The Birder's Companion - Softcover

Stephen Moss is the author of several books on birds, including The Birdfriendly Garden and A Bird in the Bush: A Social History of Birdwatching. He lives in London, where he produces a wildlife series for BBC radio.

Clive Dobson is a versatile artist and illustrator with many books to his credit, including Tex and Watersheds. He lives near Peterborough, Ontario.

Introduction

I have spent much of my life fielding questions about birds from people I encounter in various places. Not surprisingly then, I yearned for an easy reference source that provided all the answers in a single place, something like a walking encyclopedia on birds, a resource that is informative and accurate but also accessible and straightforward. My hope for this book is that it offers the reader a similarly friendly approach to learning about birds. I also want it to be relevant to readers having a wide range of interest in birds, from the keen birder who heads out every weekend, rain or shine, to the self-styled naturalist who is simply curious about the world.

Questions are a natural way of focusing our interest. The simple question-and-answer format used here takes you straight to the answer without swamping you in information you may not want or need. Instead of producing a dense textbook on the almost infinitely complex lives of birds, I have presented the information in easily digestible, bite-sized chunks that you can consume at leisure.

I began the writing process by collecting and compiling raw questions from a broad spectrum of people, including friends and family, beginners and experts. Some questions were fascinating, some ludicrous and some unanswerable, but all played a part in revealing the kind of things people want to know about birds. If you were part of this process, I hope you find your answer here, and with luck, a lot more besides.

From the myriad of questions about birds, I chose more than 500, and arranged them in ten chapters, each tackling a major theme, such as feeding, breeding or migration. This format makes it easy for the reader to choose how to read the book You can start at the beginning and read straight through, or you can follow your curiosity and browse and hop among the various sections. The comprehensive index helps you locate any question you want answered plus some you never thought of asking. From there I hope you will be drawn further into the book, where you will find equally interesting answers to related questions or gain a deeper insight into a particular subject.

You will find the text is liberally sprinkled with headlined boxes containing nuggets of information. These are what I call record breakers and they list superlatives such as the biggest, smallest, highest, fastest and so on. Being records, they are subject to certain qualifications: some, such as those concerned with longevity, may have already been surpassed by the time the book hits the shelves; others have their absolute accuracy open to question. And all of course are subject in the first place to the advent and accuracy of record keeping and simply reflect what has been measured or studied to date, which means they are not the final word on the subject. Facts and statistics, especially those related to the latest scientific discoveries, often show a distinct bias toward European or North American species, only because that is where most research takes place. All facts published here were checked against at least two further sources, and usually more. I used a number of reference books for this process and the most important of these are listed in the bibliography. Where there is any measure of doubt, I couched the information in suitably non-committal terms, such as "probably," "it is claimed," etc. If you discover a newer or more accurate record, please let me know (via the publishers) and I'll be happy to include it in future editions.

So who exactly is this book for? My longtime friend and birding companion Daniel Osorio gave me a typically backhanded compliment when he said it would appeal to intelligent, inquiring eleven-year-old boys -- the same age he and I were when we first met. While that may be true, I hope that it will appeal also to eleven-year-old girls, since there are far too few women birders. That it might spark an interest would help to redress the balance. Ultimately, however, I would like to think that this book has something to offer readers of all ages, and that it is equally suitable for experienced birders, complete novices and anyone in between. Wherever you may be in that continuum, I hope you enjoy reading it. I hope also that you are motivated to go outside and look anew at birds -- which to my mind are the most elegant, fascinating and delightful of all God's creatures.

Stephen Moss
December 2006