On the Wing #10: National Geographic Wing Syndrome

The dreaded NGWS as seen on a Northern Gannet.

As you can probably guess from the title, I have a bone to pick with the National Geographic Field Guide System. Recently while plodding around the internet looking for a way to get more species on my life list, I noticed an advert for Seven Seas Whaling Trips out of Gloucester, MA. While I'm thrilled that they've been seeing several pelagic species (Sooty (Puffinus griseus) and Great Shearwaters (P. gravis) mainly), my eye was drawn to a particular picture on the Northern Gannet (Morus bassanus) page. It was an image of a Northern Gannet doing something I'd never thought I'd see a bird do ever in the wild. It was making "the pose". "The pose" I'm referring to is National Geographic Wing Syndrome (NGWS for short) and can be seen in the picture on the right. Of course, one could argue it's just the positioning of the bird at a slight angle as to give the suggestion of the wing bending in an unnatural way, but in doing so just makes the bird look weird.

It's unfortunate I pick up on these things, but as a birder, attention to detail is key and if something is out of place, it's either broken or something's deliberately missing. In the case of NGWS, I first noticed it as a child looking at the third or fourth edition of their field guide on North American birds. This feature is especially noticeable in the waterfowl section and is used to try and attract the readers eye to the speculums seen on the puddle ducks. As opposed to showing the upper and underside for comparison, the artist had to go and make it look weird by curling one wing over the top to tease the viewer into looking at this distorted wing! As far as I can tell, no other field guide has managed to do this. Peterson sticks to the simple template image, while Sibley is a little artsy, but is quite standard in his work as well. The photo guides don't come into play because unless you're deliberately going for shots like the one above, you'd go mad quicker trying to get one than just simply photographing the creature at hand.

I just wanted to do a quick blog entry to get this thought out of my head. These little things needle away at you, but you can't explain it to nonbirders as well, because in the end, they just don't understand.

Update: I have been fishing through my own copy of "The National Geographic Society: Field Guide to the Birds of North America" and it appears that the small rant I've constructed above has been undermined by a severe lack of evidence. However, there are examples of NGWS in the book on the following page numbers (pg. 58, 66, 124, and 214)and I apologize for the exaggerated claims made by the rant above. However, my general irritation with said phenomena is still withstanding.