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I finally started a separate blog for non-book stuff – trip reports, news, and the like. I’m not abandoning this site, though it may feel like I already have with as little time as I’ve had to devote to it lately. I’ll try to post more regularly, I promise.

Anyway, come by and check it out – Birds on the Brain.

A while back, I wrote about a promising looking field guide that Richard Crossley was working on. Since then, Princeton University Press has announced that they will publish The Crossley ID Guide.

The guide isn’t coming out until next year, but some details have already been released, and now I really can’t wait to get my eyes on this thing. There are some excerpts and a great video interview with Crossley at Barnes and Noble.

It should be interesting, to say the least.

I feel bad for not having posted much lately, everything’s just been so busy. But at least there are a couple of guys out there working hard to bring you news and information on some books….

• Jack Holloway has been feverishly updating his Avian Books site. He has been going through his extensive listings, updating them with scans and excerpts from the book, and adding brief notes. He has a TON of books listed. If you’re looking for books on a particular geographic region or subject, check out his site and you’ll likely find what you’re looking for.
• Ian Paulsen summarizes new and upcoming natural history titles in his The Birdbooker Report. This is a good place to go to see what’s new.

The recently published second edition of the Birds of Europe field guide has been long awaited in Europe (where it’s known as Collins Bird Guide). But it has also received a lot of attention over here across the Atlantic. And rightly so, it’s a fantastic guide. I will be reviewing it shortly, but in the meantime, here are some others’ thoughts on it:

• 10,000 Birds
• A DC Birding Blog
• BrdPics
• Birdfreak
• Idaho Birding Blog
• The Eyrie
• The Birdcouple
• Christian Artuso: Birds, Wildlife

If I didn’t include a link here, it’s because I wasn’t aware of it. So if you, or anyone else you know, have also reviewed this, please add a link in a comment or let me know.

North America’s most popular field guide is now available as an app on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Here is an initial review, focusing on the meat of the app – the species accounts. A full review will follow.

The majority of the screen is devoted to the art, with the text on the bottom. You can scroll up and down to see additional images, and tap to enlarge them. The text is also scrollable.

The map button replaces the bird images with a map. You cannot scroll, but can tap to zoom in slightly. Tap the button again to deselect the map and again show the bird.

Tapping the sound button brings up a list of available sounds. The selected one is automatically played.

Tapping the text makes it appear full screen, making it much easier to read.

The app is a fairly straightforward and faithful port of the Sibley print guides, both the “big” Sibley and the two regional editions. Almost all of the art is included. As best as I can tell, all of the images under each account in the book is here, but some of the sidebar/vignette images and hybrids are not. The maps are the updated ones from the regional guides. The text is mostly from the regional guides, although some additional text has been taken from the “big” Sibley where appropriate.

Overall, I am pleased to see that just about everything (including the introduction text and topography diagrams!) from the printed guides has been included in the app. However, I have found a few things that should have been included, but were not.

The app’s content, therefore, is outstanding. But some of the implementation details and features, such as the navigation, searching, and filtering capabilities, leave much to be desired. I will elaborate in the full review.

Continue to the full review of The Sibley eGuide