Petrels, Albatrosses, and Storm-Petrels of North America: A Photographic Guide [Anglais] [Relié]

Note: this review is for the Kindle version of this book (which I'll call PASNA).

I already owned the hardcover version of PASNA when I bought the kindle version for my iPad. The book is excellent. It uses photos, rather than painted illustrations. Photos can be problematical since they show an instantaneous view of a single bird while a bird can look different depending on its age, molt, the lighting conditions, etc. PASNA largely overcomes this problem by using multiple photos. The photos are used to compare the appearance of a particular species under different lighting conditions and to compare different species so the differences can be shown.

One problem with the hardcover book is that it is rather big, heavy and expensive to use on a boat (which, after all, is the best place to observe the seabirds which are the subject of this book). I was happy to see a Kindle version of the book was available. My iPad is smaller and lighter than the hardcover version of PASNA itself and I can view other books on the same iPad without it becoming any bigger and heavier. All that wouldn't be much help if the Kindle version of the book wasn't any good. Fortunately, the Kindle version works very nicely on the iPad. If you want to look up a particular species, just go to the TABLE OF CONTENTS, touch 'List of Species Covered'. then touch the name of the species of interest. The photos and range maps are embedded within the species accounts. This works out much better for an electronic book than the arrangement where the species accounts, the illustrations and the range maps are grouped separately. Since this book is quite recent, perhaps the author and publisher planned from the beginning how to make the book work in an electronic version.

The resolution of the photos is adequate, but iPad users may be spoiled by the superb views of higher resolution photos they are used to on the wonderfully sharp iPad display. it is easy to magnify the PASNA photos on iPad by double-tapping on them. When the photos are magnified, they look a bit blurry. I have had access to some of the original photos used in PASNA, and it is a bit disappointing to see the same photos as they appear in the Kindle version on iPad. Still, the photos are sharp enough for their intended use.

I highly recommend either the paper or electronic versions of this book. The Kindle version is by far the best electronic version of a field guide for birds that I have ever used.

Excellent guide to identifing Storm-petrels, Petrels and Albatrosses at sea. Photographs are of high quality and helpful. The stongest sections are on Indentifing birds in flight at a distance (which is often the case) by flight and wing beat patterns. Don't go to sea without it.

Did you know that there is an entire group of birds called "Tube Noses" because they have tubes on their noses? Well, to be more exact, the term is "tubenoses" and the noses are beaks. The tubes are tubular nostril-like thingies that most (all?) birds have which are extra tube-like in the tubenoses. Thus the name.

Albatrosses, petrels, and storm-petrels, which includes shearwaters, make up the tubenoses, and this book does an excellent job of covering them.

I love this book and I now want to become a tubenose watcher. This will be difficult from Minnesota. What makes it difficult is that Procellariiformes are ocean birds, and are truly pelagic, returning to land only to breed, and generally then only to remote islands. But there are exceptions. Some nest in the interior in the Arctic region, and they are occasionally seen on the Salton Sea and in the Sonoran desert (a 1997 report lists 27 records of this, ever).

Steven H.G. Howell is a widely known ornithologist and bird writer, who is probably best known for Peterson Reference Guide to Molt in North American Birds (Peterson Reference Guides). There is a connection here to the Procellariiformes, of course, because if you spend all your time at sea, molting periods are more important than for the average bird.

Prior to the publication of this work, there really was no photographic comprehensive guide to the "North American" tubenoses. There are just under 1000 photos and figures in this 520 page book, and a LOT of text. There are 70 or so birds described in over 500 pages, so the information level is very high. This is a field guide because of its attention to bird identification, a reference because of its rich detail and copious citations, and a coffee table book because it is biggish, hard covered, and pretty.

I find the range maps interesting because they have not only the usual detail, but also, arrows showing the migratory patterns of of the birds. It seems that many species of tubenoses migrate in circles, and not just back and forth. Huge, giant circles the size of Canada in many cases.

If you plan on adding any number of tubenoses to your life list as a birder, you need two things. 1) This book; and 2) Dramamine.

Oh, and a boat. Happy birding!
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