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| The Book of Eggs: A life-size guide to the eggs of six hundred of the world's bird species by Mark E | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: May 14 2014, 01:03 PM (262 Views) | |
| Liquid Sky | May 14 2014, 01:03 PM Post #1 |
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The Book of Eggs: A life-size guide to the eggs of six hundred of the world's bird species by Mark E. Hauber Published by: University of Chicago Press Price: $55![]() There's a dazzling array of colour and pattern in the 600 eggs photographed in Mark Hauber's The Book of Eggs, plus fascinating insights into their biology BOILED, coddled, fried, scrambled or poached, our usual interaction with eggs is as a consumer: the inside is to be eaten. Once broken, the shell is lobbed in the bin and forgotten. and patterns. While the occasional speckled egg might elicit a comment at the breakfast table, it pales into insignificance against the rich copper of the eggs of Cetti's warbler. And the green-blue eggs of the great tinamou are so beautiful that an encounter with the nest of this Amazonian species was the only time I have known one of my long-term field guides to rhapsodise about egg colour rather than edibility. In terms of pattern, it is hard to beat the eggshell of the guira cuckoo (which looks like a chocolate dessert drizzled with evaporated milk), the scribbled surface of a great bowerbird egg, or the translucent, multi-layered patterning of the eggs of cedar and bohemian waxwings, where the blotching seems to loom through a fog of shell. Each of the book's 600 eggs is photographed life size, with magnified views of the smaller ones to allow us to appreciate the detail. For each, a summary of breeding biology links form to function. Oddly, the amazing exercise in biological packaging that is the egg sometimes makes species vulnerable to predators. The Antarctic giant petrel, for example, evolved on rodent-free islands and its white eggs are easy prey for invasive rodents. The book also wisely includes the egg of the extinct great auk, the last few of which were hunted down to make sure that museums had skins and eggs of this once-abundant seabird. Altogether, this book achieves a fine synergy between informative text and beautiful photographs. My only trifling criticism is that placing the eggs on a black rather than a white background would have made their lustre and beauty stand out still more. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229680.800-the-worlds-most-beautiful-birds-eggs.html
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| AquarianLove | May 14 2014, 01:16 PM Post #2 |
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Oh wow they are beautiful..The variation of blues and crackled blue and white are pretty. |
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