Features - Category Archive

When I started birding, I carried a pencil and small notebook into the field to record sightings and make notes. It was a great way to learn, but a little cumbersome. A few years later, I met a birder who dictated sightings into a cassette-based voice recorder. How cool was that! Well, not the cassette part. So I bought a digital voice recorder with a remote mic. I could keep the device in my pocket, clip the mic to my binocular strap, and be able to record notes without ever lowering my binoculars. Plus, it could record bird sounds in a pinch. I love that thing and never imagined that I could bird without it.

And then comes the iPhone with all its wonderful apps. Smart phones and listing-keeping applications seem to be made for each other. It’s very convenient to keep your list on a device that you always have handy. Though I still use my trusty voice recorder for most of my list recording, I have found listing apps to be very useful at times. And with all of the features they offer, I really could fully switch over. If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, I highly recommend using one of these apps. But which one? I’ll briefly describe and compare the iPhone listing apps that I’ve used.

First, all of these apps will obviously let you record which birds, and how many, you see. They will also email lists, export them in a format acceptable to eBird, and keep a rudimentary life list.

Birdcountr

$4.99

Website

European version
Free version

The Good

• Keeps track of time and records GPS location
• Can separately count by gender, age, and plumage
• Attractive interface; includes bird portraits
• Export options include Google Earth KML or as web page

The Bad

• Runs through battery quickly if GPS is being used. Can’t use it for longer than 6-7 hours without charging
• Only covers North America (US and Canada) and Europe (in separate apps)
• Takes more button pressing (and thus time) to record sightings

I’ve found birdcountr to be intuitive and the app that most closely matches what I’m looking for in a listing app. It is very linear – you start a list, enter a name for the location, enter your sightings, and hit the End button when done. It keeps track of the time you started and stopped and the GPS coordinates of every sighting (by default, though you can turn that off). Further, I like to keep track of “identifiable forms” within species. That is, I keep a separate count for male/female, immature, subspecies, etc. Birdcountr is the only app that is able to do that easily. But being able to record that extra information comes at a price; entering sightings in this app takes slightly longer than in the others.

For a more in-depth look, here’s my full review of birdcountr.

Birdwatcher’s Diary

$9.99

Website

The Good

• Usable worldwide
• Flexible and extensible – can import lists for anywhere and of anything, not just birds (i.e. mammals)
• Keeps track of time and can record GPS location
• Export lists as Google Earth KML
• Uses iTunes for backup, or can upload to ftp sites
• Life list functionality relatively robust

The Bad

• Price
• Complicated
• Runs through battery quickly if GPS is being used
• Cumbersome to separately count by gender, age, and plumage

Birdwatcher’s Diary is the most powerful listing app I’ve used. By downloading and installing lists, it can be used anywhere and for just about anything. The filtering capabilities seem especially well-suited to bird surveys and big days. The life list feature has options, unlike the other apps, so you can have it tell you what birds you’ve seen in a given location, time period, etc. You can count different “types” of the same bird individually (male/female, subspecies, etc), but it takes much more effort than in birdcountr.

However, this is not the most intuitive app. I had to actually read the manual to figure out how to use it. But the good news is that the manual is a fairly good and easy-to-follow tutorial that walks you through the myriad features.

My Bird Observations

$2.99

Website

Free version

The Good

• Usable worldwide, with preloaded lists for states and countries
• Simple, fairly quick data entry
• Price
• Exports to Birdstack, and uploads to box.net for backup

The Bad

• No easy way to separately count by gender, age, and plumage
• Does not use GPS to record location
• Lack of smart scrolling bar makes it more inconvenient to scroll through a long list of families or species

Of these listing apps, My Bird Observations is the most basic. It will automatically note the start time for each trip, but if you want to record other details (duration, county, etc) you must enter them manually. It does not use GPS. But it is easy, quick, and intuitive to use. It’s the only one that is usable worldwide immediately upon installation. The only way to keep track of different types (male/female, etc) is to manually type notes for the species.

Recommendation

First, birdcountr and My Bird Observations each has a limited version that can be tried for free. Birdwatcher’s Diary, unfortunately, doesn’t offer that option. But you can read through the manual to get a good idea of how it works.

All of these apps will allow you to record the birds you see and create bird lists that can be uploaded to eBird. But ultimately, the one that is right for you depends on your needs. If you need a quick and easy way to count birds, without worrying about recording GPS or various “types”, then My Bird Observations should work fine. Birdcountr would be great if you want those features, and bird primarily in North America or Europe. However, if you need worldwide coverage or want its advanced features, then Birdwatcher’s Diary would be the best choice.

