Reviews REVIEWS

Penguins: Their World, Their Ways By Tui articles are a master-class in the communi- De Roy, Mark Jones & Julie Cornthwaite. cation of scientific research to a much wider Christopher Helm, London. 2013. ISBN public than published papers would 978-1-4081-5212-6. Hundreds of colour normally reach. All the contributors are to be congratulated on the clarity and readability photographs, distribution maps. Hardback. of their accounts. I’m not going to pick out £35.00. any for particular comment, although it was I’ve long passed the age where I expect appropriate that it was given to Conrad much from birthday presents, but earlier this Glass (the ‘Rockhopper Copper’) to describe year I dropped a subtle hint to the wife well the unfortunate events of the 2011 MV in advance, and on the day was delighted to Oliva oil spill at Tristan da Cuhna. unwrap and flick through this book; reading it properly had to wait until the summer The final section ( Natural History), field season ended! The format follows that compiled by Julie Cornthwaite, gives each of Albatross: Their World, Their Ways species a double-page spread summarising (reviewed in 22). First, the 18 facts and figures, and even these accounts species of penguin recognised here are average 8–9 colour photos. The only described in a series of essays covering the references in the book appear for each different taxonomic groups (e.g. Island species under Taxonomic source and Dandies: The Crested Penguins) in which Tui Conservation status, but these are not listed De Roy’s evocative text is almost lost among in full, although there is a short section on a multitude of stunning photographs, further reading and a very useful list of covering penguins in habitats ranging from websites where the reader can find out mangroves of the Galapagos, New Zealand’s much more information. There’s not a lot rain forests, cactus-strewn islets off Chile, more I can say or enthuse about this book. It stupendously remote Gough Island, and (of is memorable (does it always blizzard at course) Antarctica’s ice shelves and rocky Brown Bluff?) and inspiring (I really must coastline. The photo captions are all add that sub-Antarctic islands of New informative, behaviour is described, and Zealand pelagic to my bucket list, to hell locations are given in virtually all cases. with the cost!). It is also beautifully produced and a credit to all involved, not An interesting chapter by Mark Jones least the publisher - not a square cm is (Penguins and People: A Retrospective) wasted and the layout works perfectly. begins the second section, in which 15 Books like these don’t come along too often penguin experts are given double-page and if you don’t already have a copy, drop a spreads to summarise their research into heavy hint, get lucky, stick your feet up late different aspects of penguin evolution, in the day with a glass of something, and physiology, ecology, population monitoring simply enjoy! and conservation. It would already have been obvious to the reader that this book is Martin Heubeck no mere ‘coffee-table’ production, but these

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The Common Eider By Chris Waltho & how much I learned in reading these, as they John Coulson. T. & A.D. Poyser, re-compiled information provided previously Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2015. in the same chapter, but I guess it is useful in ISBN 978-1-4081-2532-8 (print) ISBN this format. A further sub-section on carrying capacity of habitats for eiders led my 978-1408-1-5280-5 (epub). 352 pages, thoughts to starvation events in the 31 colour photographs and two distri- Waddensee. Unfortunately, this chapter (nor bution maps, numerous illustrations, the chapter on Exploitation, Management graphs and tables. Hardback. £50.00. and Conservation) made no reference to this issue and the potential problem of This book is a recent addition to the Poyser competition with fisheries, which would series, complete with its reputation for rich appear to be a major problem for the species production values. The book follows a logical in some parts of its range. sequence of a detailed introduction to the Common Eider Somateria mollissima, its Chapters six to eleven contain considerable distribution, movements and abundance and detail about Common Eider breeding and the food and feeding. The lion’s share of this book breeding season, covering timing, egg laying, is made up of descriptions of the species’ clutch size, incubation and hatching, colonial breeding activity, much of it based upon the nesting and finally the ducklings. This is authors’ own research in the Firth of Clyde where the strength of this book lies, because and coast of Northumbria. This section there is great detail from the authors’ own includes research not published previously. research and reference to studies in other The latter chapters cover mortality and parts of the breeding range. I could not see survivorship, human exploitation of eiders any obvious gaps in the breadth of topics and their conservation and management. The covered within these chapters, although the final chapter by Diana Solovyeva compares balance was weighted inevitably towards the similarities and differences between the their own research in the UK. four recognised eider species. Six appendices provide detailed information to support the This book is not big enough to cover every preceding chapters. detail of the Common Eider’s life history, the main gap in my mind being the sparseness I focussed my attention on the chapters that of information about what this species does made greatest use of the authors’ own when it is not breeding. This is my perpetual research, especially as they were presenting grumble about all monographs I read, and is new material. The chapter on food and a reflection of the lack of research in this feeding was an interesting one for subject area (although this is changing demonstrating that their diet, although rapidly with the advent of new tracking usually dominated by the Blue Mussel methods). The authors could have done Mytilus edulis, is much more catholic than more to address this shortcoming, for acknowledged in the literature. There is a example by including a map of the species’ good description of the different prey items wintering distribution; even the UK Winter found to have been consumed by the species Atlas map would have helped. The and a brief account of the energetic value of appendices contain a list of important sites their prey (fairly similar between food types). (breeding, wintering and non-breeding) but I found it interesting to read about the nothing to support what makes them difference in biomass of potential prey in important. More information about the different habitat types used by Common diving behaviour of Common Eider would Eiders, with mussel beds and sublittoral also have been helpful (there is a bit of sandbanks with the bivalve Spisula being the research material available on this subject). most important. A section of this chapter describes the main habitat types used by Poyser always used to be synonymous with eiders; six of them apparently. I wasn’t sure high quality production, but the rest of the

