If you’re a birder and you haven’t been to Ecuador yet, you have almost certainly talked with friends who have been, and I’ll bet they said they had a wonderful time and saw some amazing birds. The country now has excellent lodges, great guides, easy travel, and that extensive collection of amazing birds.
When tourism increases in any part of the world, can the lavishly illustrated coffee-table book be far behind? Plumas, by Murray Cooper, is just that, a collection of strikingly beautiful photographs of many of the birds found in Ecuador. There are a few short bits of text that describe the country’s habitats and conservation needs, and these are well written and useful, and some of the photo captions offer useful insights into bird biology, but the words are all secondary to the pictures.
There are a few images that aren’t as sharp as you might like, and some of the pictures are straightforward portraits of perching birds, but many are knock-your-socks-off, stunning shots, sometimes of birds that are quite rare and/or hard to find. After the momentary jealous thoughts of, “Doggone it, I looked for that one and missed,” I found myself marveling at some of the behaviors and postures captured by Cooper. The Coppery-chested Jacamar is shown in dramatic pose with captured butterfly in its beak. An extreme close-up of Rufescent Tiger-Heron captures the feeding bird mid-gulp. Pink-throated Becard is shown pausing amidst palm fruits with nesting material in its bill. Greater Ani is shown bringing food to the nest, and the frog in its bill is even identified to species (Hyla calcarata).
Of course some of Ecuador’s best-known birds are included, and these are shown in elegant, atypical poses. Cooper’s Andean Condor photograph shows two birds in flight from near eye-level, a striking shot that is certainly not the typical view of these birds soaring far overhead. Visitors to the Amazon basin in Ecuador are likely to see Hoatzins, but not necessarily one adult bird with two tiny chicks nestled into its belly feathers. A series of photos shows a Rufous-bellied Seedsnipe bathing. The list goes on and on.
If you’ve traveled to the tropical rainforests and tried to photograph birds, you know how hard it can be to get decent shots. It’s very impressive that Cooper photographed birds in their natural habitats, didn’t use a flash, and, with a few exceptions, did not digitally adjust the photos. Yes, there are a few photos where a leaf or branch is between the camera and the bird, and some purists might criticize those imperfections, but, to me, they just add a bit of reality to the work. I like it. A lot.
I do wish there was an index in the book, so I could immediately flip to the photo of a particular species, but that’s a small complaint. The book is designed for casual viewing, for simply leafing through the pages and enjoying the photos. That’s how the book will be enjoyed. If you’ve been birding in Ecuador, you’ll enjoy Plumas as a keepsake from your journey. With luck, lots of people will see the book, marvel at the photos, and be inspired to support bird conservation efforts in Ecuador and throughout the American tropics.
Cooper, Murray. Plumas: Birds in Ecuador. Quito, Latinweb, 2006. 239 pages, hardcover, $49.00. ISBN-10: 9978-45-515-9; ISBN-13: 978-9-978-45515-9.
The Sound Approach to Birding, which lists as its authors Mark Constantine and The Sound Approach, fits this archetype perfectly. In the acknowledgements, it is stated that, “The Sound Approach are Arnoud B van den Berg, Mark Constantine and Magnus Robb,” but most of the text is written in the first person singular, so I assume that Constantine is the author, while van den Berg and Robb are his primary field companions, and that ideas for the project were generated while afield birding and recording bird sounds. The Sound Approach is also listed as the publisher. It’s a bit confusing just who or what is “The Sound Approach.” Regardless, The Sound Approach to Birding is a wild, if somewhat undisciplined, and highly entertaining look at the study of bird sounds.
This volume, which combines a book with two audio CDs, is an intensive lesson that could be subtitled, “Everything you could ever imagine that has to do with bird sound.” For the passionate birder, it’s an amazingly rich and complex discussion that dissects bird sounds, compares various techniques of field recording, and chronicles the enormous amount of time and effort that has gone into its production and to the generation of the concept. If you’re more of a beginner or a casual birder, stick to Birding by Ear (in the Peterson Field Guide series) for learning purposes, but you still might enjoy The Sound Approach to Birding simply for its irreverent prose and outrageous stories.
If you’re ready to fully explore the variety of bird sounds, and the varied (and often inadequate) methods people use to describe sounds, jump into this volume with all the vigor and enthusiasm you can muster. Its basic approach is superb: the CDs are designed to provide audio examples at key points of the text. It makes a great lecture, and experienced birders are likely to learn the most. While the author (authors?) are European, and most recordings are of European species, the whole point is not to teach you bird songs, but to teach you how to listen and how to study. If you’ve never learned how to decipher sonograms, after going through The Sound Approach to Birding you’ll either understand completely or you’ll give up trying to learn forever, for the text is loaded with these graphs. Happily most of the sonograms include handwritten notes of emphasis to direct your attention to key bits of the sound. Listen to a song, “watch” it on the sonogram, pay special attention to the noted parts, and, by golly, you’ll hear what the authors want you to hear!
While the CDs are matched to the text, it’s fun to just listen to them to enjoy the variety of sounds that are made by birds. There are more than two hours of recordings on the CDs, divided into 99 tracks on each CD, including two tracks of humans imitating bird calls!
The Sound Approach to Birding is really quite an interesting project, and it doesn’t end with this volume. Head online to www.soundapproach.co.uk to discover a rapidly evolving universe surrounding the book, the approach, and the intensive (and growing) British obsession with birds and bird sounds. If you consider yourself a serious birder, you’ve probably already been there. It probably won’t take you long to notice, too, that Mark Constantine is a very successful entrepreneur. He and his colleagues are trying to sell you on the ideas they have about learning bird sounds; the sales pitch is persuasive.
Constantine, Mark & The Sound Approach. The Sound Approach to Birding: A Guide to Understanding Bird Sound. Dorset, UK, The Sound Approach, 2006. 192 pages, 2 audio CDs, hardcover. ISBN-10: 90-810933-1-2; ISBN-13: 978-90-810933-1-6.