More Bird Apps

• Comparison of Bird Field Guide Apps for iPhone – a similar comparison I’ve done for the North American field guide apps available for the iPhone

Disclosure: The apps reviewed here were complementary review copies provided by the developers.

2010 was a good year for bird field guides. The highlights include new editions of the most famous field guide in history, a great new field guide for North America, a real field guide to the world’s most avian-rich country, and what was arguably the most highly anticipated field guide update ever (at least since I’ve been birding). Here’s a brief look at the field guides from this past year.

It seemed like there were an unusually high number of new editions and updated field guides in 2010, most of which were published, at least in the U.S., by Princeton University Press.

• The Collins Bird Guide, or Birds of Europe as it’s known in North America, is probably the most highly regarded field guide in the world; and deservedly so. Every birder, regardless of location, should have a copy, if only to see how good a field guide can be. But the original edition (review), published a decade ago, was starting to show its age. This second edition makes some updates and additions, but is still the same amazing guide.
• The new Birds of Peru is billed as a “Revised and Updated Edition” rather than a second edition. I don’t have the first edition to compare the two, but I think this is an accurate reflection. The binding has been changed from a jacketless hardcover to paperback, making it more portable. It also includes an additional 25 species, and some revised range maps. Anyone birding in Peru or the surrounding countries absolutely has to have it. Full Review
• In 2008 the famous Peterson field guides, which had previously only been available as separate regional editions, were updated and combined into a single book (review). It should come as no surprise that they were again split into the sixth edition Eastern and Central North America and fourth edition Western field guides.
• Australia was blessed with two updated field guides in 2010: the eighth edition of Simpson and Day’s Birds of Australia, and the second of The Slater Field Guide to Australian Birds. If you’d like to learn the relative merits of each of Australia’s field guides, there is an excellent comparison on Birdforum.
• The second edition of Birds of the Middle East looks like it would be a very useful field guide for the region. I don’t have the first edition, so I can’t compare the two. But it sounds as if this guide has been completely redesigned and updated, much of it for the better. It now has a more traditional layout with birds on the right-hand page and text and range maps on the left.

But there was also a good selection of new field guides in 2010.

• Each of the last four years has brought us a new photographic field guide to the birds of North America. They’ve each had their merits, but The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America is my current favorite photo-based guide. It is an excellent reference that is worth having even if you already have a dozen other NA field guides. Here’s a look inside.
• Of all the field guides published in 2010, Field Guide to the Birds of Colombia may be the most impactful. Columbia, which boasts more bird species than any other country on Earth, is once again becoming a safe place to bird. But until now, its only field guide, while good, is old and unwieldy. I’m still not sure what magic the authors used, but they managed to produce a guide to 1800+ birds that is both useful and very portable. Full Review
• Birds of the West Indies is a very compact guide to Caribbean birds. But it doesn’t completely supplant its predecessor, a field guide with the same name by Herbert Raffaele. Having been able to use this guide in the field recently, I will be writing a review shortly.
• The Birds of Panama, like the new Columbian guide, is a very welcome addition since it’s the first good, readily portable field guide to this popular birding destination. I haven’t seen it yet, but if it’s as good as the companion book to Costa Rica (by the same publisher and illustrator), it would be highly recommended to anyone birding in Panama.
• According to the very helpful site Avian Review, the Field Guide to the Birds of Ghana, as only the second field guide to west Africa, is a book that you’ll need if you’re planning on birding in western Africa.
• Bird Feathers: A Guide to North American Species isn’t a field guide in the same manner as these other books, but is rather a field guide to bird parts. Ever find a lone bird feather and wish you could figure out to which bird it belonged? This is your book.

If I’ve missed any, and inevitably I have, let me know and I’ll add them.

Digital cameras, digital photo frames, eBook readers, it seems like the whole world is going digital these days. And now digital field guides are here. You can think of these as traditional field guides on steroids, yet even smaller.

You still get the regular stuff found in field guides: illustrations, range maps, basic identification and natural history information. But the format also allows for much more. You can play a bird’s song from within the field guide. Or access information that otherwise would have required cracking open another book or doing an internet search.

