Birds of Bucks County
Book by Beck, Barbara & 9 others.
2nd ed. 2024. Bucks County Audubon Society at Honey Hollow, 2877 Creamery Road, New Hope, PA 18938. bcas@bcas.org 358p. spiral bound. $35.50 postpaid.
It is hard to imagine a county or regional book better than this one. Just over 200 pages are devoted to the species accounts. These are excellent, completely reviewing the status of each species with complete information on their history in the county with an added section on their worldwide population estimates. Bucks County is in SE Pennsylvania and adjoins the north limits of Philadelphia including the Delaware River, where a major landfill has led to estimated daily county totals, for example, of 145,259 Herring and 1,130 Lesser Black-backed gulls! The species accounts include helpful bar graphs that enhance the extensive text. Equally valuable are over 100 pages describing in detail 70 sites. These have attractive color photographs with details on facilities, phone numbers, accessibility, habitat, directions, and birding highlights, acreage, and some good maps, etc. The acknowledgements are exhaustive and include: “First observers of unusual species”, and details on the five sponsoring organizations. Not surprisingly in a book of this quality, the index is a good one, not just of species names but also of locations. There are even 7 color paintings. Separate sections describe accidentals, extirpated and extinct species, “possible”, exotics, and a 3-page bibliography. I prefer that in publications such as this all species be listed in one sequence, but that is a minor quibble, a personal preference. There is a separate list of references for many of the birding locations, especially websites. This guide is good at paying tribute to people important in the history of birding in this county. A great pleasure to thoroughly recommend this important regional title. Nothing less than a virtuoso production. Has some application beyond its limited geographical scope. The 1st edition, Birds of Bucks County by Ken Kitson, 122 pages, was published in 1998 by Bucks County Audubon Society.