Hummingbirds

My husband and I recently moved to the country. The former owners left us a hummibgbird feeder. Having little knowledge of hummingbirds but having heard many opinions and suggestions from friends, we searched for a book that would separate fact from fiction. Hummingbirds is the perfect book for detailed yet user friendly info. The pictures are beautiful and we were able to get the information we were looking for. Thanks to the book, we now have three feeders with regular customers!

I take issue with the prior review, as I am one of the ornithologists that the author consulted in the writing of this book. It should be noted that a coffee table book will not have the length to be extensive, nor will it be able to include every detail regarding its subject.

This is a great introduction to hummingbirds. The text is delightful for all ages, and the photographs are stunning. These creatures are amazing, and I was surprised by so many things about them. I was also surprised that I didn't lose interest reading about them. From a birdwatching relative, I understand that the book has a lot of useful information for the novice as well as the veteran, and I've also been told that some of the species pictured are very rare to see in a book. I had no idea that hummingbirds come in so many different varieties with head crests and odd tails, not to mention their fascinating feeding, nesting and migrating habits. We all know they can fly like no other bird, but they sleep in an almost dead state? Truly amazing! My kids and I have really enjoyed having this book, and I have to say that my birdwatching relative prefers it to most other comparable hummingbird books on the market.

This is a wonderful coffee-table book! I've read it twice and still find myself picking it up at odd moments, paging through it, lost in the beautiful pictures. I can't qualify as an expert on birds, or even a more-than-casual bird watcher, but even so, I used to spend hours of my vacations in New Mexico on my relative's deck, mesmerized by "hummers." This book has reawakened my fascination with them! The spritely writing compresses a vast amount of potentially soporific information into a lively account of hummingbirds' peculiar aerodynamics and physiology, of habitat and appetite, of "livin, lovin and fightin." (Did you know hummingbird intimacies last from 2-5 seconds? That should make all of us feel better. But since they live only 3-5 years, and have to eat every ten minutes, it doesn't.) It also includes a section on the care and set-up of your own hummingbird feeder, and the hummingbird in myth and folklore. Oddly enough, this book didn't come to me through a love of hummingbirds but of poetry -- I'd read the author in a back issue of a poetry journal, looked her up in a bookstore, and found this. No wonder the prose is so enjoyable! But it is the photos that keep me coming back -- in life you tend to get a glimpse of hummers in your peripheral vision. This book brings them to a full stop, in glowing color.