Probably the best thing about the medium is that it allows you to search for a bird in so many more ways. For instance, if you don’t know the name of a bird you want to look up, you don’t have to go looking through the accounts as you do in a printed guide. Just input some characteristics in the search function, and the guide will narrow down the possibilities for you.

There are now several digital field guides available to birders, mostly for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch devices. This is a brief comparison of those for North America.

• Audubon Birds
  $19.99
  
• iBird Explorer Pro
  $29.99
  
• National Geographic’s Handheld Birds
  $9.99
  
• Peterson Birds of North America
  $14.99
  
• The Sibley eGuide to the Birds of North America
  $29.99
  

Normally, I would create a table to compare their features, but the folks at iBird have already made this comparison of iPhone Bird Apps.

Keep in mind that one of the competing companies produced this table. However, I have no reason to believe that anything was misrepresented, though it does not include the new Peterson app.

So which one belongs on your iPhone? I’ve only had first hand experience with iBird, Sibley, and Audubon (free version). But the app websites and reviews in iTunes have been very helpful in gauging their usefulness.

First off, I think the Peterson ones can be eliminated due to the lack of a single, comprehensive app. [Updated March 10, 2011] When I first created this page, the only Peterson apps available were separate ones for backyard birds, birds of prey, and warblers. But now there is a single, comprehensive Peterson Birds of North America app. It includes all the illustrations from the latest Peterson field guide, but also pulls information from other Peterson guides, such as those to warblers and even molt! If you’re a fan of the Peterson guide, it looks worth checking out.

The National Geographic app looks to be a pretty straightforward port of their field guide, with the addition of sounds, more textual information, and a basic search function. But it just doesn’t seem to have the navigation and search capabilities that you would want.

Audubon Birds seems to have the same sort of information on each bird, except this one uses photographs for the illustrations. A search engine is included, allowing you to search for birds based on several characteristics. This is more promising.

iBird has the usual information for each bird (and quite a bit more), and goes beyond the other apps by utilizing both paintings and photographs. But you’ll really notice the difference in the search function – iBird has 33 different criteria that you can use to search on.

[Update: Sibley added on Feb 18, 2010] The Sibley eGuide app is an excellent digital version of the Sibley Guide, which is my favorite North American field guide. It’s just about the perfect amalgamation of the “big” Sibley and the smaller regional guides. You get (just about) all of the illustrations from the former, along with the extensive text and updated maps of the latter. It also comes with an extensive collection of bird sounds and some rudimentary searching and filtering capabilities.

Based on what I’ve seen, I think it’s clear that iBird is the way to go. It has more species, illustrations per species (on average), information, and ways to find what you’re looking for.

Until Sibley was released, iBird was the clear frontrunner among bird apps. But now it’s a very close race. Here’s a brief comparison of important features:

• Illustrations – I much prefer Sibley’s paintings, and it illustrates a vastly greater selection of plumages for each species. However, iBird also includes some fantastic photos, and quick access to many more on Flickr.
• Sounds – Sibley includes a greater selection of sounds for each species. They both allow you to easily compare vocalizations. With Sibley, you can compare any two species, while iBird gives a selection of similar sounds for each bird.
• Information – iBird includes MUCH more information on life history, conservation, and other interesting facts. The text in Sibley deals almost exclusively with identification and voice. This information is also present in iBird, but the Sibley text does a better job at highlighting the most important field marks.
• User Interface – It’s no contest – iBird’s interface and navigation is vastly superior. It’s searching and filtering is also much more robust than the Sibley app. Sibley does have one unique feature, though, and it’s a good one. You can compare portraits, sounds, and range maps of any two species on the same screen.
• Lists – They both allow you to save notes for each species. Sibley allows you to see and interrogate your list easier. But honestly, I wouldn’t use either to keep a life list.

Basically, they both have something to offer in every category. Right now, I can’t universally recommend one over the other. Overall, I think more experienced birders will find the Sibley app more useful for identification, while those less experienced will best be served by iBird.

Ultimately, the best app will be the one that improves most upon its shortcomings. iBird needs to expand its collection of sounds and (especially) illustrate more variations in appearance. The Sibley app could greatly improve upon its searching/filtering and interface, as well as include some information beyond that found in the print guides.

But I wouldn’t wait too long to see which one that will be. I’ve found that having a digital field guide with me at all times has been incredibly handy and just plain (dare I say it) cool.

