I love my bird books. I love that I can go to them to find out what bird I just saw outside my window! We have a nice big window right by our computer desk, so we can watch the birds and squirrels and red-shouldered hawks and foxes and neighborhood cats and whomever else may be passing through at the time. Those first two books shown above were here in the house. The little one was published in 1941, and the other in 1952. Only black and white drawings in Our Amazing Birds, so it is not my favorite. But it is a nice big, heavy book with a lot of information inside.
The two below are great, the older one published in 1956 has lovely color illustrations, and the other published 40 years later has gorgeous close-up color photos. I'm working on an attempt to collect ALL of the vintage Golden Nature Guides. They are wonderful little books.
But this one below, is the best of all. I found it in a thrift store. At $3.00, it was pricier than some thrift store books, but well worth it. It is a fabulous, heavy tome filled with color photos, illustrations and information.
And I didn't even see 'til I got it home that it included a bird song record album tucked in back!
A look at this last picture shows you how nice the book is beneath it's dust jacket!
This won't seem at all special to those of you who know a lot about birds, but the other day I saw a little bird and thought -"oh, is that a Junco?" And I looked it up, and I was right - so, see - I am learning something!
I have the song bird book with the record, it doesn't have its dust jacket though. I got it while I was collecting CDs with bird songs on them. I love to listen to them, they are very soothing to me. My favorite bird book is the Field Guide to Western Birds by Peterson. It was originally printed in th 1940s. I have Mother's old one with her notations in it from 50's, but also a newer edition which I use more so I don't wear out the old precious one. My favorite place to bird watch from is the guest room window upstairs, and my favorite bird to spot is the western tanager because they are so colorful. We don't see them here too often. Our more common birds are the house finch, purple finch, goldfinches, California quail, Anna's hummingbird, acorn woodpecker, tree swallow, scrub and stellers jays, nuthatches and titmouses, western bluebirds, robins, brewers blackbirds, bullocks oriole, rufus sided towhee, mourning doves, the red tailed hawk, and of course the infamous turkey vulture! I have seven bird feeders, two have the regular wild bird seed mixture, two have thistle seed, one has the black sunflowers, and two are the hummingbird feeders. I have to fill the two hummingbird feeders once a day in the summer. Last spring about 12 baby bluebirds spent one morning taking baths in my big birdbath, they were so adorable, and so blue! The brewer's blackbirds have a nest every spring in a hole in the large oak in the middle of our driveway. Sometimes you can see the babies sticking their heads out of the hole while they wait for mom to come feed them. They are very noisy. This last fall I watched nine red tailed hawks flying over the river together for the longest time. They finally went up over the house and out to the east. Love T
ReplyDeleteWow! See- I'd like to know as much about birds as you do! I feel lucky that we have such a nice yard where we are, and that we can see so many types of birds here. as well. One of these days, we will get some bird feeders out there!
ReplyDeleteI have a love of birds too! I have been slowly collecting things for my kitchen with a bird theme. I am going to do a blog post on that soon, actually! I think I like them because they remind me of growing up in the country... they feel like "home" to me. :)
ReplyDelete