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In the May 2009 issue of Birding, the magazine of the American Birding Association, Alan Contreras opines: “Right now, we are overwhelmed with guides for beginners and specialized family references, many of which are good, but we lack truly advanced field guides…”

Among other suggestions, he would like to see a field guide that shows more plumages of each bird. To help make room for this, he suggests having relatively small illustrations of the easy birds, and larger illustrations of the small and hard-to-identify ones.

He makes some very good points. One of the reasons I love The Sibley Guide (review) so much is because it includes more illustrations of each species, on average, than any other North American guide.

After reading Contreras’ article, I started thinking about the features that I would like to see in my ideal field guide. But in all my ruminations, I didn’t come up with anything like what Richard Crossley is planning. The intrepid bloggers at 10,000 Birds just posted about Crossley’s plan for a new field guide, along with some of his unique photographic plates:

Could this be North America’s best ID guide?

For more examples of his plates, don’t miss Crossley’s The I.D. Guide gallery.

The more I see of Crossley’s photo plates, the more impressed I get. They are just amazing, and are surely works of art just as much as painted plates.

The samples look like they are intended to be full-sized pages, and I really hope that is the case. This format, though, will probably make for a very thick field guide. All I have to say about that is “Great!!”. Just think, a full-page plate showing all kinds of different plumages and positions, along with an entire facing page for most species. That will mean a ton of room for identification tips and other information.

Of course, that also means that it may not be portable enough to carry into the field. But if this is aimed at more advanced birders, then that won’t be a problem. Most of them leave the field guide in the car or at home anyway.

This is starting to sound a lot like the field guide that Contreras was wishing for. All I know is that I can’t wait to see the finished product.

Someday soon I’ll be able to get another review written. But in the meantime, here are some reviews from other sites.

I’ve been pretty busy lately and haven’t had enough time to write reviews. I’m hoping that will change soon. But in the meantime, here are some thoughts on some recently published bird books.

• Life List: A Woman’s Quest for the World’s Most Amazing Birds
  Olivia Gentile

  This is an excellent biography of uber-birder and lister Phoebe Snetsinger. I have already written a review of Birding on Borrowed Time, Phoebe’s memoir, and I was curious to see how this biography would compare. Briefly, in just about every regard, I consider this bio as superior. I would recommend starting with it.

• Birdscapes: Birds in Our Imagination and Experience
  Jeremy Mynott

  My favorite bird book from last year was The Life of the Skies. I’m less than 50 pages into Birdscapes, but so far it reminds me very much of Life of the Skies. It may touch upon some of the same subjects, but it’s really the way that it makes you question things, and really think. I’m going to make a bold prediction and say that this may be my frontrunner for favorite book of 2009 – I’m enjoying it that much so far.

• Birdsong by the Seasons: A Year of Listening to Birds
  Donald Kroodsma

  Kroodsma’s The Singing Life of Birds is fantastic, and should be required reading for anyone interested in bird song. This book, which is a celebration of birdsong from January to December, looks like it could be just as good.

• Flyaway: How A Wild Bird Rehabber Sought Adventure and Found Her Wings
  Suzie Gilbert

  A verteran bird rehabber chronicles her experiences with injured birds. This looks like an interesting story, all the more so because it’s a subject that is underrepresented in birding literature.

• National Geographic Complete Birds of the World

  This guide presents an account for each of the world’s bird families, similar to The Princeton Encyclopedia of Birds. I’ve only had a chance to skim through this one, but my initial impression is that if, given the choice, I’d take the one from Princeton.

• The Travails of Two Woodpeckers: Ivory-Bills and Imperials
  Noel F. R. Snyder, David E. Brown, Kevin B. Clark

  I believe the title says it all. Snyder has written books on several other extinct and endangered species, and I’m interested in his take on these two.

The blog 10,000 Birds is giving a way a copy of Corvus: A Life with Birds. The contest ends April 26.

Giveaway at 10,000 Birds

Here are some bird book reviews published in the last month or so.

Update, Dec 13, 2009: Apparently, the Sibley Online Guide has been taken down. I have no idea why.

Update, Feb 28, 2010: The site’s disappearing act may have something to do with the new Sibley iPhone app.

The Sibley Guide to Birds is now available online. And this isn’t just some abbreviated version, it’s just about the entire “big” Sibley! The species accounts include everything from the printed version, including all of the illustrations (with the invaluable annotations), range map, and text. As a bonus, it also includes an audio sample.

You can search for birds both by family and by typing in any part of the name in a search box. The interface isn’t as nifty as Cornell’s All About Birds, but it is simple and intuitive.

There’s also a reference section that includes some material from The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior

I wouldn’t give up my printed Sibley guide for anything. But I can see this online version being very useful at times when your hardcopy isn’t available. And if you don’t already have this guide? Then check out this online version and see what you’ve been missing.

A big thanks to John from A DC Birding Blog for bringing this to my attention.

Just in case you also read something other than bird books (even I do, on occasion 🙂 ), check out the latest book review blog carnival.