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THE BIRDS OF AZERBAIJAN. By Michael Patrikeev. Edited by Geoffrey H. Harper. Pensoft Series Faunistica No. 38, Sofia, Bulgaria. 2004: 380 pp., 241 distribution maps, 6 graphs, 80 photographs (3 black/ white, 77 colored). ISBN: 954642207X. $85.16 (cloth). This large-format (21.5 × 28.5 cm), remarkably informative book is the first monographic description of Azerbaijan birds. The author claims that it is not a comprehensive handbook, but it is scholarly and primarily a broad historical, biogeographical, and ecological treatment. It is a welcome and needed addition to the ornithology of this fascinating, and hitherto little known, area of the southern Palearctic. Azerbaijan is a relatively small country of 86,000 km^sup 2^ in Eastern Transcaucasia, bordering the western shore of the Caspian Sea, The book contains no species-specific measurements or identification descriptions, but this information is readily available from numerous European field guides. What it does contain is valuable fundamental knowledge, and guidance and encouragement for future bird conservation and management. The author's hope seems to be that birds will do for Azerbaijan what they have done for other countries: contribute to protecting not only the avifauna but also the resources needed to rehabilitate and sustain healthy ecosystems.
The book begins with a geographic description of the country and its associated avian habitats, a historical review of Azerbaijan ornithology, an overview of the country's avifauna from the mid-1800s to the late 1900s, and a description of seven avifaunal geographic regions and subregions. It then provides a revealing assessment of bird conservation in this developing nation, one with a diverse birdlife and extraordinary human turmoil. The species accounts follow and include most of the text (pp. 35-284). The accounts include summaries of distribution (usually including a map), population size, movements, breeding ecology, diet, causes of mortality, behavior, and status (abundance, endangered or declining, seasonal occurrence, and taxonomy). The photographic plates, presented without obvious organization, depict selected habitats, nests, and flocks or individual birds. The photo of the Calandra Lark (Melanocorypha calandra) nest containing young is certainly...