Now that the spring migration is around the corner, it's time to start thinking about how to identify birds. I think the first thing to talk about is your field guide. We will work on bird identifications in the next few blogs.
Sheila Buff in "Complete Idiot's Guide to Birding" has a section on field guides. I wish I had known some of the things I learned from her before I jumped into bird watching. I hope this helps you newbies and old hands gives you a new idea or so.
In the beginning
First a little history. While the idea of identifying plants and animals is older than the Bible, field guides for birders didn't exist until Roger Tory Peterson published A "Field Guide to the Birds: Western Land and Water Birds" in 1934.
Peterson's book only coveredbirds of the eastern portion of North America. He organized the book by bird families so it covered all the birds in a systematic, concise way with illustrations pointing out the most important identification clues. The book was small enough to carry into the field and cheap enough for anyone to buy.
There are now Eastern and Western editions of Peterson's book with the dividing point located east and west of the Rockies.
Another popular book is A Guide to Field Identification: Birds of North America by Chandler s. Robbins, Bertel Bruun and Herbert s. Zim. It is published by Golden Press and is often called the Golden guides.
My favorite field guide is the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America. It has the best drawings and descriptions and room fornote taking. But, as Sheila points out, it is bigger than the others and doesn't fit into a pocket. It is also more expensive.
Guides with Photos
All the books I mentioned above have drawings of the birds. I also have "Stokes Field Guide to Birds: Eastern Region" by Donald and Lillian Stokes. I got this book after getting their CDs of birdcalls. There are fewer birds in this book, the pictures are photos that usually give only one view, but the Stokes ' deliver more "personal" information on the birds.
I also like "Smithsonian Handbooks Birds of Texas" by Fred j. Alsop III. While this book has only one bird per page and it's a photo of a bird at that, there is also a page worth of information including a shadow picture showing the size of the bird in relation to the book.Clever.
Digitally enhanced photographs, a smaller-sized field guide with about the same information as the much larger "National Geographic" is Kenn Kaufman's "A New Focus on the Field Birds of North America." Kaufman does have a slightly different way of organizing the birds into groups. This is a good, if also expensive book.
I recommend any of these books. It would be a good idea if you are at all serious about birding to take a look at these different books and see which one you think would be the biggest help to you. A good field guide is worth its weight in gold.
Photos or Drawings-You Decide
Sheila suggests going with the books containing drawings rather than photos. Within any bird species there will be variation in colors and markings. Paintings averageout the differences and give a slightly idealized version. I do tend to use my National Geographic more for this reason. But I also use Alsop a lot, too.
Which do you prefer?
Choosing a Birding Guide Interested This:
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