| Birds of Central Park | 
 enlarge | Author: Cal Vornberger
Creator: Marie Winn
Publisher: "Harry N. Abrams, Inc."
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
Buy New: $23.10
You Save: $11.90 (34%)
New (15) Used (7) Collectible (1) from $10.45
Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 175034
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.3
Dimensions (in): 10.8 x 10.6 x 1.3
ISBN: 0810959178
Dewey Decimal Number: 598.097471
EAN: 9780810959170
ASIN: 0810959178
Publication Date: October 1, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
Central Park is an 843-acre oasis in the middle of Manhattan's vast network of steel, concrete, and glass. It is also, according to the New York City Audubon Society, one of the top ten birding spots in America. More than 200 species pass through the park on their migratory routes each spring and fall, close to one third of the bird species found in the United States. For the past two and a half years Cal Vornberger has been in the park every day photographing these feathered park residents. The best of those images are now collected in this gorgeous volume.
Vornberger's photos capture birds engaged in all types of activities: feeding, bathing, caring for their young, flying, singing. Among the more than 100 species featured are warblers, egrets, herons, kingfishers, a boreal owl, and hawks (including the famous Pale Male, whose eviction last December from its ritzy Fifth Avenue perch sparked nationwide news stories). Packaged inside the book is a removable foldout pocket guide. Vornberger's spectacular photography, interspersed with his comments about birds, the park, and photography, will appeal to all bird-watchers, nature lovers, photography aficionados, and visitors to New York's Central Park.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
Fabulous Book June 26, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If you like birds, you'll love the unbelievable photographs. If you like Central Park, you'll enjoy the map on the front and back flats which help you identify where the pictures were taken. Glad I purchased this book.
More than just pretty pictures. February 26, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I'm not an ornithology buff, but I am a serious amateur photographer. I also happen to live in New York City and do a lot of shooting in Central Park.
I've seen Cal Vornberger a few times as he was going about his business and intensely bringing his huge 600mm lens to bear on some unsuspecting bird.
Until purchasing the book, my exposure (no pun intended) to Vornberger's work was limited to a few looks at his website.
While there are some standard "bird on a stick" shots, they do not by any means make up the majority of the photos. Frankly, anyone with a long lens can take a picture of a perched bird.
What sets Vornberger apart is his knowledge of each species and having the patience to wait for his subjects to be doing something interesting. His shots of so many different species going about the business of feeding, nesting and simply interacting with each other are outstanding.
The printing is excellent and the essays by Vornberger and Marie Winn are informative and very well written. I spend a lot of time in Central Park shooting general nature subjects, but Vornberger's maps led me to discover some areas of the park that I'd never before explored.
If you have any interest in birds, Central Park or photography, this is a must buy.
 From a non-New Yorker January 15, 2006
0 out of 14 found this review helpful
I have not yet heard from my sister and brother-in-law, who were the recipients of this Christmas gift. They have an apartment on Central Park, but also have a place in Key West and may not yet have received the present. I thought it was a handsome book.
Simply AMAZING January 3, 2006
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Just one look at the images of the beautiful Warblers amongst the tree limbs will melt your heart... This is one to definately have on your coffee table!!!
In Central Park without Binoculars November 6, 2005
22 out of 22 found this review helpful
Birds flying up and down the Atlantic flyway inevitably encounter a huge patch of concrete, asphalt and brick. In the center they see a large patch of green, with plants and insects. That's why Central Park in New York City is one of the best birding spots in North America. Several hundred avian species can be found there. In addition, there is another species there in large number, Homo sapiens birdwatcher and still another smaller subspecies, Homo sapiens bird photographer.
With all these birds, birders and bird photographers, there was a huge niche for a book called "Birds of Central Park". Cal Vornberger has filled that niche.
Vornberger has digitally captured the wide variety of birds that pass through Central Park. He presents these birds by season rather than in taxonomical order, which helps to give an impression of the bird life in the park the way that a birder would see it. Like all good photographers Cal is concerned with the light. But his style is different from those of other bird photographers, like Art Morris or Tom Vezo. Instead of being concerned with artistic composition, or deep focus to give a sense of the environment, the author seems aimed at a sense of intimacy with the individual birds. Most of the birds pictured fill the frame completely, forcing us to focus on the individual.
What is amazing is not only how close Vornberger has gotten to his subjects, but how he has caught them in the details of their daily lives. I have never seen so many photographs of birds with food, whether insects, berries or crustaceans, in their mouth. And he has caught many of these birds in flight, reminding me of the bird pictures of the great Eliot Porter. But the artist that Vornberger's portraits most remind me of is the great John James Audubon. There is this same sense of intimacy and presentation against a subtle background.
Occasionally, Vornberger brings his own special aesthetic to the book, as when he pictures a cardinal taking off in the snow on the face page to the winter section. The bird's wings are cut off, the bird faces away from us and the only way that the reader can tell that the white background is snow is from the white snowflakes that follow the bird's ascent. And yet this picture captures a moment better than most technically perfect photographs.
Vornberger's occasional remarks interspersed with the pictures often present a little known fact about the subject or give a hint to other bird photographers hoping to duplicate his accomplishments.
This book should not be considered a guide to Central Park's birds, although there is a convenient pocket guide in a slipcover in the back of the book. Instead it is a testimonial to the birds of Central Park. New York lovers, birders and photographers will want to page through this book to recall the avian pleasures of the park.
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