annieb123's Review of A Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching

by Rosemary Mosco

You don't need to travel to experience the joy of bird-watching: just take a look at the pigeons in your nearby park! With this fun, quirky, and scientifically correct field guide to the most common bird in most cities, you'll learn to see pigeons and doves (they're the same thing) with a bird-watcher's expertise, understanding their fascinating behaviour and appreciating nature right outside your window.

Part field guide, part history, part ornithology primer, and altogether fun.

Fact: Pigeons are amazing, and until recently, humans adored them. We've kept them as pets, held pigeon beauty contests, raced them, used them to carry messages over battlefields, harvested their poop to fertilize our crops-and cooked them in gourmet dishes.

Now, with The Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching, readers can rediscover the wonder. Equal parts illustrated field guide and quirky history, it covers behaviour: Why they coo; how they flock; how they preen, kiss, and mate (monogamously); and how they raise their young (on chunky pigeon milk). Anatomy and identification, from Birmingham Roller to the American Giant Runt to the Scandaroon. Birder issues, like what to do if you find a baby pigeon stranded in the park. And our lively shared story together, including all the things we've taught them-Ping-Pong, for example. "Rats with wings?" Think again. Pigeons coo, peck and nest all over the world, yet most of us treat them with indifference or disdain.

So Rosemary Mosco, a bird-lover, science communicator, writer, and cartoonist (and co-author of The Atlas Obscura Explorer's Guide for the World's Most Adventurous Kid) is here to give the pigeon's image a makeover, and to help every town- and city-dweller get closer to nature by discovering the joys of birding through pigeon-watching.

Originally posted on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

A Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching is an interesting and accessible guide to pigeons by Rosemary Mosco. Due out 9th Nov 2021 from Workman Publishing, it's 240 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately. Text search makes life somewhat easier.

Although this volume is ostensibly aimed at middle grade readers (10 year old me would've loved it), I learned quite a lot myself and I'm about 4 decades past being a middle grade reader. The language is simple enough for anyone to understand, but at the same time manages to be scientifically correct and use proper nomenclature.

The layout is logical and progresses from: why watch pigeons, pigeon evolution (dinosaurs!), interaction with and development alongside humans, anatomy, plumage (genetics!), behavior, health concerns (very low), and some tantalizing bits about general birdwatching.

The entire book is light and humorous and information dense. I grinned often whilst reading and found the style and the subject matter very engaging and fun. This would be a superlative public or classroom library acquisition, or gift to a nature/science interested youngster. It would also make a fine choice for smallholders (pigeons are easy and useful to raise), allotment/community gardens, and similar. There are no photographs, but the entire book is full of simple and well rendered line drawings (see cover).

Five stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

A Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching

by Rosemary Mosco

Reviewed by annieb123 on Sep 19, 2021

Reading updates