THE UPLAND BIRD ART OF MAYNARD REECE

These oil and watercolor paintings of upland birds—pheasant, grouse, quail, wild turkey, ptarmigan, snipe, among others—amply display Reece's realistic style. The artist, who worked for many years as an outdoor-magazine illustrator, likes to ``paint from the sportsman's view'' (as Roger Tory Peterson notes in his introduction), catching birds flushing and fleeing, whirring through the air. He is also an able field naturalist, complementing his artwork with habitat notes of midwestern prairie, forest, and marsh, as well as behavioral tidbits gleaned from the field; were it not oversized, Reece's work would make a useful field guide. While the birds command center stage, what steals the show are Reece's superb landscape settings, from the disheveled sweep of a mown cornfield to the intimate woodlands so many of these birds like to call home. (84 illustrations, 79 in color)