Urban Aviary: A Modern Guide to City Birds by Stephen Moss was one of the first non-fiction books that I read for fun in a good while. I received a free ARC of the book through Edelweiss+ and it was the first book I read for ARC August! Urban Aviary was published by White Lion Publishing on August 6th. 

As it's name suggests, Urban Aviary describes various birds that live in urban settings. Combined with the description of the bird species at hand, including information regarding their size and wingspan as well as how local human residents have reacted to sharing their space with these birds, was a beautiful water color illustration of the bird. The illustrations were done by Marc Martin and were my favorite part of the book in the sense that having the birds shown in water color illustrations rather than through photography was a fun surprise for me, and thus sets Urban Aviary apart from other books about birds that I've read in the past. 

Stephen Moss is one of Britain's most well-known nature writers and has previously published a variety of books about birds and birding. Marc Martin is an Australian illustrator whose work has been featured in GQ and Wired, among other publications. 

Overall, Urban Aviary was a fun palette cleanser while still teaching me a boatload of interesting facts, for example that the name for Alcatraz island came from the Old Spanish word meaning "pelican"! It also opened up my eyes to a different way of looking at my environment when I'm in an urban setting. 

Rating:⭐⭐⭐

Have you ever read any books about birds? Do you pay attention to the birds that live alongside us in our cities? Let me know in the comments below!

-Laura