It’s hawk migration time once more in North The united states, time to as soon as once more college ourselves within the artwork of figuring out far-off silhouettes and remembering the adaptation between a float and a jump and a glide-wing flap-glide. My e book of selection for this time of yr is Jerry Liguori’s Hawks At A Distance: Id of Migrant Raptors, a super instructional on find out how to acknowledge raptors by means of form and flight taste, distilling years of enjoy and experience into 216 pages. Hawks At A Distance was once one of the crucial first books I reviewed for 10,000 Birds and I’ve determined to rerun it this month, partially to remind us all to learn and use it, and partially as a result of I’m making ready for a birding travel in a foreign country and I want all my mind energy to verify I pack the suitable digital camera lenses and hats. (Hello, I did overview two books remaining month!)
Additionally, I’m pondering of Jerry Liguori himself, who died after a 5 and a part yr battle with ALS in December 2021. I by no means met Jerry, however I corresponded with him about his books and he commented in this overview, announcing, “Thanks, it was once so great to learn and to peer that you simply and others revel in my books!….I like instructing and spending time with other people keen to be told. And I’m nonetheless studying. So, the hobby expressed right here in observing with me is a smart praise. Satisfied Hawk observing.” Along with Hawks At A Distance, Jerry Liguori wrote a complementary information, Hawks from Each and every Attitude: How one can Establish Raptors In Flight (PUP, 2005) and was once a co-author (with Richard Crossley and Brian L. Sullivan) of The Crossley ID Information Raptors (PUP, 2013).
Additionally, a observe that on this overview I point out that I had by no means learn Hawks in Flight, by means of Pete Dunne, David Sibley, and Clay Sutton. This was once remedied in 2012, when I reviewed the second one version. We’re unquestionably wealthy in raptor identity and herbal historical past books. And video sources. At a up to date Queens County Chook Membership assembly, hawk knowledgeable Josh Haas illustrated his presentation on migrating hawk identity with movies of hawk species on a break up display screen, so lets see the variations between, let’s say, a flying Purple-tailed Hawk and a flying Large-winged Hawk. The pictures was once from his new video information Hawks at the Wing. I haven’t observed the entire video but, nevertheless it appears to be like promising.
The Overview:
I confess, I don’t all the time love hawks. Certain, they’re gorgeous and robust, a reminder of the feral freedom of the skies. They’re additionally confoundingly tough to spot, the everlasting inscrutable spot within the distance. That is most likely why I quantity such a lot of hawk books in my assortment.
There’s the narrow Hawk Watch: At Information for Inexperienced persons, purchased on my first consult with to the Cape Would possibly hawk watch, the vintage A Box Information to North American Hawks, a part of the Peterson Box Information collection, the at hand Hawks & Owls of the Nice Lakes Area & Jap North The united states, with its photographic comparability charts. (For some reason why, I by no means purchased the vintage Hawks in Flight, by means of Pete Dunne, David Sibley, and Clay Sutton.) And, there are the non-field information hawk books, the narratives that learn like love songs to raptors and the massive espresso desk books, presents from non-birding buddies.
So, taking a look a Jerry Liguori’s latest e-newsletter, Hawks At A Distance: Id of Migrant Raptors (Princeton College Press, 2011), I ask myself, “Why? Why any other hawk e book?”
Liguori wrote Hawks At A Distance to fill an opening in raptor identity literature; he sought after to turn birders find out how to determine distance hawks in flight, in migration, within the subject, the use of images taken in “actual lifestyles” settings. He’s neatly certified to write down this kind of e book. Liguori has performed raptor migration counts at primary U.S. hawkwatch websites, and has written articles on hawk identity for the American Birding Affiliation and the Utah Birders weblog. He’s the THE go-to individual for hawk identity. He’s additionally the writer of my present favourite hawk e book, Hawks From Each and every Attitude: How To Establish Raptors In Flight (PUP, 2005).
