19 meticulous birding notebooks kept during the 1980s and early 1990s.

£2,500 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books

a decade's worth of bird watching An exceptional set of notebooks recording the observations of an Audubon Master Birder between 1985 and 1992, primarily on Long Island, but also including trips within the US and Caribbean. Natural history records of such depth and specificity are extremely rare, and this set has fantastic potential for research into a wide range of topics, from the impact of climate change to the social history of birding and citizen science. While it is unfortunate that notebooks one through five, and eleven, are lacking, this is still a very significant and nearly complete set of material covering almost a decade. The compiler of these records, Howard Boltson, lived in East Northport, near Huntington on Long Island, and was heavily involved with local and national ornithology groups. A member of the Huntington Audubon Society, he had completed the organisation's rigourous, multi-week Master Birder course and was a regular volunteer, including as a field trip leader. He participated in Project Birdwatch, an initiative of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Federation of New York State Bird Clubs. Begun in 1986, the project's goal was to identify and describe seasonal patterns of bird distribution by combining data from the weekly reports of experienced observers ('How to Join Project Birdwatch' in Feathers, the newsletter of the Hudson-Mohawk Bird Club, winter 1986). He also regularly submitted reports of rare bird sightings to the New York State Avian R

• Binding: Hardcover

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