DK Eyewitness Books: Bird: Discover the Fascinating World of Birds their Natural History, Behavior, 9780756637682

I have been waiting a very long time for a book like this to be published.I have a passion for wildlife and, with mammal books a-plenty on the market, praised the day when I saw this book advertised.As you would expect from DK/Audobon, the layout of this visual feast is excellent and is well-written. The photographs are breathtaking, including some fabulous double-page features. The audio CD contains 60 bird calls and songs from around the world (nearly an hour's worth) - fantastic!!The only criticism I have is of the main publishers, Penguin. Only the US version has the audio CD of bird calls and songs, and I had to wait until Amazon had it for sale. Why should this be the case?

Natural history approach. Not many pictures of birds. Many pictures of feathers and bones and eggs with scattered information. Usual establishment religious evolution indoctrination. Based on no true "scientific" evidence this evolution garbage is pedalled here. Personally when someone goes to so much effort to promote something that is not proven I start to wonder. Then I see they are trying to hide something. Now why would you go to so much effort to hide something that isn't true or is insignificant? Conversely the establishment has gone and goes to enormous lengths to indoctrinate people with a false doctrine to conceal the true religion. True science has now proved evolution is not feasible. Fossil records do not show the evolution of species and the complexity of life such as DNA and the organisation, behaviour and capacity of birds implies a hidden force which the establishment will do all they can to conceal or ignore. But now it's staring us in the face. What's more we discover that they have also suppressed evidence of a flat and still earth. The curve which we here very little about is supposed to be 66feet over 10miles but is apparent nowhere. It does not exist. "Science" cannot explain how surface water across vast expanses of land we call oceans are supposed to curve. Our perception of the world has been corrupted by money. See Edward Hendrie and Texe Marrs. Given they have gone to so much length to conceal the evidence supporting Genesis and God creating heaven and earth I can only conclude that it's the truth. Whichever way you look at it don't let them deceive you that evolution is anything other than a religion buried under layers of scientific "facts". You need blind faith to believe in the original spark of life and the big bang which must have involved some supernatural force.

Beautiful picture book with lots of information about birds from all over the world. I would have liked to have seen more images and less info, as I bought it primarily for inspiration for drawing.

Worth for the price

With a title like this it is tempting to think "who are you trying to kid?", but in fact this is the latest in a whole series of well-illustrated DK books with ambitious titles such as "Earth", "Universe", "History", "Human" and of course the best-selling title "Animal - the definitive visual guide". Having been a contributing author on the bird section of the latter book I was intrigued to see how DK handled the entire bird world in one volume.Anyone who has bought a DK title before will know that they pack in masses of illustrations, with concise but useful facts backed up with short chapters on wider subjects. Everything is always very busy with fact boxes and tables, while photographs may be small or covering half a page or more, perhaps overlapping the text or completely cut out. Everything is incredibly busy-looking, but that is what many people want today - particularly those of school age.With Birdlife International taking care of the species texts and the National Audubon Society being a consultant on the book's creation, there has clearly been plenty of input from "those in the know", which is always a welcome relief. Indeed a cast of eleven well-known birders wrote the various family chapters, and although I have some criticisms I think they did an admirable job.The first 40 pages are used to describe a wide range of issues such as anatomy, flight, diet, behaviour, and breeding. Another 28 pages describe the many habitats that birds use. The next 400 pages are the main feature - a selection of the world's species in greater detail.So how did they tackle fitting nearly 10,000 species into 510 pages? The book follows Howard and Moore's list, and then a sample of each of the 204 families are examined. Each selected species is given the same treatment: name, scientific name, length, weight, a comment on migratory habits, and a description of preferred habitat. A short text of 75-150 words follows with a tiny map measuring a meagre 24mm x 17mm (ie smaller than a postage stamp). Around 15% of known species are described, but surprisingly not all of these are illustrated.Books like this are usually driven by the availability of photographs and the inclination is to give greater coverage to better-known families. Consequently non-passerines tend to dominate the species coverage even though they are well outnumbered by passerines in the real world. This book falls into this trap. Sixty percent of the space is allocated to the forty percent that are non-passerines.Indeed, some of the biggest passerine families are crammed into a small area. So despite having 308 species worldwide (including American sparrows), the Bunting family is tucked into five pages with only 20 of them featured, while 11 of the 17 penguins are described in a chapter of the same size.A number of great birdwatching sites, such as Kakadu and the Danube Delta have been inserted at various places within the species texts. These are useful, but would have been better placed at the front with the habitat descriptions.This will be a popular book and there is no doubt that it will do well. In particular I think it is fabulous for kids. Compared to the literature I could get my hands on as a beginner it is light years ahead. If you are travelling to the USA it might pay to buy it over there as in North America it comes with a CD of 60 bird songs from around the world.