If you want a more in-depth look at these apps, here are some full reviews:

• Review of iBird Explorer
• Review of The Sibley eGuide
• Review of Peterson Birds of North America

More Bird Apps

• Bird Listing Apps for iPhone – a similar comparison I’ve done for listing apps available for the iPhone
• BirdsEye – a bird-finding app utilizing eBird
• birdJam HeadsUp Warblers and HeadsUp Sparrows – warbler and sparrow-specific apps

When I got into birding, I jumped in with both feet. I wanted to find out what this birding thing was all about. But how? What comes after the binoculars and field guide?

As with most any pursuit, birders need knowledge and desire to progress beyond beginner status. The desire is the “easy” part – you have to want to get better, and be willing to put in the work to do so (and it does take work). But how do you get the knowledge? There is no substitute for field experience. But even so, you can only progress so far and so fast on your own. The help of a more experienced birder is crucial. Unfortunately, they’re not always around every time you need them! Thank goodness for the collected experience and wisdom available in books. Here are a few selections that will greatly aid beginners (or anyone, for that matter) in their quest to become a better birder.

• Pete Dunne on Bird Watching: The How-to, Where-to, and When-to of Birding
  Pete Dunne

  After binoculars and field guide, this is the next thing every prospective birder should have. Dunne provides many tips and suggestions, but more than anything else, he clearly introduces what this birding thing is all about, from birdfeeding to pelagic trips. As a bonus, you get all of this with the author’s trademark wit and humor. This is more than a treasure trove of information from one of our foremost birders, it’s also a fun read.

• The Complete Birder: A Guide to Better Birding
  Jack Connor

  Even though this is older and out-of-print, it’s worth tracking down. There is a little overlap with the other books, but also provides an overview of birding seasons and some difficult families like warblers and gulls. Personal anecdotes and lively writing keep this interesting.

• National Geographic Birding Essentials
  Jonathan Alderfer and Jon L. Dunn

  This covers more technical, but still crucial, topics than Dunne and Connor, such as the parts of a bird and molt. It is profusely illustrated with great color photos to exemplify the concepts.

• Sibley’s Birding Basics
  David Allen Sibley

  This is a great guide, but contrary to the title, I think intermediate and even advanced birders will get more out of this than beginners. If the rest of these books haven’t satiated your desire for birding know-how, then turn here next.

• Good Birders Don’t Wear White: 50 Tips From North America’s Top Birders
  Lisa White

  There are some good, helpful tips here. But the scattershot approach means that it isn’t very comprehensive. It’s worth a read, but preferably after one of the prior books. (Full Review)

• Birding
  Joseph Forshaw, Steve Howell, Terence Lindsey, Rich Stallcup

  I found a prior edition of this in a bookstore’s bargain book section just after I started birding. It was surprisingly helpful. The introduction to birding, including the tools and other items you will need, is really good. Not as in-depth as some of these other books, but I found myself referring to it often.

• Birding Lite: A Humorous How-to Guide for All Who Enjoy Watching Birds
  Stan Dryden

  A good option for those who are curious about bird watching or just getting into it. They will find the information required to get started presented in a fun, though shallow, manner. But if you’re already sure that birding is for you, then one of these other options will be more helpful, particularly Dunne or National Geographic. (Full Review)

For the most part, these books won’t help you identify a particular bird. But they will give you a firm foundation to make quicker and more accurate identifications. What’s more, they will help you better enjoy and get more out of the pursuit of bird watching.

My wife and I enjoy visiting the US National Parks. She enjoys photographing the outdoors, and the parks are a great place for that. And for me there are always birds. And as anyone who’s watched the Ken Burns’ documentary knows, the parks are just fantastic places.

When looking at a map of the parks across the country, it’s hard to avoid noticing the area of the Colorado Plateau, the region encompassing southern Utah, northern Arizona, and western Colorado. It stands out because there are seven national parks there, relatively close to each other. Proceeding counter-clockwise from the south, as we would be visiting them, they are Grand Canyon in Arizona; Mesa Verde in southwest Colorado; and Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, and Zion in Utah. Collectively, this route is known as the Grand Circle.

It’s July, so it’s already time to get out there and look for shorebirds on their southbound migration. In fact, there have already been a couple reports of Upland Sandpipers here in Georgia. But this group of birds can be notoriously difficult to identify. So when you head out to the nearest beach, sod farm, or sewage treatment plant, you may want to take a specialized identification guide with you. But which one?

Here, I will be comparing the four most recent guides that cover North American shorebirds. However, two of them also cover Europe and Asia, and the other two, although focused on North America, would also be useful elsewhere.

