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    The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America
    The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America
    The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America
    Ebook177 pages50 minutes

    The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America

    By Matt Kracht

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    National bestselling book: Featured on Midwest, Mountain Plains, New Atlantic, Northern, Pacific Northwest and Southern Regional Indie Bestseller Lists

    Perfect book for the birder and anti-birder alike

    A humorous look at 50 common North American dumb birds: For those who have a disdain for birds or bird lovers with a sense of humor, this snarky, illustrated handbook is equal parts profane, funny, and—let's face it—true.

    Featuring common North American birds, such as the White-Breasted Butt Nugget and the Goddamned Canada Goose (or White-Breasted Nuthatch and Canada Goose for the layperson), Matt Kracht identifies all the idiots in your backyard and details exactly why they suck with humorous, yet angry, ink drawings. With The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America, you won't need to wonder what all that racket is anymore!
    • Each entry is accompanied by facts about a bird's (annoying) call, its (dumb) migratory pattern, its (downright tacky) markings, and more.
    • The essential guide to all things wings with migratory maps, tips for birding, musings on the avian population, and the ethics of birdwatching.
    • Matt Kracht is an amateur birder, writer, and illustrator who enjoys creating books that celebrate the humor inherent in life's absurdities. Based in Seattle, he enjoys gazing out the window at the beautiful waters of Puget Sound and making fun of birds.

    "There are loads of books out there for bird lovers, but until now, nothing for those that love to hate birds. The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America fills the void, packed with snarky illustrations that chastise the flying animals in a funny, profane way. " – Uncrate

    A humorous animal book with 50 common North American birds for people who love birds and also those who love to hate birds
    • A perfect coffee table or bar top conversation-starting book
    • Makes a great Mother's Day, Father's Day, birthday, or retirement gift
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChronicle Books Digital
    Release dateApr 2, 2019
    ISBN9781452177397
    The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America
    Author

    Matt Kracht

    Matt Kracht is a professional designer and art director based in Seattle who enjoys gazing out the window at the beautiful waters of Puget Sound and making fun of birds.

    Read more from Matt Kracht

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    Reviews for The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America

