Lives of North American Birds (Peterson Natural History Companions) [Hardcover]

Kenn Kaufman (Author)

Book Description

Series: Peterson Natural History Companions | Publication Date: December 20, 1996

Birding is one of the fastest-growing activities in America, and this book is aimed at the millions of birders who want not only to identify birds but also to understand them. Key features of this comprehensive and indispensable handbook include: coverage of every species found in North America - more than 900 species, including accidentals and exotics - as well as the larger genus and family groupings; vividly written, detailed descriptions of each species, genus, and family: personality, habitat, feeding habits, nesting habits, migratory patterns, characteristic displays, and conservation status; color photographs and range maps for the more than 600 species regularly seen in North America; an introduction to birds and birding. Just as a Peterson Field Guide(tm) is an essential tool for birding in the field, Kenn Kaufman's Lives of North American Birds is an essential reference for anyone interested in birds in particular or nature in general.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Created as a companion to field guides, this encyclopedic avian natural history is the print version of the previously issued CD-ROM Peterson Multimedia Guides: North American Birds. Organized like the CD-ROM, the book presents 600 species of birds in taxonomic order and groups them by family. Small color photographs and range maps accompany concise, plain-language information regarding nesting, feeding, migration, courtship, habitat, clutch size, and conservation status. Upping the included species to 900 are brief descriptions of nonendemic vagrant birds. The omission of additional ornithological topics makes this reference quick to use and sets it apart from comprehensive sources such as The Audubon Society Encyclopedia of American Birds, but the similar coverage found in Paul R. Ehrlich's The Birder's Handbook: A Field Guide to the Natural History of North American Birds (S. & S., 1988) would satisfy this niche as well.?Frank Reiser, Nassau Community Coll., Garden City, N.Y.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

This unique book is a by-product of the CD-ROM Peterson Multimedia Guides: North American Birds. In producing this CD-ROM, the compilers discovered that there was no book that gave the life histories of birds in general. To remedy this, Kaufman expanded the descriptions of birds' lives that he developed for the Multimedia Guides to produce this beautifully organized book for the layperson. As he states in his acknowledgements, "Although there have been many multimedia products based on books, probably few books besides this one have started off in CD-ROM form."

Bird-watchers have relied on the Peterson Guides over the years to identify birds, giving names, habitat, descriptions, and distribution information. However, no guide has gone that additional step to describe what the bird is doing at the time it is being observed. Many scientific articles about birds do describe "what they are doing" in technical terms. Kaufman has translated all this information into layperson's language.

The book is organized so that when a particular page is consulted, it is easy to understand without referrring to other parts of the book. Each family has a brief overview that describes the bird and its feeding, nesting, and displaying characteristics. Additional information is given for the genus, followed by detailed facts about each species. This information includes a full-color photograph; a distribution map; habitat, feeding, nesting, and migration data; and conservation status, all in a concise, easy-to-read text. Illustrations, which were taken from the CD-ROM, are clear but small, with only one per species. Of particular interest is information on certain behavior and movement characteristics, which includes how food is acquired, how young are fed, mating rituals, what the young look like and how soon they leave the nest, and how they interact with other species in the competition for food and nesting sites. Additionally, there may be information on specific species about territory claiming, social aspects, songs and calls, pairing, courtship, eggs, clutch size, incubation, number of broods per year, what they eat, how they find food, molting, roosting, and life span.

Part of the Peterson Natural History Companion series, this is a must-have book to supplement any field guide. It could be used as a general field guide, although it is too big to fit into a coat pocket. It is a good alternative to field guides in a reference collection because it provides expanded information in a convenient, attractive format. Recommended for all bird-watchers and all libraries.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 704 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; First Edition edition (December 20, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395770173
• ISBN-13: 978-0395770177
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #267,153 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kenn Kaufman is a legend among birders. A field editor for AUDUBON and a regular contributor to every major birding magazine, he is the youngest person ever to receive the Ludlow Griscom Award, the highest honor of the American Birding Association. His natural history pursuits have taken him to all seven continents, but he has made a special study of North American birds. His books include KINGBIRD HIGHWAY, LIVES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS, the PETERSON FIELD GUIDE TO ADVANCED BIRDING, in addition to originating the KAUFMAN FIELD GUIDE series, which includes books on birds, butterflies, mammals, and insects. He resides in Rocky Ridge, Ohio.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Accessible Species Accounts, a basic not to be without, April 26, 1999

By 

I. Westray (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lives of North American Birds (Peterson Natural History Companions) (Hardcover)

The real advantage of Kenn Kaufman's book is its accessibility. Next to the Birder's Handbook, which tried several funky organizational and icongraphic systems at once, Kaufman is pure readability. The attractive, intelligent presentation here is immediately appealing. This serves double duty as a coffee table book and reference.

I read both this and the Birder's Handbook when I see something new. Kaufman gives you a solid account of each bird, but he's limited to individual species. (There are brief family introductions, written about at the level of the family intros in a field guide.) The essays in Birder's Handbook are very pleasing to browse into; in Kaufman, once you've read a species, you're on to another species. Kaufman has nothing to say, for example, about mobbing behavior. Birder's Handbook has a long essay, naming several species and discussing the state of research on the subject.

Kaufman is also less clear about what's missing about a bird. Birder's Handbook is held to its schematic approach, so you immediately know when there's a question mark in a location that's usually got a little symbol. Kaufman occasionally mentions that something isn't well known, but you have to read into the essay to find that.

As complements to a field guide, both this and The Birder's Handbook are useful and enjoyable. I personally wouldn't be happy without either one.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An extremely useful book for general information, September 21, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Lives of North American Birds (Peterson Natural History Companions) (Hardcover)

Kenn Kaufmann has provided a nice, highly readable, first place to look for general information on any North American bird. The information provided is somewhat more extensive, in most cases, than can be found in similar Birder's Handbook by Ehrlich, Dobkin, and Wheye. Unfortunately, however, Kaufmann omitted notes and bibilographical information (which were included in the Birder's Handbook). Had the bibliographical information been included, this book would easily have rated 5 stars. As it is, the reader is frustrated in the search for more detailed information. I should also mention that the visual presentation of this book is nothing short of first class. Although not a book of fine-art photography, it is nonetheless an aesthetically pleasing volume printed on high-quality paper.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!!, November 22, 2003

By 

merrymousies (Waterford, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lives of North American Birds (Peterson Natural History Companions) (Hardcover)

Great book to have onhand. I also have Sibley's book, The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior and I love them both - they're very different and while they may overlap to some degree, they're definitely different. Lives of N. Amer. Birds has great photographs of the birds, each bird entry has an intro paragragh about the bird, then is followed by habitat they prefer/can be found in, Feeding to include diet as well as how the bird finds/hunts for food, Nesting to include typical nest sites, how they're built, number of eggs and what they look like, care oft he young. There is also a section on each bird that talks to conservation issues for the bird. Latin names are also provided. I think this is a great reference book. I like to augment my reading with the Sibley guide as well as some ofthe stokes books on bird behavior.