Peterson, Kaufman, Sibley, and Stokes. My shelves are crammed with bird books: bird field guides, how to garden to attract birds, poems about birds, books of bird art, bird essay collections, birder biographies. Did I really need another book about birds?

Leafing through The Birdwatcher's Companion to North American Birdlife , the answer was a resounding yes. Organized alphabetically, from ABBREVIATIONS to ZYGODACTYL, this thousand–plus–pager is packed with bird lore, scientific facts, physiology, practical know–how, bad bird jokes, and fascinating trivia guaranteed to engage readers at any level of expertise. And now it's available in a well–bound paperback edition.

First published more than 20 years ago and newly revised and updated to include techie innovations like software, web cams, and new ways of field communication, The Birdwatcher's Companion covers the continental U.S. and Canada. At about half of the size of a double–slot toaster, it's too heavy to use in the field but perfect for curling up with at home or in the cabin. Enhancing the text are Gordon Morrison's 35 fine black–and–white illustrations, including a lovely page of nest sketches and a striking depiction of two blue herons mating.

Beginning with a favorite bird family (NIGHTJAR), I followed rabbit trails through a variety of entries.  I discovered the nighthawk might have "a mass of living, glowing fireflies" in its stomach after an evening's forays. Under the same entry, I found the "western nightjar, the poor–will, is the only bird species in which hibernation has been demonstrated (see TORPIDITY)."  Flipping to TORPIDITY, I read that hummingbirds become dormant each night and return to normal at daylight because of their high–energy requirements.  This sent me to HUMMINGBIRDS, which I learned have the highest metabolism of any warm–blooded vertebrate, with the possible exception of the shrews. Their nests are bound together with spider silk, and they lay two tiny, elongate eggs (see EGG). And so on. Many happy hours could be spent flipping back and forth through the book in this way.

Opening it at random, I skimmed through IMAGINATION, BIRDS IN "folklore and superstition," and read that owls signify disaster and death. If you wish for luck when you see three birds on a wire, your wish will come true if they don't fly away, but it's bad luck to bring eggs into the house after sunset. And, when paging through the book "on the fly," who wouldn't be enticed into reading the entry NAMES, COLLOQUIAL, with such intriguing subheads as Bogsucker, Chucklehead, Dunk–a–doo, Hell–diver, Swamp Angel, Tickle–arse, and Timberdoodle?

Thanks to Leahy, I'll be able to answer the head–scratching questions of the type children ask. Do birds SLEEP? (Yes, they do; they also nap.) Is there really something called a SNIPE hunt? (Yes.) Why do birds sing? (See SONG).

Few mystery novels contain such intriguing characters as the COWBIRD, which Leahy tells me slips into the nests of other birds at dawn while the parent birds are away and lays an egg, letting its young be raised by a different species. Other entries, by their very names, inspire curiosity. PIRACY? VAGRANCY? POLYGYNY? DRUNKENNESS?  SEX CHANGE?  SIBLICIDE? Who knew?

Beginning birders may puzzle over some of the humor (see BIRDSMANSHIP: an anecdote involving phalaropes and sanderlings), but any child could tell the aviculturist/ornithologist parakeet joke found under ODOR. "I plugged my parrot's nares with cotton yesterday." "Really? How does he smell?"  "Terrible!" Bad jokes aside, Christopher Leahy's dry wit is evinced in such entries as OWLING, which begins: "Select a winter's night on which it is highly likely to be bitter cold with a record–breaking wind chill."  Or, consider EDIBILITY, in which he includes a recipe from a 1924 issue of Field and Stream for cooking coots: ("Nail it firmly to a hardwood board. Put the board in the sun for about a week. At the end of that time, carefully remove the coot from the board, throw away the coot, and cook the board.")

For the practical–minded, there's plenty of hands–on information. CARE OF DISTRESSED BIRDS is a primer in what to do (and what not to do) if you discover an injured nestling. Under BIRDHOUSE, Leahy offers complete instructions and illustrations for building a simple nest box. OPTICAL EQUIPMENT is an accessible overview of telescopes and binoculars, while PHOTOGRAPHY has great tips on equipment and methods.

PROBLEMS INVOLVING BIRDS covers everything from how to stop the kamikaze robin from repeatedly banging into your window to removing the starling that flew down your chimney from the living room. Leahy takes this opportunity to lecture a little, intoning that in some cases,  "the solution might be found in a slight reassessment of your values rather than a massive disruption in the life of a fellow earthling." In other entries, such as four pages on EXTINCT BIRDS, he is more restrained, noting he would "simply present the facts of recent bird extinctions in North America leaving the moral/ethical issues of human responsibility to be pondered by the reader."

Things take a literary turn in NOUNS OF ASSEMBLAGE, with names for flocks of birds: a "charm" of finches, a "bouquet" of pheasants, a "murder" of crows, a "gulp" of cormorants, an "unkindness" of ravens, and the well–named "murmuration of starlings". And what vocabulary–minded reader could page past such tantalizing entries as DIAL A BIRD, GOBBLING GROUND, GOATSUCKER, JIZZ, KETTLE and TWITCHER?

Although I'm not statistically minded, I enjoyed discovering under LISTING that Phoebe Snetsinger holds the record for the highest number of species ever seen: 8,401. STATE/PROVINCIAL BIRDS tells me that the northern cardinal is the most popular state bird, chosen by seven states. The fastest North American bird? See SPEED, which suggests it's the white–throated swift at 200 mph.

Some entries turn technical, such as a seven–page discourse on COLOR AND PATTERN or an 11–page essay on EVOLUTION OF BIRDS. Others are absorbing features, such as CONSERVATION, MIGRATION, and a blessedly lucid essay on FLIGHT. Bird–rich states get special entries (FLORIDA) as do some towns (HINKLEY, OHIO, site of an annual celebration of the return of turkey vultures). Only deceased birding greats get biographical entries; you'll find the legendary Roger Tory Peterson, for example, but not avian whiz Kenn Kaufman. A few of the entries, like the explicit four and a half pages under ECTOPARASITE are best not read over breakfast (see also ENDOPARASITE and EXCREMENT).

The worth of the science here is without question; more difficult to quantify about the book is the value of the memories it inspires. When I read the entry for CONDOR, I remembered the exact moment I spotted several of them sitting on a ledge at the Grand Canyon. With the near–extinction of the condor a few years ago, it was enough to make any birder's pulse race.

I had to track down a few references by trial and error, and some information is excluded. West Nile Virus is not anywhere in the W's, but appears under DISEASE. You won't find the supposed sightings of the extinct—or not extinct—Ivory Billed Woodpecker by the Cornell research group in Arkansas, or information on the ensuing hot debate in the ENDANGERED BIRDS entry (although the Ivory Bill is noted as "probably extinct" under WOODPECKER).

But these are picky points. Readers of The Birdwatcher's Companion will come away with a new vocabulary, an enhanced appreciation of birds in cultural history, a heightened sense of awe, and fresh delight in the Creator's capacity for infinite variation and attention to the details. Break out the birdseed.

Cindy Crosby is the author of three books, including By Willoway Brook: Exploring the Landscape of Prayer (Paraclete), and editor/compiler of the Ancient Christian Devotional (InterVarsity Press).

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