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Birds of Lake Merritt by Alex Harris
Blue by Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond and Daniel Minter (Illustrations)
Dark Chocolate Demise by Jenn McKinlay
Death Over Easy by Maddie Day and Laural Merlington (Narrator)
Final Catcall by Sofie Kelly
The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang
High-Wire Henry by Mary Calhoun and Erick Ingraham (Illustrations)
Hundreds and Hundreds of Pancakes by Audrey Chalmers
Invisible Kingdom, Volume 2: Edge of Everything by G. Willow Wilson and Christian Ward (Artist)
It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Murder by Maria DiRico
Kat Hats by Daniel Pinkwater and Aaron Renier (Illustrator)
Kazu Jones and the Comic Book Criminal by Shauna Holyoak
A Killer Sundae by Abby Collette
Light Years From Home by Mike Chen
Love Your Life by Sophie Kinsella
Mister Miracle: The Great Escape by Varian Johnson and Daniel Isles (Illustrator)
Night Owl by Sarah Mlynowski, Emily Jenkins, and Lauren Myracle
Oddball by Sarah Andersen
Once Upon a Seaside Murder by Maggie Blackburn and Christa Lewis (Narrator)
Operation Sisterhood by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich
The Question: The Deaths of Vic Sage by Jeff Lemire and Denys Cowan (Illustrator)
The Witch's Apprentice by Zetta Elliott

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5 stars: Completely enjoyable or compelling
4 stars: Good but flawed
3 stars: Average
2 stars: OK
1 star: Did not finish



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Birds of Lake Merritt: 02/28/22

Birds of Lake Merritt

Birds of Lake Merritt by Alex Harris is a short, extremely focused book about Oakland history and the birds who have benefited. This book is a rare gem among the birding books I've read.

Birding is a regional thing. Birds have their routes, their favorite watering holes, their homes, their hunting grounds. For a big chunk of continental North America, the seasonal migrations are north and south going from Canada through the United States down to Mexico or even further south. The big name birding books are written for people who live in these typical flyover areas.

But— there are exceptions to these migratory patterns. There are areas where "typical" species just don't visit. California is one of those places. The Sierra Nevada mountains cut us off. Many of our migrations are East-West, rather than North-South. California also has some year round populations of species that would otherwise migrate.

Alex Harris's book is only concerned with waterbirds that live at or visit Lake Merritt. Beyond this being a book that helps identify a specific subset of birds, it's also a history of the lake and of Oakland.

I sincerely hope Harris is at work on another Bay Area birding book.

Five stars

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