National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern North America

Number of Pages : 432 Release Date : 2008-10-21 Publisher : National Geographic List Price : $19.95 Amazon Price : $11.37 Used Price : $12.64

Product Description

Customer reviews

a great guide to birds of the east by .. Kyle Leader (Washington U.S.A)

i have been a birdwatcher for a few years and for the most part stuck to using sibley. what drew me to the national geographic was that it was revised and edited every few years, this guide is no exception with new maps and drawings it makes it a great guide.it also has sections on sorting out tricky identification problems in similar looking birds so this guide works well for any level of birdwatcher. what is new from the other guides is in the front flaps it has all the bird families. this guide is also packed with rarities from other continents mexico and the west. this is the guide every birdwatcher should own.

A great regional version - neck & neck with Sibley's regionals by .. Marilynn Wigand (Upper Midwest)
The NG has reached another level of quality with its latest October 2008 Eastern Regional edition for intermediate and veteran birders. Many of the changes have been carried over from the recent & excellent NG all North American 5th edition. Eastern's notable features & my comments are:
1.Quick find(bird names) and visual(pictorial) index inside each placeholder cover.Gets you into the correct book section quickly, and helps ID the correct bird and/or group instead of fumbling blindly through the pages as before(Kaufman does this ok as well).The 6 thumb tabs are of limited usefulness now compared to the new color indexes. I found recently field-observed Kinglets in the book with no trouble-in the Passerines back flap drawing which directs you to page 300. How would you ever find them before? In this case I didn't even know it was a Kinglet, and I expect this a challenge in general for many birders.This feature alone will help even newcomers to locate many birds with ease, even tho this guide might be considered advanced.How did we ever find the Woodpeckers(or anything) without thumbing before this improvement? The new front cover index gets you to the Woodies on page 244 immediately.Without this feature one had to remember that Woodpeckers were right after Kingfishers somewhere in the middle of the book.How much of this Taxonomy do you need to recall? If Sibley had these Bird Finding Features,he would clearly be the front runner in the Bird Field Guide race.
2.Field marks with notes are at the point of the arrow(like Sibley). No more referring back to the specie description to interpret the field mark arrows.This speeds up the identification process and improves on the classical(arrows only) Peterson concept, which is also in use by Kaufman. Arrow+attached notes=big improvement,and the new Eastern NG has it!
3.Maps are improved to a point but don't often show a full North American view,a problem for us birders in the Midwest who are adjacent to the Western bird populations.Eastern bird ranges do often extend all over the nation and it would help to see this view too. NG rarity,using various dotted lines, which often needs intrepretation back in the Map Key,is not noted on the maps as nicely or as often as in the Sibley guides.Sibley's consistent use of a gray green motiff cleanly indicates where you might see the bird beyond its general ranges(Kaufman does this well with color too).For a Red Bellied Woodpecker in MN,the NG map shows they are irrupting/settling into North Western MN, yet supposedly aren't here in North Central MN where I live. But Sibley DOES have the bird here in my gray green region-and yes they are here & do appear at my suet feeders.Likewise for Loons,which have sightings on larger MN lakes, but only the Common Loon is noted as being resident in the NG maps.Sibley shows all 4 species present, as our MN field records verify,with the 3 uncommon ones in gray green. Similar map omissions were noticed in the new NG editions.Of the 313 MN bird species considered regular, 51(15%) are NOT indicated as even being in MN on the NG maps-they aren't marked as a regular,rarity or a migrant in any season. You therefore wouldn't know to look for those 51 in MN using the NG Guide-they are absent from MN according to the maps. Sibley notes all 313 as in MN or migrating through,well in line with our actual field records.Note that NG Migration is also indicated with dotted lines(or a directional arrow), while the much clearer Sibley displays a yellow color across the appropriate map section.Kaufman also uses full color mapping for the migrations.
4.Bird drawings are stunning but often seem too bright compared to the real thing.Yet Sibley's drawings are sometimes too pastel for my liking. Kaufman has great photos, digitally enhanced, and they are adequate. But the NG and Kaufman don't have enough of the different seasonal plumages noted. Sibley shows several views and even lists probable dates(monthly ranges)of the feathering evolution with each drawing.Sibley also paints every bird perched AND in flight with upper and lower feather views.
5.Portability of all the guides could be improved.NG is larger than either Kaufman or Sibley, and heavier too.Size and weight need to be reduced where possible. Why not an abridged mini version for quick field identification purposes(forget much of the voice,range and nesting comments) that fits in any sized pocket? 4"x7" or 3"x6" sounds about right. Guess I'll take both the NG Eastern AND the Sibley Eastern guides to the field, if only they would fit in my jacket somewhere with the binoculars,water and lunch.

Better quality, new features, and new drawings make this the best guide yet by .. David D. Gersten (Purcellville, VA)
The National Geographic fieldguide to the Birds of North America was the standard-bearer for fieldguides from the mid-eighties, when it replaced the Eastern and Western Peterson guides as the favorite among critical birders, until the release of David Sibley's guide in 2000. The Sibley guide brought many new innovations but was too large for field use and, absent any habitat setting, the drawings were not lively. Seeing little need for wholesale changes to keep pace with Sibley, recent editions of the National Geographic continental guide have offered just a few innovations. Likewise, the printing quality of the National Geographic continental guides was compromised in the 4th and 5th editions, with some drawings appearing duller than in earlier editions and a blue bleed on the wingbars for several species. In 2003 the Sibley guide was published in portable editions for Eastern and Western North America. Somehow Sibley was able to keep most of the flight drawings that continue to be absent from recent National Geographic and Peterson editions. Though it has been a hard choice, for the past few years, the Sibley portable editions have been the guides I pack for trips.

Now, National Geographic has decided to publish its guide in Eastern and Western editions. At first I thought National Geographic would simply separate the same content from the North America guide with no other changes and likely the same quality problems found in the recent editions. Happily I have found the opposite to be true. There are several significant changes in the regional guides and numerous new drawings. The drawings are less crowded and better organized on the page, there are pointers with text highlighting key field marks, and narratives and extra drawings for difficult identification problems have been added. Best of all, the printing quality is better than the 4th and 5th editions of the continental guide. Here are the highlights:

* Key drawings of each species are now annotated with pointers and text to highlight essential markers, much like the Peterson and Sibley guides. A quick comparison suggests the ones in this guide are better than the Sibley highlights.

* New drawings for Cackling Goose, Great Cormorants, Hook-billed Kite, Jaeger heads, winter adult Black Guillemot, Ferruginous Pigmy-owls, American Three-toed Woodpeckers, Ravens in flight, pelodorna subspecies of Cave Swallow, amnicola subspecies of Yellow Warbler, Wilson's Warblers, Rufous-crowned Sparrow, Savannah Sparrows, "Oregon" Dark-eyed Juncos, cucullatus subspecies of Hooded Oriole, and Gray-crowned Rosy-finches.

* Identification tip sections for difficult identifications including: loons in flight, white egrets, buteos in flight, western hummingbirds, flycatchers, catharus thrushes, blackpoll/bay-breasted/pin warblers, oporonis warblers, meadowlarks and others. Some of these tip sections have new drawings for particular tricky species and groups. For example, there are headshots separating subspecies of Common Eider, topography that is unique to a gull, non-flight Jaegers, and flight silhouettes for parrots and parakeets.

* Expanded text for some species. A few words here and there but also some new sentences where appropriate.

* Increased size on some older drawings allows greater detail for several species, notably Red-shouldered Hawk

* Better range maps. Range maps for some Psittacidae. Range maps that include Mexico and the Caribbean, showing winter range for some species.

* Placeholder flaps - an innovation kept from the 5th continental edition

* Section tabs - an innovation kept from the 5th continental edition

* Better organization on individual pages. The goatsucker page is a good example of the better organization of the regional guide compared to the continental one. The tail and flight drawings are now symmetrical and easy to compare to each other on the page.

There are still a few problems. The new drawing for Hook-billed Kite is awful. The head is not proportioned correctly, though it does correct the error of too many tail bands from the continental editions. The American Kestrel and Merlin drawings have been shrunk. Still no flight drawings and silhouettes for many birds.

On the whole, I am very pleased with this guide and plan on using it in the field and as a reference. It will likely replace my Sibley regional guidebook if I only pack one book. Great job National Geographic!

Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America

Author : Ted Floyd Edition : Pap/DVD Number of Pages : 528 Release Date : 2008-05-27 Publisher : Collins List Price : $24.95 Amazon Price : $13.72 Used Price : $12.78

Amazon.com Review

This new field guide provides a suite of modern tools to effectively aid in the identification of more than 750 species of birds across North America. It introduces a "whole bird" approach by concisely gathering a collection of information about birds into one portable and well-organized volume.

• 2,000 stunning color photographs of birds in natural habitats show the most important field marks, regional population differences, life stages, and behaviors
• 700-plus detailed and up-to-date color range maps show summer, migration, winter, year-round, and rare but regular occurrences of every major species
• A DVD of birdsongs for 138 major species (587 vocalizations in all for 5½ hours of play); each high-quality MP3 file is embedded with an image of the bird, perfect to view on home computers and portable MP3 players
• Concise descriptions of habits and ecology, age-related and seasonal differences, regional forms, vocalization, and informative captions pointing out the most important aspects of the bird
• 46 group essays with information outlining taxonomy, feeding, migration, habitats, behaviors, and conservation status
• A thorough and accessible introduction to birds and birding includes sections on parts of a bird, plumage and molt, food and feeding, migration, habitats, conservation, tips on bow to become a better birder, and more
• A detailed glossary of terms, species checklist, and quick index

The new Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America is perfectly designed to give birders the most powerful and user-friendly collection of information to carry into the field or wherever they enjoy learning about birds and nature.

A Look (and Listen) Inside the Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America
Click on an image below to sample one of the 587 different downloadable bird songs included with the guide.

American Wigeon Common Loon Mallard Red-Winged Blackbird Mourning Dove Northern Cardinal

Customer reviews

Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America by .. Laurie L. Ahola (Watton, MI USA)
I purchased this book as a Christmas gift for my mother-in-law. The pictures are beautiful with maps showing where the bird live, and is filled with facts from the different species. It is a agreat comprehensive volume.

Easy reading, visually pleasing, logically ordered guide by .. Mendicant Pigeon (pdx, or United States)
I've been sitting on this one for a while because I keep telling myself that i must go out in the field and test this guide but alas, I realize that I won't be doing that anytime soon.
Birding is a pastime that likely appeals to pretty much anybody who takes pleasure from being out of doors or who is interested in flora and fauna. The problem is that birds are surprisingly difficult to actually see, much beyond a silhouette or a fleeting look at one before it flits out of view from its temporary perch; birds are, well, flighty and masters of camouflage thus a book or field guide is a logical acquisition for anybody interested in actually identifying the birds one sees.
I've owned a couple of sub-standard guides; the cheap ones because the nice ones tend to cost a lot. Both of them were frustratingly vague or impossibly obtuse (this bird has 7 tail feathers and can be distinguished from the other bird with 7 tail feathers by the two thin black bars that occur on tail feathers four and five, etc.), without satisfactorily describing the distinguishing marks in order for one to make a proper identification. I mean, I had difficulty identifying a juvenile snowy owl that must have been 19 inches tall, based on the description found in one of them.
Another beef I have had is the range descriptions which never seemed to make any sense to me as either over broad or just plain wrong.
This book seems to answer all of my complaints. It has excellent pictures, it does a great job of describing distinguishing remarks. It thoughtfully discusses the different plumage one can expect between males and females, young and old and seasonally, for instance. It also has a really helpful and quite clever series of shorthand descriptions that help one to distinguish otherwise similar species.
The authors have also chosen to take on the range issue and have developed a very logical range spectrum that includes even such things as occasional sightings. Thus one is given a tool that can help him to deduce whether, in light of the season or frequency of sighting, he actually has spotted, for instance, a King Penguin sunbathing on the Gulf Coast of Florida (not likely).
Finally, this book includes something that every birder and bird-addled bystander has been wishing for for years: A CD version of bird name that tune. What a capital idea! For, most of us are more familiar with what a bird sounds like than what it looks like I'd wager. Listening to this CD allowed me to put names to calls and even meanings to calls in a way that caused me to feel as though I could really get to know my birds. Having said that, the CD format definitely needs to be revamped. It isn't easy to use and I don't think that it would be much use out in the field. Don't let that scare you off of buying this book because I think it is smashing. In fact, it probably deserves a fiver but I just haven't been able to go out and actually field test this thing so I withhold that final star until that time.

