Features

I love going through new fields guides to see what has changed: new species added, maybe some new illustrations, more features. So I’ve spent a little time going though the new Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America, Second Edition page-by-page, comparing it against the previous edition (which was, surprisingly, published about 12 years ago). The changes I’ve found are detailed below. I am not, however, including illustrations and range maps that have been tweaked. I noticed many such instances, especially changes to the colors of existing illustrations. And I’m sure that I missed many more.

New

The big, shiny new feature in this second edition is the inclusion of the Birds of Hawaii! This is a separate, 50-page section following the main plates. The organization is the same as in the main body, with illustrations on the right and text accounts/range maps on the left. The maps are particularly nice, showing both the range against the entire island chain along with zoomed-in depictions of each island.

Gone

Forward and Editor’s Note

Large range maps in the back

You would expect this new edition to be larger than the first, especially with the adding of Hawaii. But in fact, these removals more than offset the additions so that this edition is 24 pages shorter and 15% (6oz) lighter.

Changes

Introduction – largely the same, but with a few minor changes, such as the inclusion of some examples from Hawaii.

Terminology – this edition has “refined and standardized our terminology, replacing such imprecise terms as ‘immature’ with specific age groupings (such as juvenile, adult, first-year, second-winter, etc.) and, for plumages, we have replace the labels ‘breeding’ and ‘nonbreeding’ with ‘spring/summer’ and ‘fall/winter,’ respectively”. Further, the male and female symbols have been replaced with the word.

Sequence – although there is no mention of it in the introduction, the sequence of birds has been changed from strictly taxonomic to one that groups “waterbirds” together first, then “landbirds”, very similar to the order used by The Crossley ID Guide

Range maps – now includes migration range in yellow

Plates (Species in bold are new to this edition.)

• Egyptian Goose
• Ross’s Goose – added dark morph
• Vagrant Waterfowl – Pink-footed Goose (head only) added
• Arctic Loon – added winter illustration
• Common Murre – added illustration of a chick
• Pigeon Guillemot – illustrations completely replaced; added juvenile
• Murphy’s Petrel – in-flight illustration replaced; added a close-up of head
• Hawaiian Petrel
• Atlantic Petrels – illustrations are all replaced
• Atlantic Shearwaters – Sooty, Manx, Audubon’s all replaced; added Cory’s from below
• Pacific Shearwaters – all replaced except for Flesh-footed
• Storm-petrels – almost all are replaced
• White-tailed Tropicbird – added juvenile in flight
• Boobies – added juvenile Brown and Red-footed, head of Nazca
• Large Dark Gulls – added a first-year Glaucous-winged x Western Gull
• Kelp Gull
• Black Noddy – replaced
• Dowitchers – new probing silhouette of Long-billed, previous silhouette (which had been labeled Long-billed) now with the SB
• Rare Shorebirds – fixed the layout error that had cut off the Spotted’s head
• White Herons and Egrets – added illustration of Little Egret (but without a label)
• American Flamingo – added head of first-year
• Purple Swamphen
• Ridgway’s Rail
• Mountain Quail – added female
• Vultures – added heads of: Condor juvenile and 4th/5th-year; Black juvenile
• Bald Eagle – replaced juvenile
• Swainson’s Hawk – all figures replaced
• Broad-winged Hawk – added dark morph perched and in-flight
• Peregrine Falcon – added Pacific (“Peale’s”) juvenile
• Owls – added in-flight illustrations of Short-eared male and female, Long-eared, Snowy (first-year female)
• Mexican Whip-poor-will
• Doves – added standing illustrations of Spotted and female Mourning, Inca, Ruddy Ground, and Common Ground
• Thick-billed Parrot
• Rosy-faced Lovebird
• Red-masked Parakeet
• Empidonax Flycatchers – all replaced
• First-fall Empidonax Flycatchers – new plate with 9 illustrations
• Mockingbirds – the in-flight shrike for comparison removed
• Winter Wren – replaced
• Pacific Wren
• Warbling Vireo – first-fall added
• Tennessee Warbler – immature removed
• Orange-crowned Warbler – added Eastern; immature eastern repurposed (and recolored) as interior West
• American Redstart – added 1st-year male (really, that’s the old female illustration, and that one was copied and the highlights made more yellow for a new female)
• Wilson’s Warbler – added a female to show more variation of black in forehead
• Painted Redstart – fixed the issue where half of the juvenile was cut off the page
• Common Yellowthroat – replaced first-fall female on the fall warblers plate
• American Pipit – added fall/winter ‘North American’
• Eurasian Tree Sparrow – gets full illustration (used to be just head)
• Scaly-breasted Numia – adult replace; juvenile added
• Cassia Crossbill (head of adult male)

Errors

Here are the few errors that I noticed.

