Extended Wings

By J.D.Reed

THE AUDUBON SOCIETY ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS by John K. Terres

Knopf; 1,109pages; $60

Thoreau observed that man's urge to understand the natural world is often thwarted by his passion "that all things be mysterious and unexplorable." Former Audubon Magazine Editor John K. Terres offers a refreshing alternative: a 7 1/2-lb., kaleidoscopic catalogue of the appearance, habitats, songs, ranges and nests of 847 avian species found in North America. Terres finds no need to overstate the complex marvels of the feathered world outside the window.

Nor does the reader have to join the 8 million-plus U.S. birders to enjoy the nearly 6,000 entries and 1,675 photographs and drawings in this striking tome. Terres wrote all the entries himself, a labor of 21 years, balancing the scientific and the popular, to please novice and expert alike. He updates ornithological subjects like mating. Some findings: scientists now call the hummingbird's brief passion "promiscuous"; birds fly by instinct, not parental instruction; a robin's natural life span can be as long as 11 1/2 years, but its life expectancy, because of power lines and pesticides, is little more than one year.

Terres also explores the arcane richness of animal behavior and man's beliefs about it. Ibis guano, the reader learns, enriches the ecology of the Everglades by increasing plankton growth; a loon can be imitated on the ocarina; geese occasionally become homosexual, pair-bonding for life even when heterosexual partners are present; an auk's egg is a marvel of engineering, shaped so that it will not roll from its cliff-edge nest.

Aristotle, says Terres, unaware of migration, thought birds hibernated in winter, while Ice landers believed that the whooper swan, after nesting, flew off to the moon. Closer at hand, songbirds poke crushed ants, rich in formic acid, into their coats to remove para sites; the common blue jay is obeyed by fleeing deer when he pipes his warnings; and the red-eyed vireo can give 22,000 encores a day of his song.

Terres' monumental effort will be in spiring poets, librarians, astronauts and lovers long after the work's scientific value is exhausted and serious birders have moved on with notebooks and binoculars to newer texts. The Encyclopedia is literature rather than guide. Terres' observations of our nearest wild-animal neigh bors offer an anthropomorphic comfort, and make the mysteries of Carl Sagan's black holes in other galaxies seem remote indeed.

-- By J.D.Reed

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.