book reviews
GARY H. MEITER
Bird is the Word
This is the best book on the subject, a work of scholarship. Similar titles are authoritative but dated. The bulk of this work features heavily annotated explanations of the names (common and scientific) for some 900 species, including pronunciations, plus names in Spanish, French, Inuit, etc. and exhaustive lists of colloquial names (e.g., 150 names for the northern flicker). Other sections feature detailed biographies of 138 naturalists and 15 additional historical figures, an excellent glossary, a list of references, and collective names (e.g., a bevy of quail). There are 42 sidebars, often entertaining as well as informative. A few included names may soon change, notably those identifying birds named after confederate figures. The book’s oversize format seems nonstandard (8.5×11 inches) and at 3.8 pounds it is heavy and floppy. The bibliography features one major omission: The Eponym Dictionary of Birds, by Bo Beolens (CH. May’15, 52-4516), and a few minor mistakes (i.e., Hermann misspelled as Herman several times). Many titles cited in the main text are not included, but collectively such errors detract little. The rich illustrations include (public domain?) reproductions of 198 color paintings by such masters as Allen Brooks and Louis Agassiz Fuertes, which add immeasurably to the attractiveness of this most highly recommended resource.
Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.
Review by T. Armistead, formerly, Free Library of Philadelphia
Choice, 58:9, May 2021
_________________________
A-well-a ev’rybody’s heard about the bird
B-b-b-bird, b-birdd’s a word
— from Surfin’ Bird, by the Trashmen (1963)
What’s in a bird name? Lots of facts and history.
Names might commemorate historically significant people, or refer to places, anatomical features, or perceptions of intellect or behavior. Sometimes bird monikers are onomatopoeias: written derivations of the sounds that they make. And I finally got to use that word in a column.
For decades, the bible for bird nomenclature was “The Dictionary of American Bird Names,” by Ernest Choate. A slender volume released in 1973 and updated in 1985, it spanned 226 pages and was a favorite of birders.
Thirty-five years on, Choate’s book has been surpassed on an epic scale.
Author Gary H. Meiter has created an elegantly presented treatise on bird nomenclature that is the new standard. He treats more than 900 species in “Bird is the Word” — almost every species found in North America north of Mexico.
The starting point to learning birds — or nearly anything — is learning names. From there, knowledge can be linked into ecology, behavior, identification and history. And it’s the latter that “Bird is the Word” so artfully deals with.
A brief introduction describes the book’s layout, including an interesting summary of notable American ornithologists. Meiter concisely describes the science of naming things, and the history of how common and scientific names came to be. The reader will learn interesting trivia, such as what a tautonym is (there are 16 North American bird species with tautonymic names).
The pages are punctuated with beautiful illustrations by some of America’s most accomplished avian artists. It’s a visual delight to turn a page and face a rendering of a pair of pileated woodpeckers by Louis Agassiz Fuertes, or a magnificent frigatebird in full swoop from the hand of John James Audubon. The inclusion of artwork is a nice touch, and one that reinforces this book’s attention to detail.
Interesting sidebars are peppered throughout the accounts. There are 42, and they serve as intellectual nuggets breaking up the main text. Sidebars cover all manner of intriguing trivia, as suggested by headers such as “Bird of Fire,” “The Trickster of the North Woods” and “Birds as Weather Prophets.”
Each bird family is prefaced with an introductory description. Perhaps you have wondered why whip-poor-wills are known as goatsuckers. You will find the answer here.
The purpose of “Bird is the Word” is the species accounts. Each species begins with a well-crafted description of how the bird’s common name came to be. Meiter often includes fascinating historical nuggets, and the reader quickly gains a sense of how much research must have gone into these accounts.
Species accounts include the meanings of the scientific name, French and Spanish names, and one of my favorite sections, “Other Names.”
Bird lore is rife with fanciful colloquial names, and this book seems to have them all. For instance, a woodpecker common in Ohio, the northern flicker, has about 160 nicknames. These include cotton-rump, high-hole, and yellowhammer. A wonderful sobriquet for the American bittern is belcher-squelcher, but if that doesn’t tickle your fancy, Meiter lists dozens of other nicknames for this heron.
Learning a bird’s name is just the start of getting to know it. “Bird is the Word” will decode that name and in the process expand your knowledge of the species. Anyone who enjoys the feathered crowd should have a copy of this book. To order, visit: mwpubco.com.
http://jimmccormac.blogspot.com/2020/07/nature-fascinating-book-speaks-volumes.html
Review by Jim McCormac,
Columbus Dispatch, July 5, 2020
_________________________
This capacious book is a confectionary for bird watchers, historians and anyone who enjoys the lively interplay of Latin and English, as found in the names of our birds. Each page reveals a slew of utterly unpredictable tidbits. A brief example: The long-billed Wilson’s Snipe is usually defined in popular literature by its odd role in the “snipe hunt,” in which a naive person is given a sack, sent into a swamp at night, and told to wait (in vain) for someone else to chase the bird toward him. Or one reads of the snipe’s evocative display flight, during which it produces a rapid ululating whoop via the vibration of its narrow outer tail feathers. In Bird is the Word, the snipe’s Latin name, Gallinago delicata, leads to a lengthy dissertation on the taste and texture of its flesh– something one won’t find without digging through older literature.
