Portraits of Tropical Birds - Hardcover

Dunning, John S.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0915180278 ISBN 13: 9780915180271

Publisher: Harrowood Books, 1984

Synopsis

A breathtakingly beautiful collection of 72 full-page color portraits from a photographer who has spent the last quarter-century capturing South American birds on film. Each portrait is described on an opposite page including range information, common and scientific names, and family information

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

PORTRAITS OF TROPICAL BIRDS John S. Dunning From the dense lowland jungles and the mountain ranges of Central and South America come these breathtaking portraits of tropical birds. Trogons and antsbrikes, hummingbirds and barbets, jacamars, motmots, and puffbirds are shown in all their splendid plumage. Above all, there are tanagers, in great variety, brilliant blue or iridescent green, crimson or gold: the delicacies of their feathering, the tints of their legs and beaks, their characteristic attitudes all find expression in these masterly photographs by John S. Dunning. Many of the birds depicted are virtually unknown to ornithologists; some are on the brink of extinction, as the habitats to which they are so intimately adapted yield to bulldozer and power saw. In their striking clarity, these photographs constitute a permanent record of each species. Their scientific value is great: for some birds, they represent the first photographs ever made; for others, they may be the last. Each plate is accompanied by a brief comment on the bird shown--how much we know, and, more frequently, how much we do not know. For the American tropics, richer in bird life than any other area of the world, remain very largely an ornithological unknown.

About the Author:

John S. Dunning, a native of Connecticut and a graduate of Yale University, is a Field Collaborator of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and is also a vice president of the Florida Audubon Society. On his retirement from business, he set himself the goal of photographing as many neotropical birds as time and effort allowed. This handsome volume is eloquent testimony to his success. In an absorbing appendix, Mr. Dunning tells of the experiments through which he developed sophisticated techniques for photographing his fragile and elusive subjects under conditions as nearly as possible approximating their natural environment. The equipment he used is clearly described to encourage other nature photographers.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harrowood Books
• Publication date: 1984
• ISBN 10: 0915180278
• ISBN 13: 9780915180271
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 174