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Birds of Maine
Peter D. Vickery
Birds of Maine is the definitive account of the state's birdlife—the first comprehensive overview in more than seventy years, and a labor of love that its author worked on to the end of his life. Peter D. Vickery, one of New England's foremost ornithologists, documents all 464 species recorded in Maine, with detailed accounts of status, distribution, migration, and the ways the state's geography and changing climate shape which birds live where. Vickery died in 2017, and the book was completed by colleagues and his wife, then published by Princeton in 2020; it's illustrated with watercolors by the great Swedish bird painter Lars Jonsson and line drawings by Barry Van Dusen. This is a scholarly state avifauna rather than a field guide—a reference to consult and a record of decades of careful observation. For Maine birders, naturalists, or anyone interested in how a region's birdlife is studied and stewarded, it's a landmark.
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The author
Peter D. Vickery (1949–2017) was among New England's leading ornithologists, an authority on grassland birds and Maine's avifauna. He worked on Birds of Maine until his final days; after his death, co-editors including Barbara Vickery and Scott Weidensaul brought it to completion.
The book
Published by Princeton University Press in 2020, Birds of Maine is a comprehensive state avifauna covering all 464 species recorded in Maine, with accounts of abundance, distribution, migration, and conservation. It is illustrated with watercolors by Lars Jonsson and line drawings by Barry Van Dusen.
How to read it
As a reference, not a pocket field guide. Its value is in depth—the accumulated record of a region's birdlife—so it rewards dipping in by species or reading its overviews of Maine's habitats and shifting climate.
For more context
Read alongside a standard North American field guide and Ralph Palmer's earlier Maine Birds (1949), the survey this book updates.
Sources
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Peter D. Vickery
- Publisher
- Princeton
- Place of publication
- Princeton, New Jersey
- Year
- 2020
- ISBN
- 978-0-691-19319-9
- Format
- Hardcover
- Shelf
- Nature
- Location
- Maine
Places