Keeping a list of the birds you have seen turns an ordinary walk into something you remember, and this journal gives that habit somewhere proper to live. The first pages hold a life list with room for a hundred birds, each with space for the name, the date and the place, and the rest of the book is given over to observation pages that prompt you through what to actually notice: the time and the weather, how many birds there were, the shape of the bill and the tail, the markings, the way it behaved. There are a few pages of advice up front on what to bring and when to go out. Between the writing pages, the American Museum of Natural History has pulled plates from its rare book collection, Audubon's great blue heron and Catesby's ivory-billed woodpecker among them, each one captioned with the species, the source and the habitat. It is a hardcover with an elastic closure and a ribbon marker, which means it survives a coat pocket.

• Hardcover with elastic closure and ribbon marker
• 144 pages
• 8.25" x 5.75" x 0.5"
• Printed in India
• Ages 6+