“Book Reviews” from Nebraska Bird Review (September 1986) 54(3)

Authors

Date of this Version

9-1986

Document Type

Article

Citation

“Book Reviews,” from Nebraska Bird Review (September 1986) 54(3).

Comments

Copyright 1986 Nebraska Ornithologists’ Union. Used by permission.

Abstract

The Birds of Nebraska: A Critically Evaluated List, Tanya Bray, Barbara K. Padelford, and W. Ross Silcock, 112 pp., 5½ x 8½, paper, available from Barbara Padelford, Bellevue, Nebraska. The authors of The Birds of Nebraska have examined the records for the 445 species (including Clark’s Grebe) that have been listed for Nebraska (some in error), and classified them as to the reliability of the record and the frequency of occurrence.

Eskimo Curlew A Vanishing Species? J. B. Gollop, T. W. Barry, and E. H. Iversen, 160 pp., 5½ x 8½, Special Publication No. 17 of The Saskatchewan Natural History Society, paper, available from the Blue Jay Bookshop, Box 1121, Regina, Saskatchewan S4P 3B4, Canada, $9.00 (Canadian), postpaid. This is the sad story of the Eskimo Curlew, from the first records to the present day. Much use is made of the records of George Cartwright, a British factor in Labrador in the late 1700s, and of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s R. R. MacFarlane’s records of his collecting for The Smithsonian Institution in the mid-1800s, in the northwest corner of Canada’s Northwest Territories.

Harrier, Hawk of the Marshes: The Hawk that is Ruled by a Mouse, Frances Hamerstrom, 172 pp., 6 x 9¼, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC, indexed, cloth $24.95, paper $10.95. This is the story of Mrs. Hamerstrom’s 25-year study of Northern Harriers (done in her spare time from the study of Prairie-Chicken), told in short anecdotal chapters that are interesting reading while they bring out some point about Harriers.

Birds Worth Watching, George Miksch Sutton, 208 pp., 6½ x 9½, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, indexed, cloth $19.95. This is a collection of short (3 pages or so) articles about 60 different birds, with a color picture of each species included.

A Revised List of the Birds of Nebraska and Adjacent Plains States, Paul A Johnsgard, 170 pp., 8½ x 11, indexed, paper, available from Nebraska Ornithologists’ Union, Inc. (NOU), University of Nebraska State Museum, Lincoln, Neb. 68588, $7 .00, plus $1.50 for mailing. Dr. Johnsgard’s third printing of his (originally) Preliminary List is essentially the original with some additions. The species accounts give information on abundance, seasonal appearance, and dates of migration, and the section of the state in which they occur.