	The Shorebird Guide	Shorebirds of North America: The Photographic Guide	Shorebirds of North America, Europe, and Asia: A Photographic Guide	Shorebirds of North America, Europe, and Asia: A Guide to Field Identification
Author	Michael O’Brien, Richard Crossley, Kevin Karlson	Dennis Paulson	Richard Chandler	Stephen Message and Don Taylor
Publish date	April, 2006	January, 2005	July, 2009	March, 2006
Price (MSRP)	$24.95	$29.95	$35.00	$35.00
Size (width x height x thickness)	6″ x 9″ x 1 3/8″	5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″ x 1″	6 1/8″ x 9 1/4″ x 1 1/8″	6 1/8″ x 9 1/4″ x 1/2″
# pages	496	384	448	224
# species	91	94	134	124
Illustrations	Photos	Photos	Photos	Paintings
Account/Plate layout	Two sections: 1st has photos, with limited text and maps; 2nd has species accounts	Everything in each species account	Everything in each species account	Two sections: 1st has plates on the right (multiple species), with some text on the facing page; 2nd has species accounts, with maps, more text, and shows the bird in flight
Range maps	Color; breeding, winter, resident, and migration (with two shades to show relative abundance)	NONE	Color; breeding, winter, resident	Color; breeding, winter, resident
Species accounts	Status Taxonomy Behavior Migration Molt Vocalizations (Photo section also has short notes on Size, Structure, Behavior, and Status)	Size Plumages Subspecies Hybrids Identification In Flight Voice Behavior Habitat Range	Identification Ageing (with separate descriptions of each age class) Call Status, Habitat, and Distribution Racial Variation and Hybridization Similar Species References	Key ID Features Behavior Flight Action Voice Distribution Confusion Species

Recommendation

So, given all of these choices, which one should you get? Well, none of them are actually bad, and any would be helpful shorebirding. But in case you don’t want to carry around four shorebird guides, here are my thoughts on them.

I would immediately rule out Message/Taylor. I prefer general field guides that use paintings, but I think photographs work better for shorebirds. Plus, I just don’t care for most of the illustrations here. Some, admittedly, are pretty good. But most just look bad to me. I think it’s because the painter attempts to show the feathers in too great of detail. Personally, I just don’t care for that.

The Paulson and Chandler photographic guides are very similar in their approach and layout. The photographs are of similar quality. On average, Paulson includes just a bit more photos per species, but the ones in Chandler are larger. Chandler includes many more species, but this is largely irrelevant to North American birders since they both contain all of the birds likely to be seen here. I love the formatting and layout of Chandler’s guide; of the two, it just looks much better. After going back and forth between them, I think I prefer the newer guide from Chandler.

But there is no doubt in my mind that The Shorebird Guide is not only the best guide for shorebirds, it is the best family-specific guide that I have seen. The authors emphasize birding by impression (aka “jizz” or “giss”-based identification). They point out field marks that the others either do not mention, or bury in the text. And the photos are simply amazing! The thing I like best about this guide is that many of the photos show birds of different species together, with the captions helping to point out the differences. This is supremely helpful in learning these birds, but none of the other guides do this. Every North American birder (and probably any birder in the Northern Hemisphere) needs to have this book. It’s that good. (It also happens to be the cheapest!)

But really, can you have too many guides to shorebirds?

Full Reviews

• The Shorebird Guide
• Shorebirds of North America: The Photographic Guide
• Shorebirds of North America, Europe, and Asia: A Photographic Guide

The most important bird books may not be the latest and greatest field guides, or the bird-finding guide to that birding mecca you’ve always wanted to visit. It may very well be books for kids. They can be instrumental in imparting a life-long love for the natural world. They were for me.

A fellow Georgia birder, Dan Vickers, has graciously allowed me to reprint his recommendations for bird books for children from an article he wrote for the Georgia Ornithological Society. Here are his suggestions, along with some of my own:

Children Ages 2-5

• Good-Night, Owl!
  Pat Hutchins
  1990, 32 pages, Color

  This is one of the all-time favorite children’s books. All poor Owl wants to do is sleep, but he keeps being awakened by the other noisy occupants of the forest.

• Owl Babies
  Martin Waddell and Patrick Benson
  2002, 32 pages, Color

  Wonderful illustrations showcase this story of three owlets awaiting their mother’s return from her night’s hunt.

