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Rating: 
Summary: A superb, literate account of bird life on Marth's Vineyard.
Review: Bird News provides a year in the life of Martha's Vineyard birds, with the author/observer charting feathered marvels both native and imported. A report by month and day allows for intimate first-person seasonal observations which prove revealing and involving. Highly recommended: a literary bird journal.
Rating: 
Summary: Local knowledge is fine, but style counts too.
Review: The author, Vaux, loves birds, has lots of birding friends, lives on an island that attracts a remarkable number of species, and writes a column on birding for his local newspaper. As a description of the birding life on Martha's Vinyard, this book is serviceable. His descriptions of Razorbills, for example, are evocative. Unfortunately, most of the book consists of recycled, apparently not re-edited, newspaper columns. There is some interesting local information in these columns, which I appreciated. On the other hand, too much of the book consists of items describing how Mr. and Mrs. Homer Pettifogg III, new and rich visitors to the island, saw a Rose-breasted Grosbeak on May 21, 1998, and had no idea what it was until your humble author arrived to straighten them out and share their whiskey. If you enjoy such trivia, then this is the book for you. However, if you want something a bit more limpid and inspiring than provided by this author's clunky writing style, you might want to look elsewhere.
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