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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

… 20 pages of bird book review-ey goodness! That’s right, the latest issue of Birding, the magazine of the American Birding Association (ABA), contains reviews of 12 books, covering a total of 20 pages.

And I wish I could write reviews as well as these people do.

Of course, this issue is an aberration; apparently, there was a backlog of reviews to be published and the editor decided to make this a special issue. Most issues usually review “just” 2-4 books.

In addition to all of these reviews, you also get in-depth looks at Harlan’s and Krider’s Red-tailed Hawks, a great article by Donald Kroodsma (author of The Singing Life of Birds and Birdsong by the Seasons), and more.

I subscribe to ten or so bird-related publications. Birding is the one I look forward to the most. If you are not a member of the ABA, I would urge you to join. I consider it worthwhile just to receive Birding, but you’ll also get the Winging It newsletter (also a great publication), while also supporting conservation programs.

As I was writing my review of Birding from the Hip, I started wondering about the portions ostensibly written by the author’s wife. While reading the book, I didn’t doubt her authorship. But now something was off. Maybe it was the fact that her name wasn’t included in the credits. I asked around and found out that my doubt was justified – Anthony McGeehan wrote those essays as his wife. Definitely adds a new wrinkle to them.

The Prairie Keepers review has also been updated to mention an epilogue added to the paperback reprint edition.

I had intended to regularly post about what I’m reading and reviewing, but I just noticed that I haven’t done so since last July. Where has the time gone? I guess that’s what happens when you have a newborn around. Convenient excuse? Yes. But the cutest, most adorable excuse I can imagine 🙂

Here’s what I’m currently reading and/or reviewing:

• The Breeding Bird Atlas of Georgia
  Todd M. Schneider, Giff Beaton, Timothy S. Keyes, and Nathan A. Klaus

  Finally, my home state has its own Breeding Bird Atlas. It was worth the wait. Anyone who birds extensively in Georgia should get a copy.

• Afield: Forty Years of Birding the American West
  Alan Contreras

  Part memoir, but mostly just good writing about birding.

• Birding the Great Lakes Seaway Trail

  A guide to birding spots found along the Great Lakes Seaway Trail, which runs along the shorelines of the Great Lakes in Pennsylvania and New York.

• Petrels Night and Day
  Magnus Robb, Killian Mullarney, and The Sound Approach

  A guide to the tubenoses of the Northeast Atlantic. All the reviews that I’ve read have been glowing in their praise for this book, and I can see why. It has a little of everything – cutting edge investigation of species limits, travelogue, identification plates, and, naturally, sounds.

I wish I could attend these two events, but alas, I will be at home, far away from either. But if you’re any closer, check them out!

First, Rick Wright announced that there will be a panel discussion on field guides at the Tucson Festival of Books on Saturday, March 13. Wright will be joined by well-known birder and author Jon Dunn, along with Elizabeth Rosenthal, the author of the Roger Tory Peterson biography Birdwatcher. More details are here.

Across the country, the American Museum of Natural History in New York is hosting an evening devoted to the recently released anthology of bird poetry, Bright Wings. Some poets will be there, of course, along with David Allen Sibley, whose paintings grace the book. The event will be at the museum on Wednesday, March 10 at 6:30 pm. More details.

You knew it was bound to happen. Earlier this month, The Sibley eGuide to the Birds of North America iPhone app was released.

I think the Sibley guide (the printed one) is the best North American field guide, and I am pleased to see that it is now available in a digital format. I will be posting a detailed review sometime soon, but in the meantime I’ve added a brief description and comparison to iBird in my iPhone Bird Guide Comparison.

Update: here is the full review of The Sibley eGuide.

Lots of great reviews lately: