Bird Identification Guides
Sometimes people ask me which bird guide to buy. There are a lot of good ones out there and I have experience with a few. In general, illustrations (or "plates") are better than photographs. Well done illustrations show an idealized version of a bird with all the diagnostic field marks. Photographs can be great, but sometimes the individual bird photographed has unique traits that are not representative of the species. This can be confusing when learning bird identification. Here are my favorite illustrated bird field guides.
For Beginners: All The Birds of North America
Published by the American Bird Conservancy, this is a great guide for beginners. It has a quick and well thought out system for narrowing down birds by body type and bill type. It has great pointers for distinguishing between similar species. And it fits in most back pockets. When this guide first came out I used it in the field exclusively for two or three years. [Buy on Amazon]
The Next Step: National Geographic Field Guide To The Birds Of North America, 5th Edition
The National Geographic guide has excellent illustrations and species accounts, but is more difficult to use since the birds are listed in standard taxonomic order. This makes it a great guide for more experienced birders who have learned the basics of bird identification. It's a great second guide to get and it's small enough to carry and use in the field but doesn't quite fit in a back pocket. This is the book I take with me in the field. [Buy on Amazon]
A Great Reference for Home: The Sibley Guide to Birds
When the David Sibley's guide was published in 2000 it took the birding world by storm. It instantly became the best single reference for identifying North American birds. The illustrations are great, and there are more of them for each species than any other guide. There are also useful discussions of similar species. But this is a large book. It's too big to carry in the field and is best left at home and used in combination with one of the smaller guides. [Buy on Amazon]
A Few More
I haven't used these last books, but they look great. The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America [Buy on Amazon] is probably a great alternative to the National Geographic guide, even though it's an eastern guide and doesn't include all the birds that occur in Texas. And to learn about the lives of birds, I'd recommend The Sibley Guide to Bird Life & Behavior [Buy on Amazon].
Mikael Behrens
birdingonbroadmeade@gmail.com
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