The Bird Almanac: A Guide to Essential Facts and Figures of the World's Birds. Rev. ed.

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

This is an updated and “completely revised” version of a compilation
ironically described as “The Ultimate Guide” when published in 1999.
It contains a whole range of useful and not-so-useful information about
birds, birders, and all sorts of resources concerning them. They range
from “Sizes of Tympanic Membranes and Columellas in Selected Bird
Species Relative to Body Area” to “Ten Tips for Installing a Bird
Bath.” It also offers some decidedly impressionistic lists, including
“Twenty-Five Top Birding Spots in Canada.” An “Indexed Check-List
of the World’s Birds” takes up 150 of its pages and reflects changes
up to mid-2003.

Birders in search of both basic and esoteric information are likely to
find it here. Unfortunately, various errors and inconsistencies have
crept into the text. The ivory-billed woodpecker is listed as
“Endangered” on page 57, “Presumed Extinct” on page 61, and the
“rarest bird in the world” on page 73. Also on page 73, we are told
that “8 billion domestic chickens produce 562,000 billion eggs
annually.” Quite a feat! In fact, the second figure should read “562
billion.” Oddly, too, one champion bird-lister is credited with a
smaller life-list in 2004 than in 1999.

Such information, of course, never remains accurate for very long. In
the checklist, for example, tundra geese are now cackling geese. In
addition, the Canadian Birders Journal is, alas, no more, and, at least
at present, the telephone for the Toronto Rare Bird Hotline is no longer
operative.

A somewhat odd compilation, and one to be used with caution—but
it’s chock full of (sometimes nutty) statistics.