BOOK REVIEWS

The Carolina Parakeet (2004), by

Noel F.R. Snyder. Publisher. Two color
plates and 36 black-and-white photographs. xii + 153 pages. $29.95 (cloth).

Parrots of the World (2006), by

Joseph Forshaw. Illustrated by Frank
Knight. Princeton University Press. 120
color plates; species accounts with
color maps. xii + 172 pages. $65
(cloth), $52 (ABA member price).

Parrots (1998, reprinted with corrections 2003), by Tony Juniper and

Mike Parr. Illustrated by Carl DSilva,
Kim Franklin, David Johnston, Dan
Powell, and Robin Restall. Yale University Press. 88 color plates; species
accounts with grayscale maps. 584
pages. $70 (cloth).

(For additional perspective, see my detailed 2006 review in Florida Field Naturalist 34:118120). Noel Snyder has
studied a number of enigmatic species,
including the Snail Kite, California
Condor, and Thick-billed Parrot. This
book is partly a summary of what is
known, unknown, and rumored about
the biology of the Carolina Parakeet,
and partly a reminiscence of Florida
natural history during the late 19th and
early 20th centuries, with brief accounts of recent visits to the Carolinas
thrown in for good measure. Regarding
the parakeets biology, Snyder summarizes the published record and provides
new information gathered from interviews during 19791981 with many
old-timers from the Okeechobee, Florida, region. Snyders absolute faith in
these hearsay data culled from potentially faulty memories dating back five
to seven decades detracts from the
books scientific value. Snyder accepts
as fact some questionable historical reports, such as the few second- or thirdhand claims that Carolina Parakeets

nested both in cavities and built stick

nestsa claim disputed by virtually
every other ornithologist. In addition,
Snyder doubts that the Ivory-billed
Woodpecker was a specialist of oldgrowth forests! The second tale that
Snyder weaves in this short book is the
fascinating interplay among ornithologists, oologists, sportsmen, Audubon
wardens, trappers, and other characters
who lived in south-central Florida
roughly 80 years ago.
Readers who own the Birds of North
America account of the Carolina Parakeet (written by Snyder and Keith Russell and published in 2002) and who
have little or no interest in the ornithological history of south-central Florida
can probably skip this book. For those
who wish to read The Carolina Parakeet
for its thoroughly enjoyable historical
accounts and wonderful photographs
(including several taken during the
1930s by Alexander Sprunt, Jr.), I recommend that more than a grain of salt
be taken concerning the new infor-

he Psittaciformes are one of the

bird worlds most recognizable and
diverse ordersand one of the
most substantial challenges for conservation ornithologists. For reasons ranging from habitat destruction and capture for the pet or aviculture trade to
eradication for crop protection, dozens
of psittacids are threatened with extinction, and several more are extirpated
from the wild or already extinct. Wellknown conservation failures involve
the only two psittacids native to the
ABA Area: the extinct Carolina Parakeet and the extirpated Thick-billed
Parrot, which persists in northwestern
Mexico. This is a review of three parrot
books published or reprinted recently.
One book offers glimpses of the natural history of the Carolina Parakeet,
while the other two are identification
guides to the worlds species.

ets begin with Snyders book on the

Carolina Parakeet. To devote most of
this space to the two identification
guides, I will keep this review brief.

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continued from page 76

mation provided about the parakeets

biology.

he other two books, Parrots (subtitled A Guide to Parrots of the World)

and Parrots of the World (subtitled An
Identification Guide), seek to replace
the out-of-print Parrots of the World by
Joseph Forshaw and illustrated by
William Cooper, originally published
in 1973. Forshaws classic was a coffee-table book, with large color plates
(many of the birds are painted at 1012
inches in length) and extensive text.
Both of these two new books offer
something new for birders, researchers,
aviculturists, and other parrot aficionados, but each has its shortcomings. I
hereafter refer to these two books as
J&P (its authors are Tony Juniper
and Mike Parr) and new Forshaw.
Both books share several features
that I will discuss here. Both lack a
table of contents, an omission that
forces readers to consult the indices in
the back of each book. All the plates are
presented in full color, and many helpfully show parrots in flight, in both
dorsal and ventral views. Both books
place the plates together in the middle
of the book between the text. J&P features 352 species (conveniently numbered 1352) and 1,355 illustrations
on 88 plates, while the new Forshaw
features 362 species (by my count; the
book doesnt specify the number of
species included) and 1,605 illustrations on 120 plates. Most of the differences in the number of species recognized are within the genus Pyrrhura:
The new Forshaw considers races of
White-eyed Parakeet and Painted Parakeet to represent 11 different species,
roughly following the treatment recommended by Ribas et al. in their 2006
article in Auk. To show scale among
species on a plate, the new Forshaw
uses a scale bar (1045 cm in length),
while J&P uses a drawing of a Budgeri-

