Bird Watchers and Bird Feeders

Autumn, winter, spring, or summer—any season is good for bird watching and bird feeding. For birds almost always have hearty appetites, and one of the best ways of watching them is by building a feeder where they can stop to eat.

Follow the seasons with Dr. Blough in this new science nature book while he discusses bird menus, bird feeders, bird migrations, bird banding, and the equipment needed by the beginning ornithologist. He tells what to look for and points the way to wonderful discoveries that can be made about birds if you listen carefully, get as close as you can, look as long as you can, and see as much as you can.

Jeanne Bendick's brightly colored drawings make identification of the birds of the fifty states and many others more simple and more fun too.

Statistics have been updated with information collected on birds from 1920-2022 instead of 1920-1963.

This book is illustrated in three colors, red, blue and black. Back in the 1960s when it was first published, it was significantly cheaper to print half the pages using three colors (red, blue, black) and half in black & white. As the large sheets of paper were fed through the printing press, one side was printed in color and the other in black and white.

Full color is made up of four colors, which means four passes through the printing press—so full color on all pages of a book meant eight passes through the printing press. Three colors on one side and black ink on the other was only four passes through the printing press, so half the cost in labor while producing a visually stimulating, appealing book.

Each large sheet of paper would then be cut into individual pages, a section of these pages from one sheet is called a signature. In this case, each signature is 16 pages. The book had three signatures and 48 pages.

From the de Grummond Children's Literature at the University of Southern Mississippi, where Jeanne Bendick donated many of her papers and drawings for archival, I've learned that she did the books in this series all in black & white. She then decided how the color separations would be done to add red and blue on half the pages while the books were printed. I thought to myself, I can do that on the black & white pages, so I've gone through and added red and blue highlights with photoshop in the style of Jeanne Bendick. Hope you and your children enjoy having each page in color!