Birds of Forest, Yard & Thicket

interesting and informative,fairly good variety of birds including the ones most likely to be seen around the yard, bushes,etc.Can also be used for a brief reference occasionally, depending on the season and location.

We live with lots of forest and thickets (for better or worse) all around our house so it was so great to find this book! It gave me a better appreciation for the thickets as a valuable habitat but also this book has such great information on the birds themselves. We are lucky to have some resident Brown Thrashers that live here and this past summer one oft he young fledged a bit early. I was worried about it but was able to look it up in the book and find that they nest in thickets and often close to the ground or on the ground. So, since the parents were right nearby (making quite a scene) I sent the baby back into the thickets where the parents were and they seemed to find it and all was well. Without this book I would have been looking up in ther trees for a possible nest that it fell out of. Anyway, its a terrific reference - Each bird entry has a brief intro paragrapgh with some neat nuggets of info on the bird. This is followed by close relatives (which you also might see in the thicket/forest area), followed by bird behaviors (in the spring, summer, fall and winter), followed by nesting info like number of eggs, nesting habits, ecology such as the type of habitat they prefer. The section is concluded usually with a section called "focus" where some special info is provided. Excellent book that has really helped me to get to know and understand the birds that we share our little sanctuary of home with. Definitely recommend this to anyone living in or frequently hiking in this sort of habitat.

I've owned this book a while and find and it to be an excellent source of information on individual species of birds. For some of us, just learning to recognize birds just isn't enough. Behavior is very interesting also, and this book contains interesting informative information on different birds. This is a must have for the library of every birder.

The best thing about this comprehensive and well-researched reference is the illustrations by Amelia Hansen. If the publisher had only printed these pen-and-ink drawings larger, the book would have been more helpful. Hansen obviously understands the way birds move, rest and interact.