The bird.ing dictionary: 1 (noun) A tongue-in-cheek guide for people who find themselves obsessed, against all logic and reason, with birds

Book by Rosemary Mosco.
Workman Publishing, 2025.  171p.  paperback.  $14.99.

Mosco is author of A pocket guide to pigeon watching and creator of the webcomic Birds and moon.  She is also a well-received speaker at bird organization meetings.

This is a highly humorous, alphabetic, near paperback-sized delight taking us through an alphabet of witty definitions.  Examples just from the letter G: gashawk, gestalt, gleaning, glossy, good bird, good looks, goose, GREG, grip, and gull.  Definitions run from a few words to an entire wordy page.

Here is an example: “upending: a feeding behavior in which a duck points its head down so that its butt sticks straight up in the air; also known as mooning.” p. 157.

Other familiar birding words and terms thus skewered include; distraction display, tyrant flycatcher, precocial, LBJ, field mark, flush, digiscope, primary projection, zugunruhe, zygodactyl, nictitating membrane, nemesis bird, covert, fecal sac, confusing fall warbler, kleptoparasitism, contact call, morning flight, and convergent evolution.

The fictitious endorsement by a birder who doesn’t exist says it all: “… I cannot recommend this volume to any birder who, like me, lacks a sense of humor or a penchant for the absurd.” (p iii).

Mosco is quite an artist.  Her seriocomic illustrations help to enhance her definitions.  Just from her choice of words to define it is clear she knows a lot about birding.  Delightful.  Just the irreverence we sometimes need.