Book excerpt: With equal measures of wit, scientific wisdom, and homespun common sense, Alan Pistorius makes his lifelong love of birds come alive for anyone who wants to take up birding as a hobby or merely gain more pleasure from the birds around the home, cottage, or camp. With diagrams, illustrations, and full-color photographs throughout, this is a completely revised and updated version of Pistorius's popular Country Journal Book of Birding and Bird Attraction. The author advises readers on how to make their back yards havens for local birds, what constitutes proper food for birds, what to look for in well-designed feeders, how to build appropriate houses, and how to make baths that birds will actually use. Pistorius's style is lighthearted and humorous, and he's never averse to directing a little gentle humor at the foibles of fellow devotees when they begin to take themselves and their hobby too seriously.