BOOK REVIEWS: Breeding Birds of Napa County, California, an Illustrated Atlas of Nesting Birds by Murray Berner, Bill Grummer, Robin Leong, and Mike Rippey. 2003. Napa–Solano Audubon Society, Vallejo, CA. 200 pages, with 2 color endpaper maps, numerous black-and-white maps and drawings. Paperback, $25. Available from Napa–Solano Audubon Society, P. O. Box 5027, Vallejo, CA 94591. ISBN 0-615-12290-6.

Abstract

Napa County, a small and largely rural county not far north of San Francisco, is perhaps most famous among the general public for its vineyards. But it is also home to a diverse breeding avifauna, ranging from the Greater Roadrunner and Northern Spotted Owl to the Yellow-billed Magpie and Snowy Plover. With the publication of this important work, we are brought one county closer to having breeding bird atlases available for all nine central California counties that border the San Francisco Bay estuary. Atlases have been published for Marin, Sonoma, and San Mateo counties, and field work has been completed for Alameda, Santa Clara, and San Francisco counties (W. D. Shuford pers. comm.); maps for this last county, and for the work-in-progress Contra Costa county atlas, are available over the World Wide Web. A pilot year of atlasing was conducted in Solano County in 1988, but that county since seems to have slipped through the cracks.