I've been waiting for this book for years without knowing it: "Feathers: A Guide to North American Species." What a great idea! With this book you have a fighting chance to attach a species name to the feather you just found in the woods. Authors S. David Scott and Casey McFarland begin their book with the what, why, and how of feathers and flight. They provide information about where on the bird the feather once resided – wing, tail, head, breast, belly, neck, throat, flank, or rump. Then comes a section that follows the bird species order you find in your favorite guidebook. The book is fully illustrated with excellent photographs. Looking at the photos you can get a picture of how the various markings on a bird are created, feather by feather. It's really cool. Small range maps help keep you on track as you search for your answer. And search you will in many cases, some feathers looking distressingly like other feathers. (Many, however, are distinctly themselves, assuming you have found one distinctly marked.) This book gives you one more thing to look for while on a walk or a hike. Look up, look over, and now look down. You can do it with anticipation. The book is soft-cover, and has 358 pages including index and bibliography. Stackpole Books is the publisher, $39.95 the price, not bad for opening a new, useful and entertaining window on birds. The second photo is of a feather I found recently. Using the book, and relying somewhat on the location of the find, I've decided this is a breast feather from a Red-tailed Hawk.