[.ca] A Guide to the Nests, Eggs, and Nestlings of North ... (ISBN 0691122954)

Awesome Detailed Birders' Book:
What I love most about this book are the colour plates - pages of coloured drawings of many baby birds, of babies from birth to when they fledge and really detailed full colour drawings of their eggs. If you love birds and are fascinated by them, then you will want this book. This book gave me the detail I wanted about our native mallard ducks. A pair had created a nest in my front garden and this book answered my questions - how long until the eggs hatch, how many eggs do they lay, how do they make the nest, who takes care of the offspring, who are the predators, etc. Then the book gave me info I didn't expect. For instance it explained about incubation and details about hatching such as "pipping" and synchronized hatching--accompanied by drawings--and really cool stuff that I just never knew about. (We monitored the mallard nest with a baby monitor and when they hatched we escorted them to the local creek. The mallards came and made a nest for five years after that). This book does cover all the birds of North America, so many don't live or migrate to my area. But if you're a big birding fan, any info on birds is interesting.