[NatureNS] Which owl?

Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2010 02:47:56 -0400
From: Stephen Shaw <srshaw@dal.ca>
To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
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Hi Randy, Richard, Ian & all
Thanks for all the tips.  Nice to know that there are the other resources out
there if not all in the guides, and that subversion has not penetrated that
far.  I'll have a look when I get a breather from marking reports, which might
account in part for the misanthropic shoot-from-the-hip on this in the last
paragraph that you each picked up.  Practically, though, you probably could
cram a couple of extra lines into something the size of Sibley without making
it any bigger, if you were to stick to text and avoided adding further
illustrations.  Not what people want though, obviously.

What nobody including me pointed out is what probably explains most of it, the
comparison of species counts even just for eastern N. America, against those
for the UK.  It must be something like at least 10:1 (N.Am : UK) for sparrows,
more than that for warblers and flycatchers, and probably at least 5:1 for
nearly all categories except corvids (about even, an odd exception perhaps);
and then there's hummingbirds.  So it's not surprising that an average-sized
book for the UK could contain more info per species that a similar sized book
covering the birds of eastern N. America.
Regards,
Steve

Quoting iamclar@dal.ca:
Steve:
I agree with Richard Stern that field guides are not meant to inform on
life-history matters.However, there are lots of sources for that info. The
(outdated, but still usful) Robie Tufts' "Birds of Nova Scotia" has muuch
anectdotal and hard infor. But the best source is at your fingertips, as Dal
subscribes to the online "Birds of North America." (Hard copies also in the
reference room, main floor.)

Hit "databases" in the Library offerings and enter "Bird of North America" and
then choose species from the list. Pretty up to date.

Cheers, Ian

Ian McLaren


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