Wednesday, June 11, 2008

More In the Way of Bird Books


Here's another new purchase for the school books. I very nearly bought this one, but it didn't have a Black-capped Chickadee call in it, so I didn't. The Black-capped Chickadee is the first bird Max attached himself to when we studied birds (I even bought him a Black-capped Chickadee Christmas tree ornament that year), and it seemed a bad omen not to see the little black cap included, so I bought the one you see here instead. It not only has the black cap, but Max's new favourite, the Red Winged Blackbird (if you want to hear its call, click here and then click on #84698).

I like this book. It's skewed slightly in favour of the East Coast of North America, which niggles at me vaguely, being here on the Wet West Coast of Canada as I am, but when all is said and played, it's pretty fun stuff. And no (just in case you have an eight to twelve year old boy there, wondering) cats are not fooled by the calls. A dog might be, but cats are way too smart for this sort of game.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just had that one in my hand the other day at Costco :) My son really wanted it but then he found the Egyptology book and so we ended up with it instead. Next time the bird books mine! *grin*
Nature Mama

l said...

We have just bought a similar one for Eastern and Central North America (at Costco!).
The kids and I are looking forward to exploring it.

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sheila said...

nature mama & alex: I saw that one at Costco! How funny. They have pretty decent bird calls in them, I'll say that much. And I like how they tell you if it's a male, or a female, or a stress call, etc.

jove: thanks for that - I'll check it out. Looks like something up my alley, doesn't it.

Cami said...

We have this same book and love it! The Black-Capped Chickadee was our first favorite, too :) We've taken the book outside and used it to "call" birds and have had amazing luck! We press the button and can hear them responding and then have gotten fly-bys checking us out - really fun!

sheila said...

Oh what a funny funny idea, Cami! My kids will love doing that. I like how they tell you if it's a made or a female bird, too. That should make for some mayhem.

Did you know that the little Black-Cap hasn't made it onto the island we live on (yet)? We were quite surprised when we first found out. The Chestnut-Back is here, but he isn't quite as cheeky and friendly as the Black-Cap.

Louise said...

I wish I could recognise more birdsong although you do get to know what is around your own garden. x

Anonymous said...

We just had that book out (yet again) from the library and I *just* sent in a post about it at SecCM! Must be the season :). Out of curiosity, how much is the book at Costco, compared to Amazon.ca? I keep thinking we should buy it, but wonder how long the buttons would hold up in our household.

And yes, our dog is easily fooled!

By the way, in addition to the new Eastern/Central North Am. book, Chronicle also has a western edition,

http://www.amazon.com/Backyard-Birdsong-Guide-Western-America/dp/0811863972/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213713844&sr=8-1

Not in our library system yet, but I'm interested to see what it's like, especially compared to the more comprehensive volume.

sheila said...

Becky, I never saw the 250 Bird Song one at our Costco but I did see the Backyard book (the one I refer to as the one I nearly bought) and it was $15, so I'm sure if Costco does carry the 250 Song book it would be a deal. It's $30 on Amazon but takes 1-4 months to arrive. I bought ours at a local bookstore (using leftover DEL funds) for $50 and when I came home Max and I talked for quite a while about what we'd have done if we'd used our own money: would we have waited the 1-4 months or would we just buy it?

I'll have to check out the Western book - it's mildly awkward for the kids when they don't see "our" birds in these types of books because then they have nothing to compare the pictures to and that's half the fun, isn't it.