90 SEABIRD 28 (2015) Reviews publishing world appears to have stolen a search hard to find that they were drawn by march on these publishers now. The book is Tim Wootton. well written and edited. If I searched hard enough, I’m sure I could find mistakes, but I thought that the full price for this book was that’s true of any book. I found the text to expensive, but probably comparable to be too cluttered on the page, and more former times if inflation is accounted for. could have been done with the figures to Bloomsbury are probably aware of the price, convey the story they are telling. The because I saw substantial discounts clustering of colour photographs (mostly available when I looked online. I recommend John Anderson’s excellent material) in the buying this book, if for no other reason than centre pages is an old format and more it is worth obtaining a copy for its in-depth colour within the body of the book would research on all aspects of Common Eider have improved the appearance greatly. Each breeding behaviour in the UK. chapter is headed by a beautiful vignette but with no obvious credit; you have to Andy Webb

The Devil’s : a Natural life from the author’s perspective as he History By Richard J. King. University of follows the trials and tribulations of New Hampshire Press, Lebanon NH. 2014 breeding on nearby Gates (paperback edition by Oxbow Books Ltd, Island, “just by the mouth of the Mystic Oxford). ISBN 978-1-61168-699-9. 352 River at the far eastern edge of Long Island Sound” and close enough to King’s office for pages, 22 b/w figures. Paperback, £18.00. him to be able to hop in a boat and visit. In fact, he’s done this for over a decade, The Devil is in the Detail sometimes as often as twice a week. These I enjoyed reading this book. Richard King is a monthly book-ends, across the cycle of a full senior lecturer in the ‘Literature of the Sea year, keep the reader nicely grounded (or and the American Environmental Movement’ should that be ‘watered’?) in the elemental at Williams-Mystic, a maritime studies world of cormorants, reminding us of their programme based in Mystic, Connecticut, naturalness and the geographic expanse of USA. King writes well, stitching together their world. King’s are Double-crested scientific ‘facts’, general interpretations Cormorants ( auritus, one of thereof, peoples’ and institutions’ stories and maybe 39 extant cormorant species - the histories, and vignettes of the natural world. family has a much-debated and Furthermore the comprehensive quotes the book offers a helpful Appendix) and given throughout the book offer a voice to these particular individuals breed in many of those whose experiences and Connecticut and spend the winter amongst knowledge King collates here - be they the Florida Keys, journeying south in the academic researchers or real people. Very like autumn and returning north in the spring. the maritime studies programme itself, this book is clearly an interdisciplinary Within the main chapters, the diversity, endeavour. Whilst all the careful stitching geographical distribution, numbers and offers us a rich tapestry of many things movements of some of the world’s cormorant, the extensive (but unobtrusive) cormorant species are described. These footnotes and a selected bibliography allow chapters also contain numerous nuggets and us to follow individual threads - be they insights into many of the other cormorant literature sources or the extensive interviews species, including the almost mythical (if, and conversations conducted by the author. sadly, recently extinct) Spectacled Cormorant P. perspicillatus. Much is also told about The book’s twelve chapters are each book- humans’ relationships with, and feelings ended with a short description of cormorant towards, cormorants. Each chapter is centred

