I Was Surprised To Learn This Too But Its Because Most Of Them Are Actually Rather Small!

I was surprised to learn this too but its because most of them are actually rather small!

The nectar-imbibing Miniature Humminghawks' Mothbird is a great example of how size can be a major factor that helps many avians escape detection - at a mere half-centimeter wingspan, the vast majority of MHMOs are incorrectly-identified as some sort of moth. While they do feature antennaesque guard feathers and a remarkably flexible bill, these features convergently evolved to compensate for their extremely clumsy flight skills and not as might first be assumed for mimicry.

(image source: x)

just found out about bird. dude.... why isnt anyone talking about this this is huge

Fun fact: You can fit a barn owl inside a Quaker oats container.

Some of their tail and wings will stick out a bit but the whole rest of the bird fits inside ao this is a sound method to use when banding youngsters who are near fledging (and thus adult sized).

American Woodcock demonstrates "distal rhynchokinesis," the ability to flex the end of its bill. This allows it to grab earthworms it encounters when probing in soil. Other shorebirds, including Dunlins & Sanderlings, can bend their bills in this way. 😃

Mischief and craft are plainly seen to be characteristics of this creature.

—Claudius Aelianus, third century A.D., writing about the octopus

The dissertation is officially real!

Untitled Wednesday Library Series, Part 151

Ian Newton's Population Ecology of Raptors, published in 1979 by T. & A. D. Poyser, Ltd., a publisher specialized in ornithology about which there's a surprisingly tidy little Wikipedia article.

The How

As I mentioned last week, I found this next to the book I featured last week. I'm pretty sure this is the one I picked up and waved around at @krieper to signal a Bird Find, but I suppose it could've been the tern one instead. The treachery of memory. You understand.

The Text

'Raptors' here stands for an obsolete version of the order Falconiformes, which included the families Cathartidae (American vultures and condors), Pandionidae (the osprey), Accipitridae (hawks, kites, buzzards, eagles, and Eurasian and African vultures), Sagittariidae (the secretarybird), and Falconidae (caracaras, falcons, and falconets). The author acknowledges that this grouping is probably paraphyletic — a good and correct notion; more recent work has split his subjects across two orders — but the systematics aren't really the point. Unlike last week's feature and despite its similarities to this week's, neither is behavioral evolution. This is very straightforwardly a population ecology book. Hence, like, the title, I guess.

To that end, lots and lots of summaries of breeding and migration studies, as well as of then-current conservation work, including and especially efforts concerning DDT and other organochlorides. The focus is mainly but not entirely on British bird populations and management practices, and mainly but not entirely on perspectives well represented in the contemporary literature about them. Nothing revolutionary, but all (it seems to me) competently collated.

The Object

Very British, though subtly so. Some of that impression is down to the copy style, but the graph layout and illustrations don't hurt either. The type is all 10/11 pt. VIP Melior, which as far as I can tell is a branch of Hermann Zapf's Melior family that ITC sold for variable input typesetting machines.

Lots of photos (in 32 plates, most doubled) from lots of people, some of which are even OK to look at. The photos, that is. The illustrations (one per chapter, plus the cover, frontispiece, and a couple spares), all by one Jim Gammie, are a great complement to Netwon's prose and really tie the whole thing together. Figures (50) and tables (68) are mostly legible and occasionally really cool.

Orange endpapers; black bookcloth; gold spine detailing; thin but not flimsy paper printed by photolithography. The previous owner wrapped the jacket in a proper paper/mylar protector, which means I don't have to do it myself. Nice.

The Why, Though?

I mean, it's birds of prey.

Not all of them are birds of prey I've got meaningful access to, but some of them are, and what does that matter anyway? This is more of a goes-on-the-bird-shelf-to-fill-out-the-bird-shelf kind of thing than a cover-to-cover read, but I've been meaning to put more mid-level bird taxa in my head and this is fine for that, outdated though it otherwise is.

It doesn't hurt that it's a looker, of course. If this series had any themes or motifs — it doesn't, but hypothetically — one would be that I care more about pretty things than I care to admit.