• There is a plate of Diving Ducks on the page preceding the Diving Ducks intro. (pages 30-1)
• Egyptian Goose remains on the Unestablished Exotics plate, even though it was given its own full account in the main waterfowl section (page 51)
• Little Egret label missing (page 165)
• Hawks from Below
• pages 210-1: Buteos mislabeled as Kites, Accipiters mislabeled as Pale Buteos
• pages 220-1: Kites mislabeled as Accipiters
• Peregrine Falcon Tundra and Pacific adult labels switched (page 217)
• Nanday Parakeet labeled as Black-hooded Parakeet on plate (page 241)

This list is always hard to come up with. What to include? 2018 saw the publication of several field guides and family ID guides, but only one of the ones I saw really stood out enough for me to include here. (I haven’t spent enough time with Pete Dunne and Keven Karlson’s Gulls Simplified yet to get a good feel for it.) But I had no trouble at all in picking out my absolute favorite book of the year:

• The Ascent of Birds: How Modern Science is Revealing their Story
  by John Reilly

  If you would have told me that a book on bird evolution – dealing extensively with concepts such as neoteny, palaeognaths, and vicariance – would make a fascinating, engaging – entertaining, even – read, I would have wondered just how many code 6 birds you had on your list. But Reilly pulls it off. The key is the last word in the subtitle – story. This is more narrative than textbook. He tells the stories of selected bird families, using each to highlight key concepts, building up an understanding of the origin of birds. It’s so well done that I have no problem recommending it to anyone who enjoys learning about birds, as well as putting it on the top of this list.

• The Splendor of Birds: Art and Photographs From National Geographic
  by Catherine Herbert Howell and National Geographic

  A visual feast. This large, coffee-table book presents photographs and artwork from National Geographic’s magazine and books from their beginning until now. I’ve seen many collections of bird art, and this is one of the best. These images are technically sound and aesthetically beautiful, as you would expect. But they are also interesting – they tell a story, make you think, or simply present a perspective that you’ve never seen before.

• The Wall of Birds: One Planet, 243 Families, 375 Million Years
  by Jane Kim, with Thayer Walker

  The Wall of Birds is a huge, ambitious mural adorning some interior walls at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. This book presents, both in detail and in whole, the artwork by Jane Kim. But it is much more than that. The artist provides insight into the process, from ideation and species selection through the practicalities of putting them on the wall. The mural is a celebration of the diversity and evolution of birds, so we also get some notes on a few of the more interesting family representatives. Surprisingly, I was much more impressed by the words here than the images. The artwork in the book is nice, but I have a feeling that needs to be seen in person. The text, however, whether it’s discussing the artistic process, a particular bird, or the ideas behind the mural, is fascinating. Whether you’ve seen this mural in person or not (I’m in the latter category, but after reading this book I plan on rectifying that some day), this book is highly recommended to fans of art, birds, or, especially, both.

• Birds of Central America: Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rican, and Panama
  by Andrew C. Vallely and Dale Dyer

  This is just a really well-done field guide. The format is just right – a book slightly larger than could be comfortably carried in the field, but allowing for larger illustrations on less-crowded plates. The artwork is also really nice. There are many other guides that cover portions of this territory, and you may also want one of them with you. But I can’t imagine anyone birding this area that wouldn’t want want this guide with them.

• Warblers & Woodpeckers: A Father-Son Big Year of Birding
  by Sneed B. Collard III

  I can’t resist a good big year book, and this is a good one, if different from most such books. This duo doesn’t see a record number of species, actually not a great many at all by big year narrative standards, but that wasn’t the point. This is a warm, amusing, feel-good story.

If I didn’t include your favorite(s), I would love to hear about it in the comments. Finally, here are a few other best-of lists:

• GrrlScientest for Forbes
• Birdbooker
• Donna Schulman on the American Birding podcast

My impression of 2017, in regard to bird books, was that it was a good, but not great, year. But when I took time to think of the books that I wanted to highlight here, I found myself going “Oh yeah, I forgot about that one…” more than I would care to admit. In the end, 2017 did see the publication of some great and potentially highly influential books. Here are a few of them…

But first, I need to say that this is not really a true “best of” list. I haven’t seen, much less read, all the bird books of 2017. It’s more like my favorite books of the year, or those that I consider the most important or influential. If I didn’t include your favorite(s), I would love to hear about it in the comments.

