And what an undertaking it must have been. Subtitled, The Ultimate Guide to Essential Facts and Figures of the World's Birds , the author has created perhaps the most complete reference on avian topics imaginable. I felt that such a book should offer a brief fossil history of birds, the old and the new taxonomy, and a list of all the species in the world, including the geographical region in which they were found and their status, that is, endangered, threatened, and so on. The buffet of bird facts included is staggering. There are even sections that would do little beyond help you win a trivia bet or just add to your personal store of specialized knowledge.
Many people know, for instance, that a group of crows is called a murder .
Jones writes both competently and well, but a book with both the high production values and wonderful photographs of Ducks is going to catch its readers with the visuals. Represented is a goodly number of the over 125 species that Jones writes about in this work. But mallards are just one of 35 species nesting in North America today, and of 125 species worldwide. One, the spectacled eider, has such a remote range that until 1995 no one even knew where they wintered. Once the stunning photos have been sampled and savored, Ducks is a fascinating read.