THE BIRDING DICTIONARY - Rosemary Mosco

What is there to say about a book like this?  This is a humor book, masquerading as a "birding dictionary" - meaning a dictionary of terms common to birders (ie obsessed bird watchers). Author Rosemary Mosco is clearly familiar with birders (perhaps she is one herself) and picks up on a lot of their language and abbreviations (I have some very avid birders in my family and can't escape a lot of their birding discussions).

For the most part, this is a delightful, humorous collection of terms - terms that can be taken in more than one way:

chat/ (...) 1. One of many songbirds belonging to various unrelated groups. (...) 2. A group text that people use to let each other know about a rare bird sighting (...)

raptor /( ... ) This term should not be confused with 1) a nickname for the dinosaur velociraptor , popularized by the (famous movie) franchise, or 2) a member of Toronto's NBA team. Unlike movie dinosaurs, most hawks cannot open doors, and their free throw percentages are nothing to write home about, either.

Sometimes the entries are just a little silly:

dust bathe/ (...) To roll around in dust, sand, or dirt. Many birds dust bathe (...) it seems to help them stay clean. (...) When a human dust bathes, she just gets dirt all over her clothes and people say things like "Ma'am, please stop, this is a Starbucks parking lot."

The book is a little on the skimpy side for a dictionary but then it's more a humor book than a dictionary. In fact, I think this is more of a bathroom reader for birders - something to keep them entertained on the throne after their cell phones have died searching for the latest 'twitchable' (hey, why isn't that in the book?).

This is the sort of book a non-birder gets their bird friend for Christmas, hoping they're willing to laugh at themselves as much as we laugh at them.

Looking for a good book? The Birding Dictionary by Rosemary Mosco is a humor book based on the lexicon of obsessive bird watchers.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

3-1/2 stars

* * * * * *

The Birding Dictionary

author: Rosemary Mosco

artist: Rosemary Mosco

publisher: Workman Publishing Group

ISBN: 9781523525355

paperback, 176 pages

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