Did I just see what I thought I saw?

• Position: Rare Birds of North America - WHAT'S NEW? - Book review

North American birders spend countless hours in the field, spying and documenting familiar and migratory species, a pastime that is enjoyable but, at times, monotonous. What all birders secretly harbor in their heart of hearts is the possibility of finding something new, something that simply does not belong. Indeed, when something novel is spotted, birders race to the scene, desperate to spy the winged creatures in question. These out of place birds commonly are referred to as vagrants, and they come to North America in a variety of ways-following misguided migration paths, cast upon our continent like Dorothy by hurricane winds, or, in some cases, as stowaways on ships.

Rare Birds of North America ($35, hardcover, Princeton University Press) by Steve N.G. Howell, Ian Lewington, and Will Russell offers a complete synthesis of the occurrence and distribution of vagrant species in North America. Early chapters explain what a "rare bird" is; where these vagrants come from and how they arrive; what areas of North America have had the greater number of sightings; seasonal differences in vagrant sightings; and even a quick overview of bird topology.

The remaining bulk of the book is composed of species...