Birds & Birding

North American Field Guides

The Sibley Guide to Birds, More than 10 years in the making, David Sibley's Guide to Birds is a monumental achievement. The beautiful watercolor illustrations (6,600, covering 810 species in North America) are complemented by incredibly detailed descriptions not only of the species but races and other regional variations, as well as different plumages. The only caveat is that Sibley's illustrative style, while excellent for anyone used to picking out field marks, can be a little subtle for beginning birders who expect the illustration to look like the bird in front of them. Beginners will often have an easier time with photographs at first until they learn how illustrations compare to the field marks on the birds they see. NEW: For field use (or if you just need one region), Sibley is available in two smaller volumes that are definitely usable in the field. If you already have the big one, get one for your car (I keep the Western in my car and the Eastern right next to my suitcase!). If you don't have the big one, at least get your region's Sibley if you're serious about identifying birds.

		Field-use sized Eastern Sibley		Field-use sized Western Sibley
	A Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern North America, Roger Tory Peterson. Fortunately for me, my father has this volume so I can refer to it when I'm visiting him in Michigan. Like the companion guide to Western Birds which I rely on heavily, this is one of the definitive pocket-size field guides for birders in the East.

	A Field Guide to Western Birds, Roger Tory Peterson. The definitive pocket guide for birders in the Western US. I keep one of these in the car and one in the house. While not having all of the variations that Sibley does, this handy volume is easier to carry and easier to reference since it only has Western species.
	National Geographic Field Guide To The Birds of North America, If you want a single pocket guide for all of North America this is the one. For home use I like Peterson's guide to Western birds, as it is more specific, but this is the volume I take when I'm traveling to other parts of the country.

Bird Behavior

	The Sibley Guide to Bird Life & Behavior. Sibley has assembled papers by experts on each of the major families of birds. You'll find some more interesting or educational than others, but all of them offer a wealth of overview information and are a great way to get a handle on how birds relate to each other and which behaviors make each of them special. And of course there are plenty of excellent illustrations from Sibley. My only problem with this book is that by the time I've finished reading it I've forgotten enough that I have to start over again!
	The Birder's Handbook: A Field Guide to the Natural History of North American Birds. This book is really two inter-twined books. One half is a species by species reference of nesting, eating and other habits which is invaluable when you are trying to pin down likely times and locations for finding your favorite bird. The other half is a series of essays describing some of the most fascinating aspects of bird behavior. Either half would be well worth the full price, so to me this volume is a no-brainer. The species accounts cross-reference all the behavioral essays that apply, so you can quickly go from using the book as a reference to using it as an educational tool. Note that The Birder's Handbook is not actually a field guide. It does not contain descriptions or illustrations. It is designed to be used as a companion to your field guide, so it offers page references to many major field guides for each of the species.
	Lives of North American Birds, Kenn Kaufmann. Until Sibley's book on bird behavior came out this was the book I used to help understand why birds were behaving a certain way, or how I could best anticipate what they'd be doing while I was trying to photograph them. Now I use both books. Sibley's is more "top down" with general information by family while Kaufman's is organized by species, more like a traditional field guide--which makes for easy reference when you know what bird you want information on. Neither book is easily portable, so they stay at home. But both are worth having if you want to know more about birds after you've identified them.
	A Guide to the Nests, Eggs and Nestlings of North American Birds. For anyone interested in finding, watching, or photographing nesting birds, this book is a no-brainer. It includes not only detailed descriptions of the nesting and breeding habits of common birds, but also has color plates which will help you identify eggs and nestlings. Please note that birds on their nests are a precious resource and some species are easily disturbed and will abandon their nests and possibly their chicks and give up their chance to breed if you disturb them. If you aren't sure whether you're stressing birds near or on a nest, learn how to tell. One of the best references for photographers on this tricky topic is in Moose's book, Wildlife Photography: Getting Started in the Field (it is out of print, but if you click on the link you can usually find used copies in the Amazon marketplace for $25-$40, a worthwhile investment).
	Stokes Guide to Bird Behavior, Volume 3, Donald Stokes. For some reason I started with Volume 3 of this series. Stokes has an easy to read style and covers major habits of some 25 species in each volume...

Software

Thayer Birds of North America CD-ROM (also published by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology). This is the only birding CD-ROM I have found so far that is worth owning. With descriptions, range maps, photos and vocalizations for over 900 species of North American birds, it is a delight to have on my notebook computer. As a field guide it is a little hard to use, because clicking through links is harder than flipping pages, but being able to see abundance maps and more importantly hear bird recordings while you are looking at the species description is invaluable. The software in both the Thayer & CLO version is the same (developed by Thayer), but I can only speak for the CLO version as far as the additional material. The CLO version comes with the complete Birders Handbook built into the help system, which is really cool.

Regional US Birding Books

Smithsonian Handbooks: Birds of Florida. I wasn't thrilled when I first got this brand new volume from Smithsonian. Perhaps it was the use of photographs for the primary species illustrations that bothered me, or the mix of field guide and behavior information--without what I thought was enough depth for either. But then when I got out in the field in Southwest Florida, the

Birding in Northern California

Birds of Northern California

Southern California Birding

Birding at the Bottom of the Bay, Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society (available from them directly). Indispensable reference to the popular birding sites at the south end of San Francisco Bay.

Advanced Birding

There are literally dozens of excellent, specialized books that fall into this category. If you are already an advanced birder you probably own many of them. And if you aren't, you may find them tough going. But if you are curious and want to sort out some of the more subtle mysteries of birds and bird identification, then you'll need to dive in.

I've picked a few books to list here that have been useful to me in solving behavior or ID challenges.

	A Field Guide to Advanced Birding, Kenn Kaufman. In this handy Peterson pocket guide, Kaufman works through some of the important ID subtleties in a variety of North American bird families. Unless you a true zealot much of the content may be trivia to you, but there are very informative sections on common problems such as Long vs. Short-billed Dowitcher, various Grebes and Loons, as well as Hummingbirds, Hawks and other groups which cause trouble.
	Birding in the American West: A Handbook, Kevin Zimmer. From the title this sounds like yet another field guide to Western birds. But this book takes off where most volumes leave off. Chock full of the tricky birding problems facing Western birders, such as Double-crested vs. Neotropic Cormorants, Lesser vs. Greater Scaup, etc. Zimmer also dives headlong into aging birds including gulls, a daunting task for many of us. This is the book I pull out when an ID problem is too subtle to sort out by referring to Sibley's.
	A Field Guide to Hawks of North America, William Clark, Brian Wheeler. Hawks have a fascination for most of us out of all proportion to their numbers. Raptors in general are exciting birds to watch and capture our imagination, and for most of us Hawks are by far the most accessible raptors. If you want to take your knowledge of Hawks to the next level beyond the guidebooks this is a handy hawk-specific pocket guidebook from Peterson that will do the job. In particular if you want to identify regional variations within species, like the Tundra Peregrine vs. the Continental and Peale Peregrine this book is a handy way to have a field reference.

Southeast Asian Birding
(under construction)

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