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From: sandee@loligo (Daan Sandee)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: Bird Identification Books
Message-ID: <385@fsu.scri.fsu.edu>
Date: 29 Nov 89 17:24:10 GMT
References: <23973@vrdxhq.verdix.com>
Sender: news@fsu.scri.fsu.edu
Reply-To: sandee@loligo.UUCP (Daan Sandee)
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Organization: Control Data Corporation
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In article <23973@vrdxhq.verdix.com> edm@vrdxhq.verdix.com (Ed Matthews) writes:
>The Christmas season is upon us and my wife would like to get me a new
>birding book since I've not been all that pleased with my Audubon Guide
>to Eastern Birds.  It just doesn't have enough birds or enough field marks
>for me to distinguish a lot of birds around here (Washington DC).  I'd
>like to be able to identify a bird as more than "it's some kind of sparrow,
>probably a female."  Can anyone give me a recommendation? -- I'm not a hard
>core birder, but I do like to know what I'm looking at.
>-- 

This is an easy one, because the possibilities are limited (to three).

If you have discovered that the Audubon's guide isn't all that good, you
have passed the first stage of a birder's career : you want to do more than
to tell a cardinal from a robin. For which you will need a REAL field guide.

1. Peterson's Field Guide to the Birds (East of the Rockies) : the ancestor
of all the field guides in the world, and still one of the best. It has the
best pictures by far. The information is adequate, though not quite up to
date ; the restriction to Eastern birds is usually an advantage, but
occasionally a disadvantage, because Western strays do turn up in the East.
It has the disadvantage of having the range maps separate from the text.

2. Golden Guide to bird identification (or some such title ; the book is
actually blue, but it used to be golden in earlier editions). Covers the
entire US and Canada. Reasonably good pictures, but notoriously inaccurate.
A bit short on information, because of space problems. The handiest guide
for the Western US (Peterson's Western Field Guide is way out of date ; a
new edition, after nearly 40 years, is forthcoming).

3. National Geographic Society Field Guide : the most thorough. Not really
pocket size (more a paperback). Most up to date, and the worst pictures
(by various artists ; some of the pictures are really incredibly bad).

If you want to identify by picture, use Peterson ; if you get to be more
of an expert, and really want to be able to tell a juvenile orange-crowned
warbler from a ditto Tennessee warbler, use the National Geograhic.
The first 2 above should be available in any bookstore ; the NGS guide is
NOT available in bookstores ; try the bookshop at the Visitor Center at
your local National Wildlife Refuge, or Museum of Natural History, or some
such.

Daan Sandee                                             sandee@sun6.scri.fsu.edu
Control Data Corporation
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute
Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052    (904) 644-7045


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