So you think you know birding

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, birding, tips

Here is fodder for many sessions of "Did you know?": 1001 Secrets Every Birder Should Know: Tips and Trivia for the Backyard and Beyond, by Sharon "Birdchick" Stiteler. This is no compendium of facts and figures, no dry encyclopedia of orhithologica, but an entertaining, well-illustrated guide.

Here we read that it is better not to take a Field Guide into the field. Instead, at whatever level of skill you might have, draw what you see and take it up with the book later. How many birds will you miss while paging through? If you can, back up your drawing with a photo, though few cameras will show a bird snapped at 30 feet as more than a tiny dot. Holding your cell phone camera to the binocular eyepiece may actually get you a more usable picture.

A note to the photo-happy: Most DSLR's cannot take a picture through a binocular or spotting scope. The focal length is much too long. Your eye has a focal length of 16-18 mm, so a little camera with a 3x zoom, say 7-21mm, is much better. Wanna use the DSLR in the field? Invest in a 400mm telephoto and use a tripod or monopod. If you try to get close enough to most birds for a "normal" focal length to work well, you'll just flush it.

We find that a mother bird will not abandon a nest if you have seen it or even touched it, but there is a significant chance that you could either scare a chick to death, or lead a watching predator to it. I once learned the hard way that a mostly fledged-out blue jay chick doesn't need to be returned to the nest. The parents are nearby, ready to help, which they did by taking a few solid pecks to the top of my head. The young bird wasn't quite ready to fly but had left the nest on purpose, and would be flying in a week or less. It was learning to feed itself while the parents showed it how and stood by to fend off creatures such as myself. I'd have learned these things in a less painful way by reading Chapter 7, "Baby Birds".

Throughout the book we find ideas of places to go to see larger numbers of birds, and greater variety, places like Hawk Mountain near Allentown, PA, or South Padre Island in Texas, or Costa Rica, or even Antarctica if you wish to add penguins to your life list. Numerous myths are debunked, such as that you have to get up before sunrise for the best birding. It really depends on the birds' schedule, and some are better found in midday or evening. One factoid is, sadly, true, that Audobon shot many birds. In a time without photography or even good quality binoculars, he had to get the bird in hand to be able to produce a good painting of it. So he'd shoot several specimens, skin them and study the pelts, and paint them in lifelike poses, as well as his memory allowed. Prior to the middle of the Twentieth Century, birding was primarily accomplished by shooting.

Birding can be done solo, but is a very enjoyable social activity. Indeed, I have very seldom gone afield alone with my binoculars. I much prefer a few compatible friends. Bird clubs abound, and ideas for finding them can be found scattered throughout the book, along with lists of bird festivals such as the one in Yakutat, Alaska for tern-watching or numerous migration festivals, where it is common to see tens of thousands to millions of birds fly over, sometimes at head height or below. The migrators are on a mission, and hardly notice you standing atop the ridge they are barely skimming.

I am not much of a birder, more of a casual birdwatcher, when it fits in with sightseeing for other reasons. An accomplished birder might find it entertaining to read through this book to find whether he or she has missed anything worth knowing. I'd say, having read it, that it is all worth knowing, but certain sections are worth a re-read just prior to a focused outing to refresh the ol' memory. I think the hardest thing for Birdchick to accomplish was to winnow down the neat things to know about birds, to only 1,001.

Everything Nobody Else Will Tell You About College

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, tips, advice, college, college experience

The cover boldly proclaims, The Naked Roommate: and 107 Other Issues You Might Run Into in College. The author, Harlan Cohen, writes the syndicated column Help Me, Harlan, for teens, particularly those in college. After interviewing many students on about 200 campuses, he has collected the 106 tips in this book, grouped into 14 chapters. The tips and the story behind each are the product of the students interviewed. Harlan follows with his own comment and further, related resources. Here is an example, a tip of my own, showing the format:

TIP # 108
Frosh Week Follies

The Tip
If your school has an orientation week for Freshmen, go...you never know what you'll learn.

The Story
I began my college experience living in a dorm. Freshmen started a week early, "Frosh Week." There were plenty of planned activities aimed at helping us learn our way around—it is a big campus—and to get acquainted as a frosh class, with no older students present.

The last day, there was a meeting for the administration, the faculty, and many parents in an auditorium on the edge of the campus. There was no planned activity for us. In midafternoon one guy climbed onto the roof of an atrium of my dorm and began playing bagpipe. He was good. Pretty soon the whole dorm was on the yard below, clapping and yelling. He was presuaded to come down, and proceeded to lead us in a spontaneous march. We marched across campus, circled the auditorium where the big meeting was going on, then returned to the dorm, with our piper skirling the whole way.

I don't think there is another way on the planet to have such an experience. By the way, I made one good friend, in my first roommate. Frosh week was definitely worth it.

At this point, Harlan adds his piece. There are many mini-tips from other students peppered throughout also. The sum of many voices makes this a valuable reference.

The author deals frankly with the issues faced by a young person who is probably on his or her own for the first time. The temptation to push every boundary, felt by every teen, can be indulged to the max. Mr. Cohen not only advises the wisest way to keep out of a dozen or so kinds of trouble, he often has sections that say, in effect, "OK, if you are determined to do this anyway, here is how to keep from dying in the process".

A squeamish parent is sure to find something that causes hesitation about giving such a book to a 17- or 18-year-old. I confess to being rattled a time or two. But kinds can't afford not to know how to deal with even the sleaziest of situations. I do plan to get a copy for my son before he begins college...and a copy for me to have here.