Congratulations to Shepard Krech III on the publication of his new
book on American Indina ethnoornithology.

Shepard Krech III may be familiar to you all as a regular contributor
to Society of Ethnobiology symposia on ethnoornithology and for his
more general ethnobiological work. He is also a member of the ERSG.

While you can't buy it yet (publication date is slated as mid-March
2009) you can pre-order his new book "Spirits of the Air: Birds and
American Indians in the South" from the publishers, the University of
Georgia Press, or the usual on-line suppliers.

Here is the blurb from Amazon.com:

Shepard Krech has provided us with a superbly researched and
splendidly illustrated tour of Southeastern Indian ethno-ornithology.
His bird's-eye taxonomic vision is sharpened by a lifetime of bird
watching and a distinguished career as an ecological ethnohistorian.
This is no rapid trip on an Audubon autobahn; rather Krech's route is
a twisting and turning one with many enlightening detours that restore
an appreciation of the past and continuing complex significance of
birds in the consciousness of Southeast native peoples. --Raymond D.
Fogelson, editor of Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 14, Southeast

Shepard Krech's insightful research into historical sources and his
deep understanding of birds combine to entrance the reader with
scientific insights, Native knowledge, and marvelous descriptions of
the American South. This book brings a fresh and fascinating approach
to environmental and ornithological history and will be of great
interest to historians, indigenous peoples, and birders alike.
--Carolyn Merchant, author of American Environmental History: An
Introduction

The American South has been blessed with a flurry of birds of every
kind. In Spirits of the Air Shepard Krech exhaustively surveys for the
first time the world of Southern Indians and their birds, and he does
so from a variety of perspectives. Anthropologists, environmental
historians, and birders will treasure this book, as will lay readers
who will admire its beautiful design and charming illustrations.
--Charles M. Hudson, author of The Southeastern Indians

Before the massive environmental change wrought by the European
colonization of the South, hundreds of species of birds filled the
region's flyways in immeasurable numbers. Before disease, war, and
displacement altered the South's earliest human landscape, Native
Americans hunted and ate birds and made tools and weapons from their
beaks, bones, and talons. More significant to Shepard Krech III,
Indians adorned themselves with feathers, invoked avian powers in
ceremonies and dances, and incorporated bird imagery on pottery,
carvings, and jewelry.
Krech, a renowned authority on Native American interactions with
nature, reveals as never before the omnipresence of birds in Native
American life. From the time of the earliest known renderings of
winged creatures in stone and earthworks through the nineteenth
century, when Native southerners took part in decimating bird species
with highly valued, fashionable plumage, Spirits of the Air examines
the complex and changeable influences of birds on the Native American
worldview.
We learn of birds for which places and people were named; birds common
in iconography and oral traditions; birds important in ritual and
healing; and birds feared for their links to witches and other
malevolent forces. Still other birds had no meaning for Native
Americans. Krech shows us these invisible animals too, enriching our
understanding of both the Indian-bird dynamic and the incredible
diversity of winged life once found in the South. A crowning work
drawing on Krech's distinguished career in anthropology and natural
history, Spirits of the Air recovers vanished worlds and shows us our
own anew.