Author Gary H. Meiter is an Ohio educator and natural historian who, it seems, was born to dig. And, with the twin guides of Latin and history, he hits vein after rich vein of information and arcane knowledge. Meiter’s text excerpts the best ornithological writing from the likes of Edward Howe Forbush and the tireless avian biographer, Arthur Cleveland Bent, along with a host of lesser-known but equally poetic writers. Forbush’s description of the Roseate Tern bears mention: “Its elegant form tapers and swells in lines of beauty. Its lustrous plumage reflects the yellow rays of the sun and the pale refracted light of sea and sands in evanescent pink and rosy tints. These are seen in perfection only in the living bird and fade when the light of life fades from its eyes. The stuffed and distorted specimen on the museum shelf has lost the grace, beauty, and color of the living thing and remains but a sorry travesty of the life that is gone.” Indeed, most of the excerpts are from “shotgun ornithologists,” for whom field study, followed by collecting a specimen, was the core of their work.
An unexpected delight of this work are small, full-color reproductions of paintings by John James Audubon, Allan Brooks, and many little-known works by Louis Agassiz Fuertes, dean of North American bird artists, which beautifully compliment the text. One might guess that they have been scanned directly from old books, as securing use of so many obscure paintings would be the work of a lifetime. However they were obtained, they are a treat to stumble upon.
One might flip back and forth for hours, researching the meaning of Latin names, snapping up tidbits of natural history, digesting lyrical descriptions, and enjoying alternate folk names of birds, before stumbling on Appendix III, “An Introduction to the Naturalists Mentioned in the Book.” Herein lies a valuable reference and another fascinating wormhole for the reader. Bird is the Word is a labor of inquisitiveness and love, a gift to the curious bird student, and well worth a place on any reference shelf.
This review has been prepared by Julie Zickefoose, author and illustrator of Letters from Eden, The Bluebird Effect, Baby Birds: An Artist Looks Into the Nest, and Saving Jemima: Life and Love with a Hard-luck Jay. Awakening readers to the astonishing things birds and animals think and do is her job. She writes and paints from Indigo Hill, an 80-acre sanctuary in Appalachian Ohio.
_________________________
REVIEWS
Lauren Turner
Outdoor Women inside the Forest Service
Though not everyone is willing to put in the time to write a memoir, many people in U.S. land-management agencies nonetheless have careers and experiences worth sharing. Lauren Turner, a former career U.S. Forest Service employee, has done a great service for historians and others interested in the history of women in the Forest Service by interviewing 41 women who worked outdoor jobs at some point in their careers at every level of the agency. She asked each woman the same core questions, which they answered either by email or in telephone conversations. Instead of reprinting edited transcripts, Turner wove the answers into biographical sketches in which each woman’s personality comes through, making Outdoor Women inside the Forest Service, 1971–2018 (McDonald & Woodward Publishing, 2018) an engaging and revelatory book. The chapters follow the agency’s basic organizational chart, grouping the careers of technicians, district-level natural resource professionals, forest-level natural resource professionals, and so forth, up through the line officers. In her concluding chapter, “Retrospective and Prospect,” Turner recaps the history these women lived through and made, using their own words. She then summarizes the pros and cons of working for the Forest Service from the perspective of the women interviewed, offering some hints as to why working for the agency may not be an attractive career option for many of today’s young women. Turner more explicitly discusses the issues facing the agency today, such as sexual harassment, declining budgets, and institutionalized racial and gender bias, and their effects on women in the agency—and on the agency itself. And yet the majority of the women interviewed expressed support for those contemplating a career with the agency because of their deeply held belief in its mission. (JL)
Review by James Lewis,
Forest History Today, Spring/Fall 2018, Page 66
James Lewis is Author of The Forest Service and the Greatest Good: A Centennial History
and has been Editor of Forest History Today since 2007.
_________________________
Lauren Turner’s new book will draw many readers. Outdoor Women Inside the Forest Service, 1971-2018 profiles the careers of 42 women in professions uncommon to their gender. Lauren weaves in Forest Service history and the changing demographics through the decades. This book surprised me. Who were all these women?
When I started as a junior forester, there weren’t any others for miles around. After a while, I needed some female company. I tried the Tupperware party thing. Not for me. You start stalking women in other agencies, distant offices, meetings, book clubs, etc. And here in this book are all these women who also wore boots and hardhats to work, studied insects, could pack and ride a horse, jumped out of airplanes into fires, hooted for owls in old growth forests, not only could read maps but make maps, could back a trailer and change a tire. They were out there the same time I was thinking I was the Lone Ranger.
It wasn’t always easy. Some of the stories describe hardships in the workplace or in the work/life balance. Opportunities for training and advancement were not always equitably provided. Oversight of workplace communications and interplay was in-consistent. Fire camp and other travel sometimes got out of control. There is no limit to the number of jerks put upon this earth, even inside the Forest Service.
You will find in these stories a number of women who chose to do it all. They chose careers, life partners, and children. The testament to how well this worked out is to visit with the off-spring—some of the most put-together young people around. They know as little ones they can do anything they are willing to work hard for. They love the out-of-doors and have an innate sense of conservation.
As I write this, I sit at the shore of Lake Mead, 140 feet below full pool. Read Lauren Turner’s book. It doesn’t include every story, but it includes a range that encompasses the tremendous transitions made in the U.S. Forest Service from 1971 to 2018.
Outdoor Women inside the Forest Service, 1971-2018, by Lauren Turner (ISBN-13 978-1935778455), 466 pages, paperback, published November 15, 2018, by McDonald & Woodward Publishing.
Review by Gail Kimbell, Chief Emeritus, U.S. Forest Service
OldSmokeys Newsletter, Spring 2019
Newsletter of the Pacific Northwest Forest Service Association