Baby Bird Identification: A North American Guide. Linda Tuttle-Adams. 2022. Comstock Publishing (imprint of Cornell University Press) Ithaca, NY, USA. 401 pages. ISBN 9781501762857. Paperback ($39.95)
Linda Tuttle-Adams has taken on an under-appreciated and under-studied aspect of our birdlife in Baby Bird Identification: A North American Guide. Her work is a highly laudable illustrated guide for identifying hundreds of North American bird species in their early stages of life. The author helps the user through the identification process for young birds, from the just-hatched to the fledgling-stage, and she does it very well.
At the very outset, one can say that the work is a must-have book for every wildlife rehabilitator and nature center in the U.S. and Canada. And it should also be a sought-after resource for banders, engaged citizen scientists, and extra-curious birders.
Enhanced by more than four hundred of her fine watercolor paintings in 36 plates and a helpful “photo gallery,” Baby Bird Identification gives us a systematic method for discerning a baby bird’s identity, offering descriptions of telling features as well as details of a bird’s daily growth.
The book starts, as it should, with a short section on well-considered ethical considerations – i.e., “Do no Harm” – and with warning for us all, including those who perceive a “need” to photograph young birds. After a seven-page valuable illustrated glossary with the essentials of young-bird topography, the next 86 pages cover details on correct identification, anatomy, growth, development, and age. These varied elements are deftly organized.
The essential species accounts which follow, in 182 well-packed pages, cover 403 individual species – some short accounts, some long – enhanced by family-group summaries. Thankfully, these are cross-referenced to the plates and photos which follow.
These next 36 plates, containing 341 color illustrations, help bring life to the preceding species accounts. Users will find themselves moving back and forth through these two sections.
And as if the 36 plates of artwork were not enough, there are 66 photographs in the photo gallery which follows, helping us along.
Finally, there are four useful appendices, those on color, a model worksheet, growth and development tables, and species comparison tables.
Wisely, not included in the book are intricate details on individual species related to habitat, ranges, breeding behavior, or adult vocalization. That information can easily be found elsewhere. Consequently, this work is an ideal companion volume for a variety of popular field guides and an added bonus in field-study during the breeding season.
Besides, this book by Linda Tuttle-Adams is already bursting at the seams at just over 400 pages.
Indeed, far beyond the simple presentation of “cute baby bird,” the work takes the identification of these young birds – overwhelming at first glance – and makes their ID approachable. In short, Linda Tuttle-Adams has provided us with a ground-breaking field or library reference. It deserves broad use and consideration.
The reader might normally expect a review like this to end at this point, but it is not quite finished. That is because some readers might appreciate that it is exactly 30 years ago, the spring of 1993, that another book on young birds appeared. It was The Downy Waterfowl of North America (Delta Station Press, 1993, 302 pp.) by Colleen Helgeson Nelson (1932 – 2022).
Her magnum opus, a detailed review of the young of 54 waterfowl species, was the culmination of three decades of study, hard work by a talented artist and researcher. This work provided comprehensive descriptions, drawings, color portraits, and diagnostic identification of live, day-old young of North American waterfowl through nine large color plates, numerous pen-and-ink drawings, and charcoal sketches to accompany the thorough species accounts and helpful keys.
Yes, The Downy Waterfowl of North America is still used by “the waterfowl crowd,” and it has a place on the shelves of corresponding research stations, but it never got the appreciation and use that it fully deserved. Neither did Colleen Helgeson Nelson, the book’s dedicated author and skilled artist.
This reviewer only hopes that Baby Bird Identification: A North American Guide by Linda Tuttle-Adams does not end up with a similar fate.
Paul J. Baicich
Co-author of three books, including A Guide to the Nests, Eggs, and Nestlings of North American Birds, Second Edition, 1997, Princeton University Press, with co-author, Colin J.O. Harrison.
Header photo: Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica), Sara Hollerich/USFWS
Suggested citation:
Baisich, P. Review of the book Baby Bird Identification: A North American Guide by Linda Tuttle-Adams. Association of Field Ornithologists Book Review. https://afonet.org/2023/03/baby-bird-identification-a-north-american-guide/.
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