. Find out why they are so brightly coloured, and why they are "singing their little hearts out." Above all this is a book about backyard birds one can see in one's neighbourhood. It discusses the intimate habits of House Sparrows, Pigeons, Gulls, European Starlings, Gulls, Crows, Cowbirds, Canada Geese, Vultures, Blue Jays, Woodpeckers, Grackles, House Wrens, Peregrines, Hummingbirds, Bluebirds, Purple Finches. Robins, Nuthatches, Waxwings, Redpolls, Loons and Dippers.
This spectacular volume comes with an incredible cover painting by Suzanne Duranceau and exquisite black and white drawings by Vern Montpetit. Vehicule Press's publisher, Simon Dardick, also the editor of this volume deserves credit for pulling this project together and seeing it through to completion. Bird's Eye View is a fascinating book evocative of those great natural history books that pop up from time to time from an unusual source. This book was written with verve and grace. It is a wonderful compendium of absolutely essential material about birds that leaves the reader in a state of wonder. If I had to choose one book about birds to take with me to outer space this would be the volume.