Avian Anatomy

My recent forays into bird sketching have required the study of some elementary avian anatomy. Where to find such a tome? I looked at online sources and pretty quickly realized I had a very respectable book on our shelves already, Proctor and Lynch’s Manual of Ornithology, a book I imagine the entering Avian Sciences class at Davis will be purchasing. (I got my copy back when I worked for an east-coast university press and knew the sales rep for a different east-coast university press.)

It’s been years since I did any anatomy at all, but it’s good to see some familiar names (humerus, ulna, radius) and some less familiar ones (retrices, hallux, crissum). I do already know about supercilia and malar patches.

My protracted encounter with turkey vultures today made me realize how much an anatomical background might help as I try to sort out feather groups, structure, shape…