The Pacific Northwest is a shorebird haven. Its temperate protected estuaries provide sustenance for great flocks of shorebirds through the winter, and the wave-washed rocks and sandy coastal beaches are rest stops for hundreds, thousands, even millions of shorebirds moving up and down the Northwest coast, year after year. Shorebirds of the Pacific Northwest embraces an area from southern British Columbia -- from the latitude of the north tip of Vancouver Island -- through Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and western Montana. Paulson has carefully compiled the latest information about characteristics of sixty-one documented and eighteen potential shorebird species based on exhaustive research of the literature, museum collections, and photographs, as well as his own and Jim Erckman's extensive field experience. This unique reference offers a wealth of information to satisfy the expert as much as to stimulate the intermediate and beginning birder. By helping readers understand the lives of these birds, the authors encourage better management of shorebird habitats. And their book is timely because the estuaries and other wetlands that these beautiful and far-flying birds use are among the most endangered environments of the Northwest.

Dennis Paulson's profile page

Dennis Paulson is director of the Slater Museum of Natural History at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. Jim Erckmann (illustrator) is watershed manager of the Cedar River watershed for the Seattle Water Department. Both have doctorates in zoology and have conducted research on shorebird biology. They share a long interest in and passion for the birds that are the subject of this book.

A new book about birds rolls off the presses every day. I have read many of these wonderful and useful books; and yet, when I read Shorebirds of the Pacific Northwest, I realized that it is a truly superior bird book. - John Cooper, Royal British Columbia Museum I probably don't exaggerate when I say that Shorebirds of the Pacific Northwest has raised the standard of what constitutes an excellent bird book. This is a book that will interest all birders in North America ... an all purpose handbook, packed with information. - Alvaro Patricio Jaramillo, Birder's Journal Before I say anything else I must say this: Paulson and Erckmann's guide to the shorebirds of southern British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and western Montana is a goldmine. Based on extensive research and full of in-depth field observations, this book is a must for all libraries in the southern half of this province ... Shorebirds of the Pacific is indeed a "job well done." - Ted Goshulak, BCLA Reporter