    4/5

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    • 3/5
      This is basically the same book as The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of the Whole Stupid World -- which came out second but I read first -- so I'm just going to recycle my review for that with a few edits:A humorous, spiteful look at birds. The main gag is that every real bird in the book has been given a new name that uses scatological or swear words, so the American Crow becomes "Damn Crows" and the Gray Catbird is now the "Gray Cat Turd." Despite these mild examples, the language is very adult.The author also goes on diatribes about how much he hates each particular bird as well as birds in general. He also lashes out at birders and birdwatching as a hobby.It's pretty repetitive, but it stays fun if doled out over many days a little at a time.I slightly prefer Tits, Boobies and Loons and Other Birds Named by People Who Clearly Hate Birds by Stu Royall as it mocks real bird names and makes the people who named them so poorly the butt of the joke.
    • 4/5
      Since we moved into our new home last summer, I have fallen in love with birdwatching in our backyard. This book should not have made me laugh as hard as it did, but something about the snarky comments woven in with actual facts about birds made me giggle. Heads up, there is a lot of profanity. If that doesn’t bother you, be prepared to laugh through this quick read.
    • 3/5
      My biggest problem with this book doesn't have to do with its content, but with the format in which the physical book is printed. The text is tiny, and it is rendered in a thin, spidery font, which makes it very, very difficult to read. Comparing it to samples, I'm guessing the whole thing is in an 8-point sans serif font, but just eyeballing it, I'd have guessed it was even smaller. Now, I realize that, as a man in my late sixties, I'm officially an old fogey now, but this old fogey still reads non-large-print edition books without any difficulty at all, and without a magnifier. EXCEPT for this one. It's literally the first book for which I've ever had to use a magnifier. C'mon, publisher!As to the content itself - it was...okay. I wouldn't call it a laugh-out-loud book, but it certainly had a few amusing moments. Some readers have objected to the language being rather salty. I can confirm that, in the alternative names for the 50 or so birds it describes, and in the descriptions themselves, scatalogical references are frequent, and there are more than a few F-bombs as well. That didn't bother me, but if this is the sort of thing that troubles you, be warned!Of course, covering as it does only 50 different birds, this book leaves a lot of ground uncovered. I'm not a bird aficionado, but not particularly a bird hater either (Squirrels, on the other hand, those loathsome little chisel-toothed vandals....but I digress.) I was surprised to note that not a single owl was included. A pity, I'm rather fond of owls, though I don't exactly know why. Perhaps I envy them being to sleep all day and prowl all night. And the one bird that I really do loathe was also missing: the Turkey. There are several flocks of these wretched creatures that wander around town where I live, one of which made an extended visit to my neighborhood earlier this year. One bird in particular, a female, decided that my front porch would be the ideal spot to bed down each evening with her brood of nine vile little turkeylets. Which means that my porch was covered each morning in turkey crap. I admit, it was rather satisfying to catch them on the porch and chase them off, shouting "Raaahr!" and gesturing with my hands like the monster under the bed, and I only had to do this twice before they got the idea and stayed away. On the downside, my neighbors possibly now think I have serious mental health issues. But I digress again: the point is that this book is something to read for amusement, but is not sufficiently complete if what you want is a "real" almanac of North American birds for purposes of bird identification.
    • 4/5
      Absolutely hilarious and surprisingly useful. The only field guide I've read cover to cover and the only one I plan to. My only real knock is that I wish it had even more useful info on those dumb birds.
    • 4/5
      I don't know why, but I love dumb, humorous books about birds. This, Effin' Birds, and another little book about owls I have are quick reads that make me smile. I like to look at the illustrations too. This is a good coffee table book for someone who wants people to think they're into birding, until closer inspection. If you enjoy someone poking fun at birds, foul (fowl HHAHA) language, and sketches, I think you'll enjoy this book.
    • 4/5
      I am not a birder by any stretch of the imagination. I cannot identify many birds off the top of my head. I do not have bird feeders in my yard to attract our feathered friends. But I do enjoy listening to them chirping and peeping in the trees, even if I can't ever follow their trills to their location. I enjoy watching their little head tilts and apparent curiosity when they catch sight of me as they hop along the deck railing or from branch to branch of the backyard trees. Their preening makes me laugh as I admire the intricacy of their feathers. So I consider them welcome visitors to my yard but my investment and expertise in them is nil. As I was browsing at the bookstore one day, I saw this intriguing little book by the cash wrap and picked it up. Of course it had to come home with me. Now I'm hoping to spot some of the annoying little twit(terer)s Matt Kracht has drawn and described here in his entertaining, profanity-filled field guide.Modeled after actual field guides, this snarky little spoof of a book has sections on the birds, bird watching tips, seasons, extinct species, bird feeders, and more. The section on the birds themselves are the most entertaining, of course, and that is subdivided into author created bird classifications. Kracht has grouped the birds in the categories of Typical Birds; Backyard As#%les; Hummingbirds, Weirdos, and Flycatchers; Egotists and Show-offs; F@&kers; Floaters, Sandbirds, and Dork-legs; and Murder birds. He illustrates each entry with quick, appealing sketches roughly colored in. The birds are given sarcastically derisive names (the real name is listed below the invented one) and the entry on each bird is short, pithy, and often hilariously annoyed. For example, the seagull's entry reads in part " The commonly used term 'seagull' is actually a catch-all for the many different types of gull and it doesn't describe a specific bird. Practically speaking, this doesn't matter because they're all the same trash bird at heart." His entry on the Canada Goose starts off sarcastically, "Thanks a lot, Canada." Kracht's primary complaints about birds are their annoying and constant loudness and their tendency to poop everywhere. Despite his irreverent, negative and fairly accurate descriptions, it is clear that Kracht actually enjoys birds quite a lot (and not just roasted or baked). The biggest problem with this book is the positively microscopic print but that's a design flaw, not a content flaw. The humor does wear a little thin over the course of a reading unless you read it in small snatches but as long as profanity doesn't offend you, you'll probably giggle along often enough to make this worth reading. I know I did.
    • 4/5
      Definite fowl language alert, but Kracht's caustic appreciation of our avian friends (foes?) manages to be mildly informative and very funny, sometimes vice versa. His drawings are great, managing to enable identification of these birds as well as giving clues to their secret motivations. Can't decide if I like the entries for the Solitary Sandpooper or the Great Blue Moron better. The guide to the six basic bird shapes is very clarifying; it's nice to be able to tell a "lump" from a "weird legs" at a glance.
    • 4/5
      Delightfully snarky swipe at the highbrow world of bird watchers and ornithologists. Finally a book the the common man. Humorous descriptions of most common birds across the USA complete with hand drawn sketches. This book is not for children as language is rather profane. Recommended for any adult with appreciation of snark who has tried and failed to become a birder -- this book just might win them over.
    • 1/5
      Not funny, not witty. Each entry is a rant in crass, foul language (and I'm not squeamish about these things). I'd normally pass this along to someone else, but it's going in the recycling, where it might do a little good.
    • 3/5
      I received a free copy of this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. [Warning: strong language.]Even though you are unlikely to have considered the question before now, you probably already know whether or not you'd enjoy a profane bird guide. I love the idea; the title and the cover art had me laughing right away. The hand-drawn art is beautiful throughout, and the author's love for birds and birding is clear, despite his ostensibly hostile tone. After a while, though, the joke felt repetitive to me. I think I might prefer to read an alternate-universe edition hewing more closely to the present cover design, with a specific focus on the low intelligence demonstrated by the birds' (fictional) behavior.Each bird gets a two-page spread, pairing a full-page illustration with an insulting name, followed by a common name that explains away the joke. (Isn't it enough to describe the "Red-winged Buttwad" without clarifying that most people have traditionally called this a Red-winged Blackbird?) Maybe one could wish for more from the names, but I had fun arranging them along a continuum of antipathy: Dumb Western Bluebird, Dumb-Ass Robin, Stupid-Ass Steller's Jay, Damn Crows, Goddamn Song Sparrow, Goddamned Canada Goose, Fucking Pigeon, Motherfucking Bald Eagle. (In fact, the eagle probably belongs at the other extreme.)A paragraph or two of text identifies the defining features of each species, and expresses the author's disdain for it. Often, this is pretty funny. See under "Red-winged Buttwad," for example: "Southern and some lazy western populations don't migrate at all. Interestingly, who cares, because they're already everywhere." Or under "Great Blue Moron:" "[I]t's always trying to choke some giant fish down its stupid neck. There are plenty of other fish that would fit."Extra sections offer tips on bird-watching. Ordinarily, I wouldn't be in the market for that advice, but it's made more palatable by the author's casual cynicism.I have to mention that the editors missed a couple of things along the way, including the substitution of "who's" for "whose" twice in a single sentence.
    • 5/5
      The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America by Matt Kracht is a book I requested from NetGalley and the review is voluntary. This book is going in my favorite folder for sure! This is hilarious! I laughed out loud and giggled all the way through! The author has a wicked sense of humor, clever, witty, and the funniest art! His bird "guide" has everything from rules to follow, tools, how to keep a journal, and his own description and art of birds. He has his name for the birds and then the common name. A description of the birds then their color or tips about them or both. Then the picture. My gosh, my stomach hurt from laughing! I read bits to my mom who is in her 80's and she started laughing! This is a book for any bird lover, animal lover, or anyone that needs a good laugh!

