Book: ‘Birds Of Florida’ by Frances W. Hall
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Apr.08, 2020, under Books
Birds Of Florida by Frances W. Hall
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I’ve probably got a dozen copies of this and most of those are different editions. Probably had most for 30 years or so. Never read any of them, but did use them for reference.
Decided to aid ‘Draw a Bird Day’ by doing a live video of me showing how to draw Florida birds. Nabbed a half dozen Florida bird books off the shelf to talk about. Decided to finally read this one.
This suffers from age. Publishing in the ’40s was tough involving photographs and back then it was tough to get photographs, especially birds. So, the author drew the birds. Just not all of them. So, the wiring of each bird doesn’t have an image of a bird to go with the description. Many of the drawings are not even on the same page of the description. Again, limitations of printing at the time.
The descriptions are a bit slight to tag a bird in the wild. Even the drawings are pretty loose. Though, the illustrations are very good.
Something else this book suffers from age-wise is that some of the information is no longer accurate. The dusty seaside sparrow is now not proliferating, but extinct. And the ibis is no longer low in numbers. There’s more.
Still a great effort for it’s time.
Bottom line: I don’t recommend this book. 4 out of ten points.
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