Gulls Simplified: A Comparative Approach to Identification by Pete Dunne and Kevin T. Karlson: A review

Ask your average birder about what families of birds are most difficult to correctly identify in the field and I can pretty much guarantee that gulls will rank high on their list. I mean they are all combinations of gray, white, and black. What can the poor birder latch onto as an easy way to distinguish individual species?

Since the sainted Roger Tory Petersen published his first field guide to birds back in 1934, field identification of birds has focused on plumage - its colors and patterns. But this just doesn't work really well for gulls. In addition to the fact that they are generally combinations of the three aforementioned colors, or non-colors, they go through a series of plumage changes over the years from their juvenile feathers to adulthood. Moreover, even in adulthood, the plumage of a gull in winter can be drastically different from that during the breeding season. Again, what's the poor birder to do?

Well, Pete Dunne and Kevin T. Karlson have some thoughts on that subject and have come up with a method of comparison that should prove useful to serious birders. It essentially involves a focus on size, body shape, and structural features, along with plumage details, in order to make identification in the field easier. Mastering this method, one could potentially identify a gull based on only seeing its backlit silhouette. As a guide, the book features pictures of such silhouettes of the twenty-two species (including one that has two sub-species) that occur regularly in North America.

The book also contains plentiful full-color pictures of the gulls in their habitats, along with all the information that any good field guide has about distribution, the status of the species, unique tidbits about their habits, food, and nesting. Gulls typically mate for life and both members of the dyad feed and protect the nestlings.

Gulls are intelligent and adaptable birds and this book should give all its readers better skills at being able to identify individual species, as well as a greater appreciation of the family as a whole. It is written in an easily understood conversational style that is appropriate to the information being presented and that makes it a very useful addition to the birder's library.

(Disclaimer: A free copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher, Princeton University Press, for the purpose of this review. Opinions expressed here are entirely my own.)

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

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