Customer Reviews

Birdscapes: A Pop-Up Celebration of Bird Songs in Stereo Sound

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Birdscapes combines engaging pop-up landscapes with stereo sound bird songs. It is a great activity for families as kids, parent and grandparents will find something compelling in the book. It would also be a great teaching tool in schools or libraries. When you open a spread, you hear each bird's song. There is an on/off button so you can control the sound. I have turned it off and left it opened to a spread as a decorative element in my home. It catches visitor's attention. The back has more information on each bird in the book. Very unusual and appreciated gift item.

Chronicle Books and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology produced the excellent Birdsongs books that display a particular bird and then play their songs with the push of a button. Birdscapes is the newest book in the series; in this version, seven different landscapes pop up, each with several birds and with the sounds of the resident birds.

The sounds come from the Macaulay Library archive. The jagged, rocky island landscape is particularly effective. According to Miyoko Chu, director of communications at the Lab:

"We included the sounds of nocturnal Fork-tailed and Leach's storm-petrels recorded on Saint Lazaria Island near Sitka, Alaska just last year. Our recordists lay in sleeping bags with microphones as the air and ground pulsated with the sounds of storm-petrels flying overhead and courting in the burrows below."

Other books in the series include:

Bird Songs: 250 North American Birds in Song.

Bird Songs From Around the World: Featuring Songs of 200 Birds from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (Push and Listen).

A Field Guide to Backyard Bird Song: Eastern and Central North America (Peterson Field Guide Audio Series)

The Backyard Birdsong Guide: Western North America (Backyard Birdsong Guide)

Each of the preceding books is excellent at helping the reader to link the song and the sight of birds together. The birdscape book is appealing to both children and to adults, and the high fidelity is a remarkable achievement. The Lab is absolutely right; this book "highlights how the sounds of birds are an unforgettable and defining feature of any landscape."

Robert C. Ross 2008

I bought this book for my husband, we are interested in birding. It turns out it probably will be better for our grandchild, as a good introduction to bird habitats. It's got everything the other reviewers said. But there are things missing: like, any idea of which birds are which and make which sounds. There are no instructions or identification of any of the birds or sounds, that we could find. If I am missing something here, please let me know! I bought this book at BJ's club for $35 plus tax. I will have to look elsewhere for bird identification, probably will get a DVD.

Oprah's mag calls it "a chirping, twittering, cawing, trilling love of a pop-up book" in their December issue, and I couldn't tweet louder in agreement. Can't wait to wrap this up and transform my family's holiday celebration into a Christmas tree-filled birdscape of our own! A visual marvel and a singing delight for all ages--and a whole new landscape for the book!

As soon as this book came out of the box my kids were all over it--they loved the complex pop-up landscapes, as well as the bird calls. The folks at work were also sucked in. This is more of a bird and nature tractor beam than a book. If you set it on your coffee table, your guests will pick it up, but they won't put it down!

Each of the seven Birdscapes depicted here shows nine to eleven different birds--and plays their calls in a true-to-life cacophony of bird sounds! Since most backyard birdwatchers can only identify about 20 species, this book will more than triple their birding horizons--almost effortlessly!

This book doesn't show all the birds of North America. In fact, it only covers about 10 percent of the birds normally found here. But that's not the point. Birdscapes is a novel way to bring the birds and their world into your living room, and to bring you into their world as well!

You've probably seen Chronicle Books' Bird Songs from Around the World book. It's the one that lets you type in a number of a bird to hear the bird's song or call. Their latest book, Birdscapes: A Pop-Up Celebration of Bird Songs in Stereo Sound, is a marvel of paper and sound. Each set of pages is a pop-up of a different scene from a North American bird habitat. Swamps, farmlands, arctic tundra, Pacific rainforest, and many others are represented - seven in all. As you open each page, the sounds of the birds are played in stereo. A card on each page tells you which birds are calling during the timeline of the recording. The "paper engineering," a term I didn't know existed until I saw this book, is astounding. Each page has intricate details of foliage, landscape, and other objects. For example, in the Pacific rainforest, moss hangs free from the trees in giving a neat three-dimensional feel. You'll find youself saying, "Wow, how do they make this fold and unfold?" The drawings are accurate, detailed, and bold. The audio is crisp. Each scene will have you searching for the hidden birds and seeing new things each time. Any child who is old enough not to grab and rip the paper will really enjoy it, as will any teen, adult, or anyone who would enjoy some exposure to nature. It's a book to take out at a party and let people play with it.

I have only two complaints. First, I wish they included a page on backyard birds to show the more common birds that people will encounter. My second complaint is that the book is really large. It's 3" thick, 13" tall, and 11" wide. I fully understand that this type of book warrants this size, but you may want to keep this in mind if you purchase it. Other than these limitations, this book is a terrific book for your collection or a gift for a bird-lover in your life.

[...]

This was a Christmas gift for my sister who collects pop-up books, plus is a bird watcher. She was thrilled with the this book which was so beautifully put together, plus had the bird songs for each bird depicted in the pages. There was also more information about the various birds in the back. The sound of the birds was excellent. I highly recommend this book as it is a wonderful piece of art.

What a beautiful pop-up book! My grandkids were absolutely enthralled with this book. The only complaint is that this book must be handled with extreme care. One of the pop-ups already tore accidently & had to be taped. Otherwise, a wonderful book. I highly recommend it!

One doesn't have to be a birdwatcher or bird lover to appreciate this work of beauty. Anyone, both young and old will be fascinated by this visually stunning pop-up book. Consisting of seven scenes, the pop-ups convey birds [about 70 in all] in their respective habitats, e.g. a Pacific seabird colony, the Arctic tundra etc. Each birdscape comes with the recorded sounds of the birds in that particular habitat.

This would not only make the perfect gift for any birding enthusiast, but also nature lovers, fans of pop-ups and especially children [as it serves to educate and entertain, an unbeatable combo]. My almost 4 year-old can't have enough of it [mom holds the book, just in case!].

This book actually made me cry when I first opened it, it is such an amazing, beautiful collection of sights and sounds!

Everybody I showed it to reacted with awe, which is pretty rare with books nowadays, I find.