Best Bird Books of 2017

I don't usually post two days in a row but the start of the new year means it is time for all of the "best" lists to come out and I wanted to share this list of the top twelve bird books of 2017. The list was developed by Forbes and, as I have learned being on many book awards and best lists committees, is very subjective. The books are all non-fiction and memoir, although I've noticed a lot of birds in fiction this past year. They are also all for adults so the list doesn't consider the many really good books for kids that came out in 2017. Only Mozart's Starling is on my Kindle but I hope to read, and review, a few others from the list. And it will be interesting to see what books come out in 2018. I already have a few lined up! (Note also that one of the books, The Seabird's Cry, includes puffins, which I blogged about yesterday.) Happy reading!

Click on the link to go to the article and read the synopses but here are the titles:

1. Vulture: The Private Life of an Unloved Bird by Katie Fallon 
2. The Seabird's Cry: The Lives and Loves of Puffins, Gannets and Other Ocean Voyagers by Adam Nicolson
3. How to Speak Chicken: Why Your Chickens Do What They Do & Say What They Say by Melissa Caughe
4. The Robin: A Biography by Stephen Moss
5. Mozart’s Starling by Lyanda Lynn Haupt 
6. The Wonder of Birds: What They Tell Us About Ourselves, the World, and a Better Future by Jim Robbins
7. Birding Without Borders: An Obsession, a Quest, and the Biggest Year in the World by Noah Strycker
8. Birds Art Life: A Year of Observation by Kyo Maclear
9. Flock Together: A Love Affair with Extinct Birds by B.J. Hollars
10. One More Warbler: A Life with Birds by Victor Emanuel and S. Kirk Walsh 
11. As Kingfishers Catch Fire: Birds & Books by Alex Preston and Neil Gower
12. The Curious Bird Lover’s Handbook by Niall Edworthy

Twelve Best Books about Birds--2017

Porgs are Puffins!

The cutest creatures in The Last Jedi are the Porgs. Personally, I thought they looked a bit like my cat, Maggie and I was repulsed by the idea that Chewie had barbecued one. He eats one and then is friends with the others! The Star Wars films are filled with odd aliens but Porgs don't seem to serve any purpose. So why are they there? The reason they exist is really pretty practical. Skellig Michael, also known as the island where Luke Skywalker lives, is over run with puffins! Since the filmmakers couldn't get rid of the puffins (even though they do actually hunt and eat puffins in Iceland and some other areas, Skellig Michael, off the coast of Ireland, is a wildlife preserve so the puffins are protected) and it would have been near impossible. and unbelievably tedious, to digitally remove them. So puffins became Porgs!

Tufted Puffin (Alaska)

Puffins are tiny and elusive and hard to photograph. Although we saw some in Alaska, this is the best photo I could get. I had hoped to see many in Iceland but Hurricane Harvey canceled that trip so I have to be satisfied for now with my far off sighting. Some aquariums, including Biodome in Montreal, have puffins, like the one I was able to photograph in captivity (but that doesn't count for birders). Still, they are interesting to watch up close.

Atlantic Puffin in captivity

There are four species of puffins: Atlantic, Tufted, Horned, and the Rhinoceros Auklet which is anatomically a puffin, although it looks quite different. Porgs are based on Atlantic Puffins. They dive for fish, using their feet as rudders so that it looks like they are flying underwater. They burrow between rocks on sea cliffs, using their bills to cut into the soil and their feet to push it away. Puffins don't begin to breed until they are about 5 years old and can live to be 20 years old. They use body movements to communicate and the wider their beak is open the more upset the puffin is. In addition to Wookies and humans, their greatest predators are Great Black-billed Gulls. (Just kidding about the Wookies.)