WHEELER'S BOOK RAISES THE BAR (11/20/03)

In all sports, what was once an amazing record is broken later, and that new record becomes the one to beat. Remember when the triple Lutz was thought to be beyond the abilities of figure skaters? Well, now it’s de rigueur for all would-be stars, and a few are already able to perform a quadruple Lutz. Speed records in racing and swimming are frequently broken.

Even the sport of birdwatching finds the level of performance going higher and higher. When Roger Tory Peterson first published his “A Field Guide to the Birds” in the 1960’s, it was a major breakthrough from all previously-published aids to identifying birds. It quickly became the standard used by all serious birders. Of late, however, with the growing body of birdwatchers and hence an enlarged knowledge base about birds’ behavior, distribution and identification, along with improvements in optics and graphic technology, a spate of new books has been written that definitely raises the bar on information for birdwatchers.

The latest of these is “Raptors of the Northeast” by Brian Wheeler. It has more photographs than any other North American guide, along with information on molt, aging, and sexing that provides a wealth of new information, much of which has come from the growing cadre of young, professional hawkwatchers, all with banding experience.

Not so very long ago, what birders had for identifying raptors was a sheet of black-and-white silhouettes, and in the past, a field guide author was lucky to provide just enough images so as to cover a species minimally. Brian Wheeler has gone much further with images that show the explicit mix of feathers described in the text. Now observers in the field have the information pointing them to look at specific primaries to help determine the age of birds. This knowledge will help gather data that will someday track population trends well-enough for hawkwatching to make contributions to raptor conservation.

Wheeler ages buteos, those hawks we often see “floating” on a rising thermal, as adult, basic 1, and juvenile — terms birders only associated with eagles until now. There are nineteen photos of broad-winged hawks showing extraordinary diversity, like we get to see on the outer Cape in the spring. The Red-tailed Hawk section starts with 22 pages of text and maps, followed by 42 photographs. The Roughleg section has more than ten pages of text and 39 images. The photo plates also age and sex accipiters, those hawks that flap, flap, sail, and are the mostly likely the ones that raid our feeders of hapless birds. Believe me, this is an extraordinary amount of information!

Wheeler’s book requires that birders see the whole bird and not just fix on one feature (e.g.: a "belly band" or a "rounded tail"). His identification standards require birders to take their time before proclaiming an identification. The result is that all hawkwatchers can now anticipate seeing more than they ever have before, and this means more enjoyment to the birding day. Anyone who is properly coached with a book like this can see color and detail.

This is definitely the definitive work on North American raptor ID! There are several great places in our area where you can work on honing your hawk identification skills. The closest is Pilgrim Heights in Truro, but not so very far away is Mt. Wachusett in Princeton, north central Massachusetts, where from August through December a loosely-organized group of hawk watchers observes the phenomenon from this vantage. Further afield is an observation tower atop Goat's Peak within Mt. Tom State Reservation, just outside Northampton. Then, of course, there are the nationally-known magnets for hawkwatchers: Cape May, NJ, and Hawk Mountain, PA. Treat yourself to an uplifting vacation by going to any of these off-Cape sites!

Once thought to be only a fall phenomenon of being able to watch the southern flow of hawk migration in progress, now we can also observe the northward movement of these birds. The same sites where birders flock in the fall to watch for migrants are also proving productive in the spring. Let’s face it: There are a lot more eyes watching birds today than there were when R. T. Peterson shared his insights!

I haven’t mentioned that Wheeler’s guide is just half of a set, the other being his guide to western hawks. Everything I’ve described about the Eastern volume applies to the Western one. Although hawkwatching for this year is drawing to a close, this review of Brian Wheeler’s book is a “heads-up” for those of you who need a super bird book as a holiday gift for a dedicated hawk watcher.

Please send your comments and anecdotes about birds to me in care of the Cape Cod Times, 319 Main Street, Hyannis, MA 02601 or, if you use email, to emiller@seepub.com. I regret that because of an overwhelming amount of mail, I may not respond to each of you personally. However, I have added a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section to the web page with my current and past bird columns, now found at http://home.comcast.net/~elliemiller/index.html. If you can’t find the answer to your question there, try Bird Watcher’s Digest at 1-800-879-2478 or check out their FAQ at www.birdwatchersdigest.com.