Description
This stunning collection of art and text captures the grace, beauty, and flamboyance of the world's birds. In more than 500 pages, ornithologist Les Beletsky has gathered over 1,600 original paintings that reveal the form, posture, and plumage of all the avian families, with featured illustrations of 1307 avian species. The paintings are from eleven of the world's leading bird artists, with many being published here for the first time.
Beletsky's detailed, yet eminently readable, descriptions are paired with vivid images to show the diversity of the world's approximately 200 bird families. Backyard bird-watchers, avid birders, and professional ornithologists alike will find in these pages everything from the everyday to the exotic, from diminutive hummingbirds to massive ostriches, from Antarctic penguins to tropical parrots.
Comprehensive, authoritative, and beautifully illustrated, Birds of the World will amaze and inspire everyone with an interest in this remarkable fauna.Reviews
"Expert naturalist Les Beletsky and a team of first-rate artists have produced a bird world overview that is as accurate and informative as it is beautiful."—Kenn Kaufman, author of the Peterson Field Guide to Advanced Birding"Likely to be on the wish lists of bird-lovers everywhere."—Washington Post Book World "Birds of the World rests on a simple, indisputable premise: 'Birds are beautiful animals and many people enjoy watching them.' Beletsky makes this point in the first sentence of his preface and honors it in the ensuing 500 or so pages."—William Grimes, New York Times "A richly illustrated introduction to various wild birds."—Science News "Some books are handsome, others easy to use, and still others, interesting to read. This is all three and more."—Booklist "A valuable, enjoyable global survey that induces wanderlust and explains in equal measure."—Birder's World "Refreshingly lively . . . This is a book to browse for enjoyment, not a dry reference tome."—Maryland Ornithological Society "Probably the most attractive, and certainly the most current, overview of the world's bird species."—Jonathan F. Husband, American Reference Books Annual "Stands up well to the rest of the competition and deserves praise for its clear organization, wealth of accessible information, handsome and abundant illustrations, and affordability."—Quarterly Review of Biology "For those now inspired enough to want to learn more about the roughly 200 families of birds (10,000 known species), Les Beletsky's Birds of the World provides a spectacular introduction."—Discovery
Author Information
Les Beletsky, Ph.D., is an ornithologist and the series editor of the Travelers' Wildlife Guides. He is a visiting scholar at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, University of Washington.
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