Birds in Winter: Surviving the Most Challenging Season

Description

How birds have evolved and adapted to survive winter Birds in Winter is the first book devoted to the ecology and behavior of birds during this most challenging season. Birds remaining in regions with cold weather must cope with much shorter days to find food and shelter even as they need to avoid predators and stay warm through the long nights, while migrants to the tropics must fit into very different ecosystems and communities of resident birds. Roger Pasquier explores how winter affects birds' lives all through the year, starting in late summer, when some begin caching food to retrieve months later and others form social groups lasting into the next spring. During winter some birds are already pairing up for the following breeding season, so health through the winter contributes to nesting success. Today, rapidly advancing technologies are enabling scientists to track individual birds through their daily and annual movements at home and across oceans and hemispheres, revealing new and unexpected information about their lives and interactions. But, as Birds in Winter shows, much is visible to any interested observer. Pasquier describes the season's distinct conservation challenges for birds that winter where they have bred and for migrants to distant regions. Finally, global warming is altering the nature of winter itself. Whether birds that have evolved over millennia to survive this season can now adjust to a rapidly changing climate is a problem all people who enjoy watching them must consider. Filled with elegant line drawings by artist and illustrator Margaret La Farge, Birds in Winter describes how winter influences the lives of birds from the poles to the equator.

Roger F. Pasquier, a lifelong birder, has had a career with the International Council for Bird Conservation, the Environmental Defense Fund, and the National Audubon Society, and is currently an associate in the Department of Ornithology at the American Museum of Natural History. His many books include Watching Birds and Masterpieces of Bird Art.

"The material is well organised with a sensible, progressive arrangement of chapters, plenty of subheadings and a useful summary to round off each section. The text is pitched roughly at the level of a 'New Naturalist' volume, bridging the gap between professional ornithologist and interested amateur. . . . [An] accessible and useful reference."---Ian Carter, British Birds "New facts on every page!"---John Miles, Birdwatching Magazine "This book is as broad ranging as it is deeply informative. . . . You cannot read this one without learning a great deal and, despite the author's undoubted expertise the touch is light enough to make it an accessible read too. "---Bo Beolens, Fat Birder "[Birds in Winter] is assiduously underpinned with scientific references, but at the same time takes the reader on an accessible and fascinating tour."---Paul Nicholson, The London Free Press "[A] highly informative, detail-packed, research-based description of bird behavior."---Donna Lynn Schulman, 10,000 Birds "[The] topic . . . is well served by the author who clearly demonstrates that it genuinely deserves a whole book, and that it is not off-beat at all."---Anthony P. Payne, Glasgow Naturalist "A . . . welcome publication on a previously neglected topic. I found it a tremendous compilation of ideas and facts about wintering birds and I think it deserves to be very widely read."---Tony Gaston, The Canadian Field Naturalist "An admirable treasure trove and summation of what is known about wintering birds for all biologists, climatologists, birders, ecologists, environmentalists, and conservationists." * Choice * "The author has put together an impressive account of a bird's year. . . . A novel approach to the ornithological literature and an instructive read."---Christopher Perrins, IBIS Book Reviews "We owe the author a debt of gratitude for his thorough and earnest overview of the "other" half of the lives of birds. I highly recommend this book for its shift in perspective."---P.A. Bednekoff, Ornithology