Without further ado, here are my top 6 Bird Books of 2017, in roughly ascending order:

• National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America, 7th Edition
  by Jon L. Dunn and Jonathan Alderfer

  The National Geographic guide is, along with The Sibley Guide, one of the two best field guides to North American birds. One of the best things about it is that the publisher updates it much more frequently than any other guide. Now in its 7th edition, it follows the pattern of a continuous improvement in the guide. The improvement in this edition is more of a small step, not a giant leap. It includes more species, an updated taxonomy (through 2016), and updates to maps and illustrations. It is the best edition yet, which merits inclusion here. But it is not such a radical improvement that users of the 6th edition should feel compelled to upgrade.

• The Crossley ID Guide: Waterfowl
  by Richard Crossley, Paul Baicich, and Jessie Barry

  The Crossley ID Guides are, in my opinion, some of the best tools available to learn birds. And this new one, covering the ducks, geese, and swans of North America, is no exception. Crossley’s signature plates lend themselves well to this group, and this guide takes full advantage of that by including nearly 300 pages of them. And there’s plenty more here than “just” pictures, including a strong conservation message.

• Peterson Field Guide to Bird Sounds of Eastern North America
  by Nathan Pieplow

  A field guide with pictures…of sounds. I’m still not sure about this guide’s usefulness in learning bird sounds, the way one can study a traditional field guide to learn what birds look like before going into the field. I still need to spend some more time with it. But I am fully convinced of its value as a reference to identify recorded sounds – and if you become proficient enough, vocalizations that you may have heard, but not recorded. Regardless, Pieplow’s innovative book is pushing the boundaries of field guides, and that is reason enough to include it on this list.

• The Australian Bird Guide
  by Peter Menkhorst, Danny Rogers, Rohan Clarke, Jeff Davies, Peter Marsack, and Kim Franklin

  This is a beautifully illustrated field guide, but that’s not why it’s here. I want to highlight this guide for three reasons:

  1. It’s size. This is a big book, in between the Sibley and Crossley Guides in size. It has no pretense of being usable in the field, so it can devote more space to more and larger illustrations and additional text.

  2. It’s style. The authors have confessed to looking at “the best field guides in the world” when designing their guide. The Collins Guide (aka Birds of Europe) is widely acknowledged as the world’s best field guide, and it appears The Australian Bird Guide authors are in agreement with that sentiment, as their guide bears more than a passing resemblance to Collins.

  3. It’s organization. It eschews the traditional taxonomic species sequence in favor of a more “pragmatic” one. Their system, which they describe in detail in the introduction, works better in a field guide, in my opinion. If you need help finding a bird, multiple types of indices are provided. A drawback of this scheme is that evolutionary relationships can be obscured, so the authors have thoughtfully included an entire section on the evolution and classification of Australian birds.

  For these, and many other, reasons, The Australian Bird Guide joins the ranks of the world’s best field guides.

• Birding Without Borders: An Obsession, a Quest, and the Biggest Year in the World
  by Noah Strycker

  I love a good birding tale, and this is a really good birding tale. In 2015, Noah Strycker traveled around the world – to all seven continents, without any breaks – with a goal of seeing 5,000+ birds. While the story is great, the writing is even better. This is a fun read, and you may even learn a thing or two.

• Sage Grouse: Icon of the West
  by Noppadol Paothong and Kathy Love

  This book has it all, making it an easy pick as my favorite book of the year: stunning photography; lively, informative text; and a strong, timely conservation message. Sage-grouse are awesome birds, as this book demonstrates. But, sadly, they are in trouble. I share with the authors the hope that those who see this book will be moved to do what they can to help this bird and the sagebrush country in which they live.

There were many great bird-related books published in 2016, including some, I’m sure, that I didn’t even see. So making a list such as this is tricky at best, perhaps even foolish. In fact, I just read the introduction for Scarlet Experiment: Birds and Humans in America, which has me eager to read more. But I’ve waited long enough to post this (as I’ll explain shortly). So without further ado, here are my favorite books of the year.

• Owl: A Year in the Lives of North American Owls
  by Paul Bannick

  Simply open this book and it will be obvious why it’s on this list. The photos here are unparalleled. Plus, it’s a very interesting and informative read. Of the many, many owl books out there, this is one of the best and, in my experience, the best looking.

• Hummingbirds: Volume 1
  by John C. Arvin

  This is a large (ginormous, even), sumptuous volume covering the hummingbirds of North and Central America, along with the Caribbean. That alone should be enough! But such a book published independently by a conservation organization (Gorgas Science Foundation) – and at a reasonable price! – is noteworthy. I’m very much looking forward to the second volume and, greater still, hoping for many more such books published in the same model.