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on a geographical location from where cultural influences” (think of big bad wolves, another part of the cormorant tapestry cunning foxes and wise owls). Cormorants do unfolds. Thus, from Gifu City we hear about not fare too well in our overt and subcon- the tradition and skills (and not insignificant scious determinations of which tourism opportunities) of cormorant fishing mean more (or less) to us, being very often in Japan - undertaken on rivers at night using used to evoke evil or greed, or both. trained, tethered birds (Japanese Cormorants P. capillatus mostly) to catch drawn close In many ways it is this psychological to boats by the light of fires tended in iron phenomenon (my term) that fuels both the baskets. We travel to South Georgia to visit remaining chapters of King’s book and the the world of the Blue-eyed Shag P. georgianus conflicts he discusses within them - each set and to hear of life in the Antarctic - how in a different location within the United cormorants feed in such inhospitable States. Here, cormorant-fisheries conflicts are environments and how people on many described and discussed specifically around previous expeditions have survived there too the birds’ (P. auritus’) predation of sport - often it appears by dining on the apparently (angling) fish species in the Great Lakes, their rather tasty cormorants. Off the coast of Peru depredations at Mississippi fish farms - we learn about the global guano trade based extensive, shallow ponds teeming with on the massive quantities deposited by the Channel Catfish Ictalurus punctatus, a species P. bougainvillii. This “always called ‘U.S. farm-raised catfish,’ even resource, accumulated for many decades in in casual conversation” apparently, and their these cormorant colonies, located in an predation on the juveniles of several species environment where any cleansing rain is of Pacific Oncorhynchus spp. salmon as they exceptionally scarce, was used as fertilizer try to negotiate the combined hazards of and exploited intensively in the latter half of hydro-power dams and turbines, the change the nineteenth century, although the practice from fresh to salt water as they undergo their was known since the time of the Incas. Some downstream migrations as ‘smolts,’ and the millions of tons of guano - worth billions of myriad of environmental issues, including dollars at today’s prices - were once exported predation by fish-eating birds (not all of them to the United States and Europe. We visit cormorants!). These are powerful stories - so in the north Pacific where the much so that you need to read them for Spectacled Cormorant introduces us to both yourself but a brief summary might go the population-scale horror of global something like this: a growing cormorant and the individual-scale beauty of population; debates over their diet, daily food the various colours of cormorants’ eyes, intake and potential consequences for local amongst other things. Further chapters take fisheries; incomplete scientific understanding; us to Cape Town in South Africa and the the sheer emotion of this ‘debate’; demands Galápagos Islands off Ecuador (initially, at for action; differences in values; the illegal least, in the company of P. mass killing of birds and nest destruction; the neglectus and P. harrisi), legal mass killing of birds and nest and then to Tring in the UK for an encounter destruction; attempts at evidence-based with a veritable host of Phalacrocoraxes. policy and management. But what constitutes evidence? As his starting point for an exploration of some key cultural issues, including ones of To those readers who know about the superstition, associated with cormorants, cormorant-fisheries issues a little closer to King takes us to the Aran Islands off the Irish home, in the UK and the rest of Europe coast. He begins with a short story from (involving P. carbo and, these islands concerning the most commonly, the P. c. sinensis race), as P. aristotelis to show how we rank animals well as being powerful, these stories are “characterising [them] based on a fluid familiar ones. And here’s my only gripe with interchange between direct observation and this eloquent and expansive book - I would

92 SEABIRD 28 (2015) Reviews have liked to have seen just a little bit more English ones in a tributary of the River of Europe in it - but that’s a purely personal Thames to mention only a handful. Many a opinion. In the concluding chapter King brings page of King’s entertaining and thought- us back to ‘his’ cormorants on Gates Island provoking book details how humans have and, in summarising his “studies to examine dramatically altered habitats, affected the human relationship with cormorants ecosystems, eradicated or overharvested across cultures, across time, and across whole populations right across the globe. academic disciplines,” he offers “six distilled These details suggest strongly that the real lessons about these birds and what [he’s] Devil in all this is very probably not an avian learned about our larger connections to the one at all. This understanding should, perhaps, natural world.” One of these - and, perhaps, have at least some influence on how we view the most powerful and pervasive to this - and address - our so-called ‘cormorant reviewer - is that cormorants are a scapegoat problems’ in the dazzling variety of habitats for much larger, more difficult environmental and aquatic systems in which these concerns. We have found this, too, across fascinating birds occur. Europe - with Romanian fisheries in the Danube Delta, Greek ones in Lake Kerkini, Dave Carss Lithuanian ones in the Nemanus Delta and

