The LBJ

I've just received Issue 1 of The LBJ. The initials, as all you birders out there will know, stands for Little Brown Job (not Lyndon B Johnson), and is sometimes rather dismissively applied to all those less colourful small birds such as sparrows, many finches and buntings and, in Europe at least, most warblers.

Here, though, it also stands for Literary Bird Journal, and is subtitled Avian Life, Literary Arts. It's a handy notebook size, but the full colour picture of the Ovenbird on the cover serves notice that it isn't going to do things by halves. Alongside poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction and literary journalism, all of an ornothological bent, it also contains a number of full-colour plates.

I'll post a full review when I've had chance to read it properly, but it's a fine publication, from the Department of English at the University of Nevada, Reno, and a nice addition to the magazine world for those of us (and there are many) who like to mix our birding and literature.

It costs $9 per issue, and you can find out more about subscribing by logging on here.