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garthe latter is a more attractive, and

I think better, method.
Both books stress field and cage
identification, but J&P includes much
more biological information. The new
Forshaw discards much of the biological material included in the original
Forshaw, for reasons not clear to me.
For those who wish to learn about the
biology of parrots, J&P is a much better reference, but the new Forshaw includes more illustrations. Frustratingly,
both books use avicultural names
rather than AOU-sanctioned names
(e.g., Nanday Conure for Blackhooded Parakeet and Green-cheeked
Amazon for Red-crowned Parrot).
J&P includes a much larger bibliography (814 listings compared to 87 in the
new Forshaw), but in neither book are
the individual references cited specifically (except rarely in the new Forshaw), so one cannot know which references were used to support the statements in the text. These omissions severely detract from the scientific value
of the books. Each book contains a
map for each species. The maps in J&P
are grayscale and show species distribution by country. In contrast, the
maps in the new Forshaw are full color,
and they show distribution by subspecies (a wonderful feature), but they
do not include country boundaries (an
unacceptable omission), so that it is
very difficult to determine the true
range of a taxon.
Both books present biological information of parrots in their native ranges,
but the coverage of exotic populations
of parrotssuch as those occurring
within the ABA Areais poorly rendered. Not surprisingly, the information provided on our parrot populations is sparse, incomplete, and greatly
outdated. Regarding the Budgerigar, for
example, the new Forshaw simply
mentions feral populations in Florida, while J&P states that more than

BIRDING MARCH/APRIL 2008

3,000 birds are now found at St. Petersburg. The information in J&P was
last accurate in 1980, and the species
has been extirpated from St. Petersburg
since 1995 (see my 2001 article in
North American Birds). The new Forshaw mentions populations of Blackhooded Parakeets in California and
Florida, but J&P mentions only the
former of these, even though the population in Florida is much larger (see my
2003 article with Kimball Garrett in the
June 2003 Birding, pp. 248261). The
population of Peach-faced Lovebirds at
Phoenix, Arizona, is mentioned by the
new Forshaw but not by J&P. The new
Forshaw considers the Green Parakeets
in southern Texas to be exotic, whereas
J&P considers them to be a native annual visitor. Similarly, J&P refers to
Red-crowned Parrots in the region as a
winter visitor, whereas the new Forshaw considers their status in Texas to
be unresolved. Populations of both
species are permanent breeding residents, probably wholly derived from
escapees, mirroring the status of these
and similar species in urban parts of
California and Florida.
J&P was published in 1998 and has
never been reviewed in Birding until
now. A reprinting in 2003 with (apparently very few) corrections allows comparison with the new Forshaw. The introduction of J&P contains the following brief but informative sections: Style
and Layout of the Book; Origins and
Evolutionary Relationships; Classification of the Parrots; Natural History of
the Parrots; Conservation Status (including lists of imperiled species);
Threats; and Captive Breeding. The
species accounts, which take up the
bulk of the book, contain the following
sections: Identification (mostly of the
genus, with similar species discussed);
Voice; Distribution and Status; Ecology;
Description (of the particular species);
Sex/Age; Measurements; Geographical

WWW.ABA.ORG

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Variation; Notes; and References.

The plates contain differing styles
among the five artists used. Some
plates feature standard field-guide
poses with birds facing the same direction and perched on short lengths of
branches, while other plates feature
birds engaged in various activities and
surrounded by vegetation. Kim
Franklin accounts for nearly half of all
plates in J&P, and his illustrations are
first rate. Comparing all artists in the
two new parrot books, Franklins illustrations appear the most lifelike.
Among the species I know best, some
illustrations in J&P are off in one or
more ways, and those for Whitewinged and Yellow-chevroned Parakeets (still lumped as Canary-winged
Parakeet) are all wrong. Yellowchevroned has a body that is lighter
not darkerthan White-winged, and
its primaries are mostly green (not
blackish). White-winged should show
an unfeathered gray face, not a white
orbital ring with green lores, and its
primaries are bluish (not bright green).
The yellow bar on the secondary
coverts of each species should not extend to the tertials, which are green in
both species, and the white wing patch
of the White-winged Parakeet is much
too extensive as shown.
The new Forshaw retains some features of the original bookpluses as
well as minuses. Like its predecessor, it
is a large book (8.5 12 inches).
Ridiculously, Forshaw still refuses to
reference page numbers of species accounts opposite his plates, an action
that will again force thousands of readers to spend hours hand-writing the
text page numbers onto the pages opposite the plates. No bird book published
in the 21st century should lack essential
information such as references to page
numbers! The introductory material is
similar to that in J&P: sections on Plan
of the Book; Systematics of Parrots;

