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New Gull book



Folks:
	The highly anticipated (for gullphiles) "Gulls of North America,
Europe, and Asia" has just been published by Princeton U. Press. It is a
heavy book (not for the backpack!), with 800 color photos, and 96
full-color plates, covering 43 species.

The photos are excellent in quality, about like those in the Grant
books, except in color (so you can see leg color, etc.). But, there is
an errata sheet already. The range maps have a lot of problems, and I
suspect that the authors (Klaus Malling Olsen and Hans Larsson) were not
given the opportunity to check the legends with the maps before
publication. The odd projections I don't care for either on the maps.
The text is very detailed.

My main problem with the book is the single-species approach. Gulls, as
with shorebirds, are sociable birds, often occurring in mixed species
flocks, easy to photograph. Why, then, are almost all photos selected of
just a single species in the shot? I want to see a group of gulls, with
a Yellow-legged standing next to a Herring or a Lesser Black-backed, or
a Little Gull or Black-headed with Bonaparte's. Photo 556 does show a
winter ad. Lesser with a winter adult Yellow-legged, but many more such
photos would be helpful. (Ditto for a Little Stint with a flock of N.
American peep, or vice-versa, a Semi Sandpiper with a flock of European
species). Also, the plates are single-species, showing all of the
plumages/ages, which DOES require quite a few paintings. The book does
contain a few plates of adults for size and color comparison.

Also, there is relatively little information about hybrids, or photos of
them. (Of course, that could be another 100 pages or 100 photos!).

The book is fairly expensive (over $50, I believe), so unless you study
gulls carefully, you might not be interested. But, for those that do,
you should have the book. Just about every age/plumage of each gull
species is portrayed in a plate or in photos. But -- I sure wish there
would be more mixed-species photos of gulls, so that you can see size,
mantle color, leg color, etc., differences more readily than on
single-species photos.
-- 
Harry LeGrand
NC Natural Heritage Program
DENR   Office of Conservation and Community Affairs
1601 MSC
Raleigh, NC 27699-1601
(919) 715-8697 (work)
FAX: 919-715-3085
e-mail: harry.legrand@ncmail.net