Our Amazing Birds: The Little-Known Facts About Their Private Lives

by Robert Stell Lemmon, Don R. Eckelberry (Illustrator)

Robert S. Lemmon discusses their historic breeding grounds, habitat, range, intelligence, and unusual characteristics with warmth, humor, and careful attention to detail. And each bird is illustred with glowing realism in black and white.

Odd and intersting data

about 102 birds

Genres: Birds, Nature, Reference, Nonfiction, Own, Natural History

235 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1952

Reviews

[Ellen Church · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is wonderful and sad all at the same time. It is wonderful because instead of a dry description of a bird, it's geographic range and diet, this book writes a short chapter about each bird describing its behavior and humorous stories about the bird. Some stories are historical, some personal, and some laugh out loud funny, but all are rich with information about each bird species described. Which brings me to the sad section. This book was written in 1951, before Silent Spring, before the widespread use of monoculture agriculture and excessive use of insecticides, which have decimated insect populations many times over, eliminating the food source of many of the birds described. 1951 was before the advent of the glass skyscaper, which kill thousands of birds nightly as they migrate. So despite a life spent watching birds in PA, NJ and MA, I have never seen or no longer see many of the birds described. I've never seen pied-billed grebes, a ruby crowned kinglet, a snow bunting or ovenbirds. The sight of thousands of migrating birds filling the sky was a common sight when I was young, but no more. However, on a happier note, at the time the book was written the whooping crane was down to 37 individuals, so some good news has occurred. Trumpeter swans have also been a success story in the time since the book was written. Finally, the book is rich and interesting, but it does nothing to tie the story together, looking for trends, positive or negative. The book opens with a brief foreward, then moves to the sketches for each bird, which are enlivened by actual sketches of each bird. After the downey woodpecker, the next page is the index. Quite anticlimactic. Well, the author is a bird watcher who writes, apparently not a writer who also watches birds.

[Chiara · Rating 5 out of 5]

i would not count this as a true book for my challenge, but i have been very into birding lately and this is my greatest and most pleasing reference to guide me

[Priscilla King · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a bad book--it's just that there are so many better ones. You're likely to find this one at a secondhand sale. It's worth the pocket change they'll probably ask for it. The facts are still true, the "stories" are still fun to read, and the drawings are still recognizable. If you're paying for a new book, get the Sibley or Peterson or Audubon field guides, or Janet Lembke's "Dangerous Birds," or Graeme Gibson's anthology. If you're looking for something to read on a long trip, this book tails off into speculation about how birds might have evolved, now and then, but mostly it provides fun facts about North America's best known birds.

[Melva Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is cute. It talks mostly about birds from the Eastern United States and Canada. If you want to know the bird's personality, mating habits or what it eats then you will find it here.

[K.D. Putnam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun anecdotes and a few interesting facts. I learned more from this book than I thought I would!! Not to mention, the art work is beautiful!!