"The Best" Field Guide! by .. K. B. McCommis (St. Louis, MO)
I am just starting out birding, so this is my first field guide. But as I was picking out which guide to purchase, I quickly realized this was the one to go with. The features that make this guide superior are: actual photos (not drawings), multiple images (juvenile, adult, male/female, multiple color morphs, subspecies, in flight, or anything that helps in ID). And the main thing I liked is that all the text info is on the same pages as the photos (unlike the audobon society guide which forces you to do a lot of page flipping and finding). It may be slightly larger than other field guides, but definitely not a hindrance. And the abundance of pics and info makes up for the size.
The DVD w/ mp3 files are great, but I would not buy the book simply for the DVD of bird songs. -I actually did not realize it was there until after the purchase. But I am excited that I can bird with my iPod and add another dimension to my birding experience.
Overall, I think you cannot go wrong with this field guide!

Informative and thorough. by .. Dustin G. Rhodes (Washington, DC)
This is an excellent field guide: well researched and written. The photos are beautiful and the descriptions are clear. A perfect layman's guide.

Outstanding, but not alone by .. Eric Gross (Philadelphia Suburbs)
The Smithsonian Field Guide to Birds of North America is an outstanding contribution to a crowded field. Unlike the Peterson and National Geographic Guides (among others), this guide uses high quality photographs taken of the birds in a characteristic environment. Detailed, well colored maps indicate the yearly range of the bird specifying breeding, migration, winter, year round, and rare ranges. Photographic quality is uniformly excellent. But the biggest advantage of this book is that it comes with a comprehensive CD of bird calls beautifully recorded. This is a feature that the other guides lack and is a very strong recommendation for this volume, for, as any birder knows, we hear many more birds than we see.

Kaufman Field Guide to Birds of North America

Author : Kenn Kaufman Edition : 1 Number of Pages : 392 Publisher : Houghton Mifflin List Price : $18.95 Amazon Price : $11.02 Used Price : $2.09

Product Description

Customer reviews

The Best Field Guide for Birds of North America by .. Annie Moses (Tucson, AZ USA)
My sister dropped her Kaufman's field guide in a lake and so I gave her a new one for Christmas. We have been birding for over 15 years using various bird books. We have found this one to be the best when using it in the field. The pictures are great. One of the best features is how Kaufman points out those small field marks that one might miss. The maps are also a plus. They are very easy to read.

Birds in he Northeast by .. Barbara G. Kelsey (Westbrook, CT)
This is a good book to have in the house. Finding various birds is always fast and easy.

Sensible, Easy to use, and Underrated. by .. H. Moro (Mount Kisco, NY)
I think a lot of birdwatchers will pass up on this guide because it lacks the aesthetic charm of Peterson and the comprehensiveness of Sibley. This is unfortunate. Kaufman has trimmed away the fat of the modern field guide and produced a surprisingly spare volume geared primarily for field identification.

The photographic rendering is unique. Its overall design is reminiscent of Peterson. It's simplicity and size belies its actual sophistication. Indeed, a book like this one complements, not replaces, its larger, illustrated cousins. Maybe only Golden's Birds of North America attempts this kind of coverage while also fitting comfortably in a jacket pocket.

There's no question the book was intended for beginners, but I can't help feel that this is the first of a new generation of field guides. It reasserts the field guide in its proper domain and skillfully leverages newer digital imaging technology. It's utility expresses a lucid understanding of what an observer in the field is trying to accomplish. There is a lot here that creators of other guides could learn from.

Good for beginners by .. Amy (Mitchell, IN)
Kaufman's Field Guide to Birds is a great tool for the beginner. The book is simple and straight-forward, with helpful colored 'tabs' for families, making it easier for the birder unfamilier with taxonomic order to find a species quicker. However, as one gains experience they will want to 'graduate' to Sibley's Guide to Birds since it is more thorough and contains more insight on fall and immature plumage differences, in-flight silhouettes as well as other details that the beginner might not appreciate but greatly aid in more advanced bird identification.

Kaufman Field Guide to Birds of N. America by .. Rita Gunter ()
This is a great book with easy to look up information plus numerous pictures of each bird. It's small size makes it easy to carry along with you.