On the center of Hawks At A Distance are 558 colour images, maximum organized as colour plate composites evaluating other variations of the similar chicken. Right here is among the 3 plates for American Kestrel.
American Kestrels in Flight, plate AK03; © 2011 Princeton College Press
There are images of buteos hovering overhead and harriers gliding low, of eagles coming at you head-on and flying away with handiest the tail in center of attention, of falcons backlit and kites in shadows. I used to be just a little beaten after I first opened the e book, until I spotted that every {photograph} has a function, illustrating the other paperwork or colours a raptor can take within the air. The collection of plates according to species varies, which makes numerous sense. There are 2 plates for Turkey Vulture and 13 plates for Purple-tailed Hawk.
Like The Crossley ID Information, the images paintings highest when used with the textual content. Liguori give a succinct “Review” and “Plumage” description for every staff (accipiter, buteo, and so forth.) and every species, delineating flight patterns, flight shapes, and all plumage permutations (and in case you idea you knew all of them, you could be shocked.)
An important figuring out traits are in daring print, a characteristic I in finding vastly useful. So, I be told that kestrels seem “dainty, narrow total, and vigorous and nimble in flight” however “can seem darkish beneath on overcast days.” All of the little clues that hawk watchers have accrued over time, the entire main points essential to tell apart a kestrel from a Merlin, a Sharpie from a Cooper’s, are within the quantity. Twenty-nine raptor species are lined (no owls): twenty commonplace migrant hawks and 9 further “Unusual Migrants and Others.”
Golden Eagle in flight, plate GE 03; © 2011 Princeton College Press
The photographic plates and statement take raptor identity to a degree of extraordinarily fantastic element that can be unheard of. In Golden Eagle plate 03 (left) we be told that “over snow, grownup remiges would possibly seem reasonably whitish (heart proper)” and that “when shadowed or in a float, Golden Eagles may also be unimaginable to age (backside left)”. This may also be intimidating to birders like me, who’re hawk identity challenged. However the wonderful thing about Hawks At A Distance is that you’ll be able to drill down during the other ranges of textual content, taking in as a lot element as you’ll be able to maintain at your stage.
I like to recommend studying the “Creation”, which defines phrases like “remiges” (“secondaries and primaries”), and the remaining bankruptcy, “Shapes”, during which multitudinous silhouettes (30-52) are offered for every of the 20 primary species. I’m a large silhouette fan. They lend a hand me center of attention on construction and now not get distracted by means of plumage which, I now know, can range relying on intercourse, age, mild, climate, and perspective.
All in all, this is a wonderful, compact information that effectively enhances Hawks From Each and every Attitude. Put the 2 books in combination and also you get the raptor identity information of each hawk watcher’s goals. The one grievance I’ve is that I need extra! I need extra on Quick-tailed Hawk, one of the crucial unusual migrants given briefer remedy. I need better half movies, appearing the flight patterns in motion. I need Jerry Liguori to return east and do a hawk watch with me.
Each books are printed by means of Princeton College Press, which means that the binding and paper are of prime, strong high quality, and that the colour images are neatly revealed. (Most of the full-page images are beautiful in their very own proper, now not handiest as instructing equipment.) Each books are priced very quite in paperback layout (see beneath).
I nonetheless don’t all the time love hawks. However I’m fairly keen on each Liguori guides, and dream of the time I will have a look at that speck within the sky and say, “Huge accipiter, tough flight, stiff wingbeats–Northern Goshawk!”
I’m inquisitive about your reports with those guides or different hawk books (or apps) within the subject. Which information labored right for you? Which e book do you stay for your automotive all through hawk migration season? And, in an excellent raptor international, which hawk information writer would you select to spend a day hawk observing with?
Hawks at a Distance: Id of Migrant Raptors, by means of Jerry Liguori, with a foreword by means of Pete Dunne
Princeton College Press, 2011. 216 pp., 6 x 8.5 in.
ISBN-10 : 0691135592; ISBN-13 : 978-0691135595
Paper $19.95; Kindle $9.99