Fire Birds: Valuing Natural Wildfires and Burned Forests.

Collard, Sneed B. Fire Birds: Valuing Natural Wildfires and Burned Forests.
1 January 2015, Bucking Horse Press
Copy received from the author

Well illustrated with photographs, this large format (10"x12") book discusses how forests can become good habitats for a variety of birds after they have been burned, and how the managing of burned forests has some topics of dispute. Working closely with scientist Dick Hutto, Collard describes what features of a burned forest are helpful to birds, and how leaving these burned forests is good for the environment, since forests can become filled with dead plant matter. Acknowledging that companies often come in after fires to reclaim wood because it is financially expedient, the point is made that stripping the land of burned material can lead to erosion and the introduction of invasive plants. This is a good length for a nonfiction book, and very readable. The pictures, taken by Collard, are beautiful and also illustrate the information being covered. I can see my students picking this up readily and getting a lot of good information out of it. My only quibble is a stylistic one-- I might have credited the book as being written "with Dick Hutto" so that he wouldn't have had to be quoted, and the information could have just been presented.