Fish atlas of the Celtic Sea, North Sea, shelf from west of Ireland to the central Baltic and Baltic Sea By Henk J. L. Heesen, Niels Sea and from Brittany to Shetland. Although Daan & Jim R. Ellis (eds.). Wageningen the surveys extended beyond the shelf edge, Academic Publishers/KNNV Publishers, only species reported from waters less than Wageningen. 2015. ISBN 978-90-8686- 200 m deep are included. 266-5 or 978-90-5011-537-7. 572 pages, This is a serious labour of love and the numerous colour photographs, colour editors have made every effort to make it of maps and figures. Hardback, € 80. interest both to scientists as well as readers just wanting to know more about the distri- An interactive atlas (ICES-FishMap) was bution and biology of and, in our case, launched on the internet in 2005 but it was their availability to as prey. They not maintained and after some years the data successfully transmit some of their own were deleted. In 2009, the editors of this book joyful experiences in being on board took the initiative to produce an atlas. This is research vessels. A book of this type can all the result of hard work by them and the too easily end up on an office shelf only to hundreds of scientists and crew who made be consulted in case of doubt of some the trawl hauls and identified and measured specific question (and I have shelves of such millions of fishes on what were not always the volumes). However, this book is in a most stable working platforms. This book is far different league. I read my copy from cover more than a traditional atlas since it not only to cover, learnt an immense amount, presents distribution maps of over 200 fish laughed out loud at some of the passages species but also summarises spatial, depth, and have marked some of these to be read size and temporal data in extremely readable aloud to friends; it still remains within easy accounts of their biology. The standard of reach of my armchair to pick up and browse writing and overall presentation is first-class a species account or two each evening. and the text is broken up with large numbers of pictures, graphs and maps. The quantitative Most readers will home in on the species information is derived from trawl data from accounts that run from large and ugly fish 72,000 stations fished by research vessels such as hagfish Myxine glutinosa (catching during the period 1977–2013. The area one is not particularly pleasant for a crew of covered includes the northwest European scientists sorting a catch, because of the

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amount of sticky slime that a single specimen Records, Niels Daan counted 44,092 pogge can produce) to small and attractive species eggs by the naked eye to learn that after such as solenette Buglossidium luteum (that reaching 10 cm [the maximum length is 26 cm], will never grow to marketable size, not even a female increases its egg production on a size [maximum length 15 cm] that could be average by 323 for every length increment of 1 sold on the black market for undersized sole cm. Then there is a neat graph to show the [Solea solea]). Each species account relationship. Obviously, fish biologists can presents a wealth of data on taxonomy and become as engrossed in their work as any identification, spatial and depth distri- seabird ornithologist and few can write so bution, size, changes in numbers and on evocatively about their work. biology (habitat use, age, growth, maturity, reproduction and larval stages, migrations) Here is a goldmine of information, insights and its commercial exploitation. An and lessons to be learnt for anyone interested exhaustive bibliography of each species is in fish or birds. We learn that identification of given towards the end of the book. sandeels Ammodytidae is far from easy and many records in trawls were identified only to Having read a few species accounts, the the or even family level. But even then, reader should turn to the introductory peculiar length measurements and irregu- chapters to learn how the data were collected larities in annual reporting suggested that and the enormous care taken to validate the some generic identifications were not to be results and weed out inconsistent identifi- trusted. Therefore the account is at the family cations and length measurements. The warts level, although details of species are given in are exposed to view, but then dealt with in an the text. Surprisingly, hardly any sandeels exemplary manner. Few of us would have were reported before 1991 even though the been so diligent and honest. seabirds were certainly feasting on them. The box ‘Identification of sandeels: a lottery?’ Forty-eight text boxes cover major topics could usefully be read by those of us who are such as ageing of fish, the plaice box, perhaps sometime too dogmatic in our measuring, reporting and processing size description of seabird diets. information, and ‘Mackerel midges’ (the pelagic juvenile stages of rockling that are fed A two-page spread of maps documents the in large numbers to young seabirds). Many of rise and fall in numbers of snake pipefish these text boxes have a personal touch but Entelurus aequoreus that caused such grief to convey a serious message. That on the young seabirds around northern Britain in the fecundity of pogge Agonus cataphractus, a mid 2000s. Numbers in the northeast Atlantic rather insignificant small (2–24 cm), increased during 2004–8, initially in deep armoured, bottom-living species that is water but later almost everywhere including occasionally eaten by seabirds, gives a flavour. inshore waters but after 2009 declined just as During the IBTS in February 1976, RV Tridens dramatically. The box concludes that scientists made a haul of 236 pogge which comprised jumped too easily to the explanation that the large number of individuals ready to spawn. outburst might reflect a major transition in the Estimating fecundity of most fish species marine ecosystem in response to climate requires a tedious procedure of sub-sampling change ([references to some papers…]), even and microscopic work, but a female pogge with though cause and effect could not be ripe eggs offers an ideal subject for fecundity elucidated. The subsequent downfall indicates studies, because neither sub-sampling nor a that climate change does not offer a plausible microscope is required, just a total count. A explanation. As yet the rise and fall of snake sample of 33 females was stored in the freezer pipefish remains one of those unexplained and all eggs in the ovaries counted at odd events that just happen now and then. Nothing moments, thanks to the fact that time could be more clearly stated. management had not yet been introduced at the institute. So for the Guinness Book of Mike Harris

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