Seabirds: The New Identification Guide
Book by Peter Harrison, Martin Perrow & Hans Larsson.
Lynx Edicions. 2021. 600 pages. hardbound. $90.00.
With 239 color plates and 433 species treated this is not an overpriced monograph. Seabirds is a marvelous book. Many of the species here are not very well known. Consider some of the citations to Hadoram Shirihai in this book’s References with recent notations such as “rediscovery”, “first observations at sea”, “poorly known”, “new species of …”, “first observations of …”.
The excellent color plates capture the inspiring flight manner of these mysterious birds. For each species the accounts have descriptions of their range plus a colorful range map, identifications, and “confusion species” plus color paintings on the opposite page.
Some of these birds have complex appearances, such as the Wandering and Tristan albatrosses, each depicted in ten plumages. plus 11 more images of “schematic upperparts”. “The progressive whitening with each moult cycle thus varies between the species, sexes and individually, and the process can take up to 20-25 years to complete.” p. 314. There are some 28 figures for Northern Gannet. ! 21 of Common Gull.
There are also cogent introductory sections for bird groups, such as pp. 84-87 for gulls, with 5 paintings plus discussions of overview of the group, ID, moult & ageing, basic patterns, jizz & flight behavior, head shape & pattern, upperpart colour, wing pattern, bill size, shape & colour, eye colour, rings & crescents, leg colour, and, finally, tail shape & bands.
The range maps, (2 3/16” X 2 7/16”) are necessarily schematic, for many of these charismatic birds cover thousands of miles, especially in the non-breeding seasons, but they show breeding areas in yellow, non-breeding in blue. Many seabirds breed only on a few island areas, shown as yellow dots on the maps. Because of the vast ranges involved the range maps lack place names. But the high quality maps on pp. 24-27, plus the end papers, show the locations and names of these far flung islands. Enhancing the species accounts are indications of the population numbers, such as c. 3,700 pairs of Antipodean Albatross.
Harrison is well and deservedly known for his 2 previous titles Seabirds: an Identification Guide (Harrison’s paintings. Houghton Mifflin, 1983, 448p.) and A Field Guide to Seabirds of the World (photographs, Stephen Greene, 1987, 317p.). His exploits are so outstanding that he was awarded an MBE (Member of the British Empire) in 1995.
The only misgivings concerning the paintings here are mine for the rather brutally schematic ones of frigate birds (p. 496, 498, 499), presumably necessitated by their extravagant wingspreads, the greatest “wing-loadings” of any birds, but totally compensated for by the high quality color paintings on pp. 500 and 500 of frigate birds at rest or on the wing.
Anyone who has ever witnessed the dynamic soaring of an albatross or the various flutterings of storm-petrels ought to be charmed and stimulated by the marvelous color paintings.
71 species of gulls are treated here. Seabirds is more expansive than other seabird books treating some species that are not especially oceanic or pelagic (e.g., the grebes, Forster’s Tern) because they belong to groups that largely are. Even birders who never or seldom go to sea, or who are not ID freaks, should find this splendid book fascinating, a treasure.
Who isn’t inspired by Wisdom, the Laysan Albatross banded by Chan Robbins in 1956, when she was already at least 5 years old, and who has returned to Midway, in recent years to lay yet another egg. How many million miles has Wisdom flown?