Seabirds

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.

This large-format coffee-table book is strong on magnificent photography but weak on text —and possibly on ethics.

Mackenzie has selected from the work of 28 photographers to compile a collection of colour shots breathtaking in their balance of high realism and artistic expression. The plates are large, the colours saturated, the compositions excellent, and the clarity outstanding. As a picture book, Seabirds is an undoubted success. Regrettably, the photographers’ credits are relegated to the back page; only Mackenzie’s name appears on the cover and title page. It would be easy to assume the work is a collection of his photos. Even if this misleading presentation is not intentional, the discovery of the photographers’ identities at the end of the book leaves a feeling of being tricked.

The brief text is divided into a scanty chapter on seabirds in general (what’s included in the category, overall characteristics, and population profiles) plus a very brief note to introduce each of the nine classes depicted photographically in the work. These chapter notes touch on the bare basics — feeding habits, style of flight, nesting habitat, etc. — but are completely devoid of anecdotes, feeling for the personality of the species, or any information not readily available from other sources.

The groups covered are phalaropes, skuas, gulls, terns and noddies, penguins, loons, tubenose birds, pelicans, and auks. These are fairly large birds (as compared, for example, to songbirds) which live in a visually open landscape, so they do not present the same photographic challenges as filling a page with a close-up of something the size of a warbler with a bush to hide in. On the other hand, ocean birds do not come to the photographer’s kitchen window: they must be photographed in remote, often cold, often dangerous, and always wet locations. The 123 colour plates are a remarkable demonstration of how well the photographers represented in the collection coped with those conditions. The cover photo (of puffins) by M. Hebard Jr. has to be one of the finest bird photos ever taken.