BOOK REVIEWS: Shorebirds of North America, Europe, and Asia by Stephen Message and Don Taylor. 2005. Princeton University Press. 224 pages, 77 color plates. Paperback $35 (ISBN 0-691-12672-0).

Abstract

This work (hereafter Shorebirds) was first published in the U.K. by Helm with the more honest title Waders of Europe, Asia, and North America. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, repeating complaints from some of my past reviews, I must say that the author and artist are not overly familiar with North American species or literature. Yet this has not prevented a commercially oriented make-over of the cover and title. Shorebirds is built around a large number of color plates attractively painted by Message and is intended to aid with field identification.