• Make Way for Ducklings
  Robert McCloskey
  1941, 68 pages, Color

  This classic story of a mother’s devotion has fascinated children for generations. McCloskey received the Caldecott award for his illustrations.
  

• Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!
  Mo Willems
  2003, 40 pages, Color

  Kids love this wonderful tale of a pigeon trying to convince a busload of people (and the reader) to let him drive the bus after the driver steps off for a break.

Children Ages 4-8

• The Burgess Bird Book for Children
  Thornton W Burgess
  2003, 272 pages, Black and White

  A creative story about the feathered friends such as Jenny Wren, Redwing the Blackbird, Melody the Wood Thrush, Spooky the Screech Owl, Creaker the Purple Grackle, and Downy the Woodpecker.

• Song for the Whooping Crane
  Eileen Spinelli and Elsa Warnick
  2000, 48 pages, Color

  Visually and poetically captivating, this ode to the most celebrated endangered species of our time will stir an environmental awareness in any child.

• Birds, Nests, & Eggs
  Mel Boring
  1998, 48 pages, Color

  ID tips on 15 birds and the homes they build. This book contains a series of activities, 7 pages for notes or scrapbooking, and numerous safety tips.

• Owls
  Adrienne Mason
  2004, 32 pages, Color

  Easy-to-read with plenty of detailed descriptions of the owls and how they live, eat, and hunt.

• About Birds: A Guide for Children
  Cathryn Sill
  1997, 40 pages, Color

  Various North American species are illustrated in this beginner’s guide to birds. Lots of basic information is followed by an afterward which lists more detailed life histories.

• Backyard Birds (Peterson Field Guides for Young Naturalists)
  Jonathan Latimer, Karen Stray Nolting, and Roger Tory Peterson
  1999, 48 pages, Color

  A first field guide for your young birder, it describes 20 common birds as only a Peterson Field Guide could.

• Beginning Birdwatcher’s Book: With 48 Stickers
  Sy Barlowe
  2000, 32 pages, Color

  Kids can record sightings of 48 common North American birds, with sticker images, and notes on location, date and any remarks.

• Bird Log: A Kids Journal to Record Their Birding Experiences
  Deanna Bryant
  1998, 80 pages

  This is a log book for children to record their sightings. It provides observation questions to help fill in the information.

Children Ages 9+

• The Young Birder’s Guide to Birds of Eastern North America (Peterson Field Guides)
  Bill Thompson, III and illustrated by Julie Zickfoose
  2008, 256 pages, Color, Paperback

  This new Peterson Field Guide, written just for kids, gives detailed descriptions and vivid illustrations of 200 birds in Eastern North America.

• The Last Egret (The Adventures of Charlie Pierce)
  Harvey E. Oyer III
  2010, 168 pages, some black-and-white drawings

  A wonderful adventure story in which Charlie Pierce learns the value of birds and nature. This is a great introduction to the idea of conservation. (Full Review)

• For the Birds: The Life of Roger Tory Peterson
  Peggy Thomas (Author) and Laura Jacques (Illustrator)
  2011, 43 pages, color paintings, hardcover

  This book is worth it just for the gorgeous illustrations. But it also tells the story of Roger Tory Peterson’s life (he of the field-guide fame), while encouraging children to pay attention to nature and the birds around them. That makes this a great book for kids ages eight and up.

Thanks, Dan!

Author extraordinaire Pete Dunne was the keynote speaker at this year’s Colonial Coast Birding and Nature Festival, held annually on Jekyll Island, Georgia. It was a blast to hear him speak, and even more so to bird with him. It is with complete honesty that I say that if I could write (or bird) like anyone, it would be Pete Dunne. Thus, it was an honor (and a bit intimidating!) to be able to sit down and ask him a couple of questions.

Your next book, Prairie Spring, will be published next year. Can you tell us a little about it?
It’s part of a four-part series. The focus is not the season, the season is just a carriage. The focus is actually the overlap of humans and the natural world. The season is a common ground that most people can relate to.

You’ve written about your beginnings as a birder. But how did you become a writer?
It began just about the same time. I think I started to write my first book about birds when I was in the second grade. The name of the book was Turk: The Story of a Hawk. I stopped it when I realized on page one that I was actually plagiarizing the story called Rufous Redtail, which is also a wonderful book.