    Book preview

    The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America - Matt Kracht

    Introduction

    Quite a few people have asked me how I came to write about birds, and this is the story I tell them:

    I was first introduced to bird watching when I was in the fourth grade. My teacher was an amateur ornithologist and a total nut for birds. Our class went on bird watching field trips. We read about birds. We watched nature documentaries about birds. And we each had to write a Bird Report about a specific bird over Christmas break.

    I argued for the black-capped chickadee (I liked them, and they’re everywhere in the Pacific Northwest where I live) but was ultimately assigned the golden-crowned kinglet. These things are nearly impossible to spot: they’re tiny, they hang out in the deep woods, and they don’t want to be anywhere near a fourth grader.

    I spent countless hours in the cold, dripping November woods and the knee-high grass of marshy fields with the dew soaking through my shoes trying to spot a golden-crowned kinglet so I could write my observations for the report. I never saw one. Maybe I saw one once in a tree. But it might have been a pinecone. Impossible to tell at that distance.

    The Bird Report was the first real report I ever had to write. It was also my first experience with crushing academic anxiety. On the last day of Christmas vacation, I cried because I didn’t know how to begin writing about a bird I had never seen in reality. Vacation was over, there was no time left, and I was paralyzed by impending failure. In the end, my mom made me hunker down and do it anyway.

    When I was finished, I had a blue cardboard report binder titled, Bird Report, which held the meager collection of handwritten pages and drawings that I was able to eke out in one long evening of despair spent with an encyclopedia and a field guide borrowed from the library. It was C- material at best.

    Fast-forward three and a half decades. Life is great and I’m taking a nice New Year’s Day walk with my wife along the shore of the Puget Sound near our home. The air is crisp, the water is lapping at the shore, the wind is rustling in the trees, and the sun is shining. Then I see it—not three feet away in the bushes at the edge of the woods—unmistakable: The Golden Crowned Kinglet! I couldn’t believe it. It was literally within arm’s reach.

    I froze and pointed it out to my wife. "Look, I whispered loudly, a golden-crowned kinglet!"

    I carefully pulled my phone from my pocket to snap a picture of it—proof of achievement for an assignment I suddenly realized had felt incomplete for nearly forty years. But that tiny little fucker would not stop jumping from spot to spot, barely landing in the branches of a bush for a split second before it flitted away behind a leaf or into some tall grass, each time before I could find it and my camera could focus on it. It was like trying to capture photographic evidence of Bigfoot.

    Pretty, my wife said when it finally flew away into the trees, and we walked on.

    "You little son of a bitch," I thought. The rest is history.

    Section 1:

    How to use this book

    If you are new to bird watching, you may benefit from familiarizing yourself with this guide and its different parts, especially the part with the birds in it. In addition to a drawing of the bird, each entry includes a description of physical appearance and notes on its behavior, calls, and general disposition. These are intended to aid not only with proper identification, but to help you on your way to a deeper understanding and appreciation of how truly horrible these tiresome little creatures are.

    Beyond the descriptions of birds, you will find information in this book covering many topics of interest to the bird watcher, including the history of bird watching, methods of identification, where to look for birds, tips for bird watching, seasonal bird watching and, if you are inclined to

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