Bright Wings

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

A love of birds and a mastery of photography come together successfully
in this beautiful coffee-table book. The work is a collection of
full-color plates of Canadian birds—some common, some rare—plus a
few scenery shots to give the setting. While the text is definitely
secondary to the photography, the notes on how the photographers work,
what they tried to accomplish with their cameras, and a few sparse
observations on the photographic challenges they faced all help the
reader to bring a higher level of appreciation to the photos.

The photos are tremendous—vibrant, intense, involving. Many of the
subjects are photographed at or as they approach their nest, so
there’s a wealth of visual information that will be soaked up by the
avid birder (nest identification is much more difficult than bird
identification).

The authors definitely favored warblers and birds of prey in selecting
photos. Photos of owls and hawks are plentiful in other books, and
there’s really nothing especially novel in the bird-of-prey shots
here, except for the inclusion of the very rare peregrine falcon,
photographed on a trip to the Arctic. This, however, subtracts nothing
from the quality or appeal of the plates. The warbler shots, however, go
beyond being attractive: warbler photos of this quality are as elusive
as the warblers themselves. This gives the work added value and makes it
a must-have for every warbler watcher.

An index would have been appreciated.