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Bird Brain Teasers: Puzzles, Games & Avian Trivia | 
 enlarge | Author: Patrick Merrell
Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC
Category: Book
List Price: $9.95
Buy New: $2.90
You Save: $7.05 (71%)
New (34) Used (8) from $2.90
Avg. Customer Rating:  46 reviews
Sales Rank: 416264
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 324
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 5.9 x 4 x 1
ISBN: 1603420800
Dewey Decimal Number: 793
EAN: 9781603420808
Publication Date: September 24, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: This is a new trade paperback. It appears to be in brand new condition, no marks.
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Product Description
Why does the Blue Grouse migrate north in the winter? Why did Lewis Carroll use a dodo bird to represent himself in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland? What are the bird names that appear most often as crossword clues?
Birdwatchers and puzzle fans alike will delight in Bird Brainteasers, a fresh collection of puzzles, games, and avian amusements by noted puzzle creator Patrick Merrell. This book is packed with bird-themed crosswords, visual puzzles, and the first-ever Birdoku challenges. Interspersed throughout are fascinating and amusing bird facts, trivia, and lore, drawn from everything from music and literature to popular culture.
Packaged is a small format and highly illustrated with a unique combination of historical and cultural images, Bird Brainteasers is the perfect gift for any bird lover. Put down the binoculars and pick up a pencil!
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| Customer Reviews: Read 41 more reviews...
 Such a Delightful Book for Bird Lovers! December 18, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This fun little book is packed with all sorts of information, facts, quotes which unintentionally go together (both Poe and Dickens, on birds tapping on doors, on one page, for example), oddities about birds "just for the heck of it", quips, and questions about birds. It is so entertaining and different, you may wish that YOU had written or thought of it first!
I come from a family of bird lovers, and my husband loves all nature; birds in particular. This book, Bird Brain Teasers, by Patrick Merrell, is so good humored and informative concerning birds, that neither of us can believe there is so much information packed into such a handy pocket sized tome. Funnily enough, it is just the size of a bird watcher's guide. Intentional? I think so!
There are puzzles and quizzes, facts and information galore. Beatles fans: did you know that the song "Blackbird" features around ten seconds of a real blackbird singing...from an album of sound effects, "Volume Seven: Birds of a Feather"? Neat!
Some people don't know much about birds, but like them. Some people know a lot about them; love feeding them, and watching them.
This book is great for both kinds of bird-heads... it would make a wonderful gift! It encourages us, in a lighthearted way, to derive more entertainment from these sweet little creatures, and that, as they say, is "a good thing"!
 Cute little Trivia book December 13, 2008
It's a small book, you can stick it in your purse or glove compartment for on the road fun or family time.
so different December 12, 2008
as soon as i got this book, i sat down and pretty much went through the whole thing. i love the format. although i am not really into birds, i did find it interesting. i would like to see more books like this with different themes, like food, dogs etc. the puzzles are very good and you do have to think quite a bit on some of them. all in all, it's a great book to kill and hour or so. i also liked the size of it. it is small, and very sturdy. also, the pages are a good quality paper and my pen did not absorb into the pages or smear.
Pleasant diversion December 10, 2008
First, this little book is smaller than a standard paperback, but it weighs in at just over 300 pages. It's a good size for packing into a suitcase or car glovebox, or just laying around on a coffee table.
Like most trivia and puzzle books, it's not the kind of book you'd want to read in one sitting, and you certainly don't have to read it in any kind of order. However, be forewarned that puzzles have their answers on following pages -- not at the back of the book -- so if you work back-to-front you might see the answers before you see the puzzle.
The trivia runs the gamut from poems and tidbits to diagrams of egg sizes and a short list of White House Pets. Did you know Teddy Roosevelt had a one-legged rooster?
Puzzles take the form of crosswords, matching, scrambled words, word search, and short quizzes. One called "Bill Me" shows line drawings of 12 different bird beaks, and a list of 24 words that must be combined into 12 words. So you first need to make the name of the bird, and then identify its beak shape.
Avid birders will probably make short work of most of the puzzles, but the appeal of the book is that it's for everyone. The book is suitable for children; I'm not sure of the age range, but I'd say children 10 years old or more should be fine with the material.
I only gave three stars because I felt the puzzles didn't task me hard enough, and the smaller size book format makes it hard to hold open the book to work on the puzzles -- the spine is nearly an inch thick and the book won't lay flat. I think this book would make a nice stocking-stuffer or a party prize, and it would be nice book to have on the coffee table for bored holiday company. Some of the puzzles could work well for a small group of people, and maybe the trivia could be conversation starters.
Very Informative and Fun December 3, 2008
"Bird Brain Teasers" is a book containing a mixture of puzzles, games, and avian trivia. There is a wide variety of puzzles and games including acrostics; birdoku (a takeoff of Sudoku); criss-crosses; crosswords; cryptograms; math puzzles; posers; scramblers; visual puzzles; word puzzles; and word searches. The answers to each puzzle are on the page immediately following the puzzle. There is also lots of trivia scattered throughout the book including how James Bond got his name; the oldest known bird; plastic pink flamingo trivia; how Lady Bird Johnson got her nickname; Alice in Wonderland trivia; and more. There are a lot of pictures in the book, poems, and many other items.
"Bird Brain Teasers" is a good collection of puzzles and items about birds. I was surprised at how thick the book was (over 300 pages) and how informative the book was without repeating much information. The puzzles were extremely well done - author Patrick Merrill has created puzzles for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times among others and his expertise shows in this book. There is a nice mixture of puzzles in the book - some are quite easy and others are very challenging (like figuring out which egg goes with which bird). Surprisingly, none of the puzzles seemed repetitious - there are more birds than I knew out there! Also surprisingly, even with so many pages, very little of the book felt like filler (the Novice Birder and Seasoned Birder pages were the only ones that felt like filler to me). I had a lot of fun solving the puzzles and learned quite a bit about birds while reading the book.
"Bird Brain Teasers" is a very fun and informative book.
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