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Physical Features of Parrots; and Conservation. The species accounts are divided into two parts separated by the
plates: Old World Parrots (plates 169)
and New World Parrots (plates
70120). The accounts contain the following headings: Other Names; Distribution; Habitats and Status; Habits;
Calls; Similar Species; and Suggested
Localities.
The new Forshaw is illustrated by a
single artist (Frank Knight), so the
plates show a consistency throughout.
These plates represent the most thorough portrayal of the worlds psittacids
ever undertaken, although the quality
does not quite match that of Kim
Franklins art in J&P. Except for very
helpful views of parrots in flight, all of
Knights parrots are perched on a short
length of branch against a white (or for
white cockatoos, against a blue or gray)
background. Knight employs a cookie
cutter method to many of his plates,
and the proportions of several parrots
are off; many of his parrots (especially those in the New World) appear
squat or dumpy-bodied, and the tails
on many of his Ara and Aratinga
species are too wide at the base. Also,
the juvenile Budgerigar is incredibly
short-legged and in a strange horizontal posture, the Lilac-crowned Parrots
do not show the longer tail that helps
to distinguish the species from Redcrowned Parrot, and the Black-hooded
Parakeet is erroneously shown with a
conspicuous pale brown orbital ring
(in reality the orbital ring is dark gray
and nearly invisible against the blackish hood). But these are minor quibbles: Knights plates are a pleasure to
peruse and are one of the main draws
of the new Forshaw.
Strangely, the order of illustrations
on some plates does not conform with
the arrangement of the species names
on the facing page (especially Plate 69),
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and the maps for each species are

grouped together near the top of the
page, rather than being spaced apart to
conform with the text for each species.
Despite his long association with parrots, I was surprised that Forshaw globally confuses the eye-ring (an area of
colored feathers encircling the eye)
with the orbital ring (an area of colored
skin encircling the eye). Psittacids do
not have eye-rings; they have orbital
rings.) The new Forshaw also uses the
mildly archaic word phase to denote
color morphs, and he globally calls exotic populations feral (derived from
domestic stock), even though many or
most exotic parrot populations are naturalized (derived from wild-caught
stock). I noted numerous other minor
errors: The specific scientific name of
Chestnut-fronted Macaw is severa (not
severus), the White-winged Parakeets
specific name is spelled versicolurus
(not versicolorus), BirdLife International is oddly referred to as Birds International, and there are two errors in the
Pranty and Garrett (2003) reference.

ach of the two identification guides

published recently on the worlds
parrots has something important to offer. J&P offers the most up-to-date text
on the native biology of each species,
including hundreds of references (although none of these is cited in the
text). The new Forshaw offers more
psittacid illustrations than any book yet
published (and theyre all by one artist,
assuring consistency throughout). Both
booksas well as Snyders treatise on
the Carolina Parakeetdo a poor job of
updating the status of exotic parrot
populations around the world. Snyder
cites only two outdated references, the
new Forshaw cites only three references, and J&Pdespite containing
814 referencesincludes no citations
on populations of exotic parrots!
For readers who wish to improve

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their knowledge of parrotsincluding

identification criteriaboth J&P and
the new Forshaw have much to offer.
For those who wish to own just one of
these books, I recommend the new
Forshaw, despite the greatly expanded
section on biological information that
J&P provides. With more authorial effort to update and expand the text, and
better editing and layout to improve
the books utility, the new Forshaw
could be made into a superb reference.
Despite several unacceptable omissions
that prevent it from being an instant
classic, it is still the best book ever published on the worlds psittacids.

Bill Pranty
8515 Village Mill Row
Bayonet Point, Florida 34667
billpranty@hotmail.com

__________________
BP is a technical reviewer for and frequent
contributor to both Birding and North
American Birds, and he is the author of A
Birders Guide to Florida. He is Chairman of
the ABA Checklist Committee, a member of
the Florida Ornithological Society Records
Committee, and the American Birds editor
of Floridas Christmas Bird Counts.

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