Harper Collins UK, publishers of such cornerstone natural history titles as the Collins Bird Guide, British Wildlife, and the monumental New Naturalists series, has now brought online Collins Birds, an exciting new website for bird watchers that combines social networking with extensive online bird reference and reporting resources. Drawing upon Collins’ extensive catalog of bird information compiled through years of producing some of the world’s finest field guides, this new free site offers users the opportunity to look up information on a particular species, report a sighting, maintain a personal checklist, review the latest real-time sightings near them on a satellite map, create sighting alerts for specific birds or locations, help out with user-submitted mystery bird sightings, upload and rate photos, make new friends, and participate in online discussions in the forum. Read the rest of this entry »

At long last the much anticipated second edition of the Collins Bird Guide: The Most Complete Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe by Lars Svensson, Killian Mullarney, Dan Zetterstrom, and Peter J. Grant is now available in a jacketed hardcover edition with the paperback edition still scheduled for release in March of 2010. NHBS Environment Bookstore in the U.K. lists the hardcover edition as being in stock; however Powell’s Books in the U.S. is not yet showing the book as available through their own locations. As this book has been so long anticipated and will be in such high demand, it may take the distribution links outside the U.K. a bit more time to secure copies of the book for sale. As of this writing, The Well-read Naturalist has not yet received a review copy. Be assured that once we have, a review will be published in as timely a manner as possible.

NHBS Environment Bookstore is reporting that the much anticipated publication of the second edition of the Collins Bird Guide: The Most Complete Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe by Lars Svensson, Killian Mullarney, Dan Zetterstrom, and Peter J. Grant has been delayed until 2010. The website for Harper Collins UK now lists the publication date for the cloth bound edition as January of that year. They do not list the paperback edition at present but NHBS’ own website indicates that it is expected in March of 2010. The original Collins Bird Guide, published in 1999, is widely considered to be a cornerstone reference for the birds of Britain and Europe. This new edition has been much anticipated since word of its future publication was first made known. Those who have seen advance copies of it have indicated that the wait for the release of second edition is well worth it.

In addition to true love’s kiss, praise of one’s native land, and longing for one’s absent beloved, birds have long been the one of the most popular subjects for poetry. From Catullus’ sparrow through Poe’s raven, birds have been admired, envied, questioned, debated, tasked, consulted, and meditated upon in verse for centuries. The reasons for this are not hard to comprehend – most birds can do the one thing humans cannot but dearly wish they could: fly. From this mankind has traditionally inferred them to possess absolute freedom and endowed them with all the powers such a miraculous state of being is assumed to bestow. However in the modern world, just as the style of verse has changed dramatically, so have the uses of its traditional metaphors and imagery. Romanticism has been replaced by an unvarnished realism. In Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems about Birds, verse reflecting both the old and the new poetic understanding and inclusion of birds has been collected and is presented in conjunction with contemporary illustrations of the avian world to both entertain as well as inspire the reader to deeper consideration of just what role these marvelous creatures now play in our collective literary imagination. Read the rest of this entry »