Do you ever want to write about something other than birds? Perhaps a novel?
I wish I had a novel in me. If I do, it’s deeply hidden. I’d love to write a novel, I think it would be incredible fun to be able to just weave a story out of air. But I actually write a great deal about things that are not birds; I write a great deal about people. I think one of the things I try to do with my writing is to write about the junction of people and the natural world. So this book series that I’ve started is just a continuation of something that I’ve been doing for a long time.

Many of your columns are obviously fictional. But there are some that have left me wondering whether they really happened or not. What percentage of the situations you’ve written about happened as you wrote them?
I’d say that very few of them happened exactly that way. The great thing about writing fictional accounts, even if they have foundation in fact, is that you can embellish.

There’s one in particular that I have to ask about – did some random birder at Cape May really want to find a Semi-palmated Plover for you? (as told in More Tales of a Low-Rent Birder)
Yes, that really did happen. He was a very nice guy.

Many times, you write from the bird’s perspective, such as in The Wind Masters. How do you do that so well?
I don’t know. I’d love to tell you that writing is hard, but it’s not. If you have a good idea, it writes itself. If you have a bad idea, two days later you have 3500 words on paper and you still have a bad idea.

Any chance for more books like Wind Masters, but with other groups of birds?
There’s actually elements of that in the series I’m doing right now. For instance, in Prairie Spring I have a conversation with a painted horse.

It seems to me that a proportionally high number of top-notch birders are also exceptional writers. There’s yourself, Kenn Kaufman, and Scott Weidensaul, just to name a few. Does it seem that way to you as well?
I think that maybe we’re simply the ones that because we’re accomplished communicators, that we’re known. I’m sure that there are very, very skilled birders out there on par with Kenn and David (Sibley) who might not be well known. But they’re still very good birders. I think in every endeavor communication is fundamental, no matter what you do.

Before your Field Guide Companion, it would have been hard to imagine an identification guide with absolutely no illustrations. How was your concept of it initially received?
I think the concept was very warmly received. Houghton-Mifflin (the publisher) is a wonderful house, and Lisa White (the editor) is a great person to work with. But I think the bloom was off the rose when I turned in my manuscript and it was four times longer than anticipated! They published it very much as it was written, but the original concept was for a much shorter book. It was a tale that grew in the telling.

Anything else in the works that you can talk about?
A couple collections of essays. And I’m never short of ideas, there’s a whole wall of books that I would love to write someday. I will never finish a project where I won’t have five or six other ideas vying for my attention.

Many thanks to Pete for being gracious enough to consent to this interview even when he wasn’t feeling well, and for enduring it even though I am without a doubt the worst interviewer that he has ever had to suffer through. I wish him luck in writing that wall of books that he wants to write, because I want to read them even more.

August of 2008 marks the centennial of the birth of Roger Tory Peterson, one of the 20th century’s most influential people. To commemorate the event, Houghton Mifflin is publishing a new version of Peterson’s field guide to birds, a book whose importance to birding and conservation cannot be overstated. This volume combines the previously separate field guides to eastern and western birds of North America, and is thus the first edition of the Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America.

However, this new book is more than just the merger of the two regional guides. There are new features, species added and removed, and updates to all facets of the previous work. I will try to describe all of this in detail, as mentioned below.

On this page you will find links to everything I post concerning this guide. The coverage starts with a first look at the guide itself, as well as a couple of plates so that you can see some changes for yourself. A detailed list of changes will follow. Finally, a full review will be posted.

More Coverage:

• First Look – a quick look at the guide and some changes
• List of Changes to the Plates – I have compared the plates of this new guide with the latest editions of the Eastern and Western regional guides
• The Full Review

	Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America	National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Birds of North America	Kaufman Field Guide to Birds of North America	Stokes Field Guide to Birds: Eastern AND Western*	National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds – Eastern Region**
Author	Ted Floyd	Edward S. Brinkley	Kenn Kaufman	Donald and Lillian Stokes	John Bull and John Farrand, Jr.
Publish date	May, 2008	May, 2007	September, 2000***	1996	September, 1994
Price (MSRP)	$24.95	$19.95	$18.95	$17.99	$19.95
Size (width x height x thickness)	6″ x 8″ x 1 1/4″	4 3/4″ x 7 3/4″ x 1 3/8″	4 3/4″ x 7 3/4″ x 3/4″	5″ x 8 1/8″ x 7/8″; 5″ x 8 3/8″ x 1″	4″ x 7 1/2″ x 1 1/4″
Weight	2 lb. (with disc and booklet removed)	1 lb., 13 oz	1 lb., 1 oz	1 lb., 5 oz; 1 lb., 8 oz	1 lb., 4 oz
# pages	522	530	384	496; 544	800
# species	750+	~760	749	unspecified, but I would guess 450; 500	508
Species per page – min/max/avg	1 / 3 / <2	1 / 3 / <2	2 / 8 / >4	1 / 2 / ~1	2 / 3 / ~2.5
Photos per species – min/max/avg	1/ 10 / 2-3	1 / 10 / ~3	1 / 8 / ~2.7	1 / 4 / ~2	1 / 2 / 1.27
Plate layout	Pics and text on same page; species arranged both vertically and horizontally	Pics and text on same page; species arranged horizontally	Birds shown on the right-hand page, with species accounts on facing page	Pics and text on same page	Photographs together in their own section, accounts in back half
Captions	Captions in the margins with sex/age; identification notes; place and time taken	Captions within the image with sex/age and identification notes	Pointers to important field marks, a la Peterson	Captions under each image with sex/age	Captions under each image with sex/age, length, page # for species account
Species order	“closely” follows AOU taxonomic order	AOU taxonomic order, with some modifications to group similar birds	AOU taxonomic order (outdated now), with modifications to group similar birds	AOU taxonomic order (outdated now)	Shape, then by color or pattern
Topography diagrams	Duck, songbird, raptor perched, raptor in flight above and below, gull, shorebird in flight	With both photos and line drawing based on that photo – 2 different perched songbirds, closeup of sparrow’s head, gull in flight both above and below	Songbird, close-up of head, raptor in flight	Songbird, generic underwing	One (very poor) perched songbird
Range maps	Color; breeding, winter, resident, migration, and rare	Color; breeding, winter, resident, migration, and rare	Color; breeding, winter, resident, migration; with lighter shades for all 3 indicating rare	Color; breeding, winter, resident	Black-and-white; breeding, winter, resident
Family intros	Usually a full-page	1/2 – 2 pages	short paragraph – 2 pages	Some of the more difficult to ID families get a 2-page intro	short to mid-sized paragraph
Species accounts	Length, wingspan, and weight Variation (molt, age, sex, seasonal, and other) Habitat and ecology Voice	Length and wingspan in inches and centimeters Habitat and habits Voice	Habitat and habits Identification notes Voice	Identification notes Feeding Nesting Other behavior Habitat Voice Conservation	Description Voice Habitat Nesting Range Various notes

Notes:
* Where the eastern and western editions differ, a semi-colon separates the values, and the eastern data is given first.
** There is also one for the Western region, but I do not have the revised edition so I am not including it here. Originally published in 1977, these guides were revised in 1994. They have been reprinted many times since then with different covers, but as far as I know, the content has not changed.
*** I’ve got the original version with the Scarlet Tanager on the cover. It has since been republished with the cover seen here. I’m not aware of any updates to the content, but there are now 8 more pages. The info here is from the version that I have.

Recommendation

The choice of which field guide to use is highly personal. As long as the guide meets certain requirements, foremost among which is that it actually helps you identify birds, there are no “wrong” choices. Thus, what I say here is only my personal opinion.

Well, there is one wrong choice. Don’t bother with the Audubon field guide. This guide will always have a place on my shelf because it was my first field guide as a kid. But that’s the only reason. The organization just does not work. And while some of the pictures are fantastic, there are not enough of them for most species. Need help with a raptor you saw in flight? This guide won’t help – most raptors are only shown perched.

The Stokes include more kinds of information than the other guides, and the layout is simple and uncluttered. Thus, it is most appropriate for kids or those who may want to look up a bird now and then. It does not include enough illustrations of most species for use as a primary field guide. And, like the Audubon guides, it is too out-of-date in terms of taxonomy.

Of all of these, the Kaufman is probably the best choice for use as a first field guide. It is simple, and for the most part has enough pictures of each species.

The NWF and Smithsonian guides are extremely similar. The species included, number of photos per species, range maps, and layout are almost identical. The Smithsonian is slightly wider, taller, and heavier, but is correspondingly thinner. A bonus DVD of bird songs is also included with the Smithsonian (full review of the Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America). They are both good, and I would recommend either.

The Kaufman, NWF, and Smithsonian are all worthy field guides. Check out those three to see which would be the best for you. Personally, if I could keep just one it would be the Smithsonian. It and the NWF book are both great, but the DVD puts it over the edge for me.