• Baby Birds: An Artist Looks into the Nest
  by Julie Zickefoose

  Any Julie Zickefoose book is an almost automatic inclusion on this list. All of them, and this one is no exception, are a delight to behold and a delight to read. I can’t ever decide which one more. And the fact that this book illustrates a stage of birds’ lives so rarely observed makes it all the better. For more, here’s my full review.

• Lost Among the Birds: Accidentally Finding Myself in One Very Big Year
  by Neil Hayward

  Big year books seem to be published all the time now. This one stands out from the crowd not so much for the record-breaking birding, but because it’s about much more than birds. This is a story anyone – hard core birder, casual birder, even non-birder – can enjoy. For more, here’s my full review.

• Listening to a Continent Sing: Birdsong by Bicycle from the Atlantic to the Pacific
  by Donald Kroodsma

  It took me quite some time to finish this book. (And I figured I ought to do so before posting this 🙂 ) It sounds paradoxical, but it was partly because I was enjoying it so much. Plus, to get the full effect, you really must listen to the accompanying sound tracks while you read (which limits when you can do so in a house with small children!). But when I was able to devote the time to listen and read, it was incredible. You’re vicariously joining the author on his continent-spanning bike trip through both his words and bird sounds he recorded along the way. It’s almost as if you are listening to birds through Kroodsma’s ears – ears which are able to perceive and discern so much more than I ever could. I wouldn’t necessarily say that this is the best book of the year, but it was the most enjoyable reading experience, and so my favorite book of the year.

Actually, this is more a list of my favorite bird books of the year. I saw many books in 2015, but not nearly all of them. Certainly not enough to claim this list as comprehensive.

• Water Babies: The Hidden Lives of Baby Wetland Birds
  by William Burt

  Wonderful photos of baby ducks, grebes, shorebirds, herons, and other water birds. The cuteness factor is undeniable, but it’s also a treat to get a glimpse into a part of these birds’ life cycle that we rarely, if ever, get to see. Burt’s short accounts are a fun read, providing information about the birds and insight into what it takes to get such fantastic photographs.

• The Living Bird: 100 Years of Listening to Nature
  by Gerrit Vyn and The Cornell Lab of Ornithology

  Like Water Babies, this book is a photographic showcase that is also worth reading. Vyn’s photographs are amazing, reason enough to include The Living Bird in this list. The three essays explore the diversity of birds, how they inspire us, and how they serve as indicators of issues that affect us all. All of this serves to get readers invested in birds, in preparation for the book’s ultimate message: birds are in trouble, but there are things that we can do to help. For more on this book, see my full review.

• Cuckoo: Cheating by Nature
  by Nick Davies

  Cuckoo is a wonderful bit of natural history writing. Brood parasitism is an interesting subject to begin with, and Davies tackles it in a clear, logical, easy-to-understand way. Even if the only cuckoo you’ve seen is on a clock, you should still enjoy this book.

• The Warbler Guide app
  by Tom Stephenson, Scott Whittle, and Princeton University Press

  Ok, so this isn’t a book, nor was it released in 2015 (it was late December, 2014). I don’t care; I love this app and want to call attention to it. To start with, it does its job – helping users identify warblers – incredibly well. The sound files and filters alone are worth it. But more importantly, this app, more than any other currently on the market, demonstrates what is possible with digital field guides. For instance, you don’t just get one or two static pictures of the bird, you get a full-on 3d model that you can rotate or move about any way you wish. The Warbler Guide is one of the best bird family ID guides, and now the app based on it is one of the best bird apps you can have on your device.

• Bird Families of the World: A Guide to the Spectacular Diversity of Birds
  by David W. Winkler, Shawn M. Billerman, and Irby J. Lovette

  This is a family-by-family account of the order Aves. It broadly summarizes a range of natural history information, but focuses on relationships. In other words, taxonomy: to some a fascinating subject, to others a dirty word. But if you have any interest in the subject at all, this volume should prove enlightening and valuable.

• Birds, Art & Design
  by Larry Barth

  One of my favorite things about running this website is discovering books that I never would have otherwise. A few of these have been absolute treasures. This is one such book. It presents a sampling of Barth’s bird sculptures, which are simply amazing. Even better, the artist takes us behind the scenes, as it were, providing insight into the inspiration behind the piece and how it was made. For more on this book, which is my favorite from last year, see my full review.

Perhaps the only thing better than bird books is…cheap bird books! Here are the current bargains, which I’ll try to keep up-to-date.

Hamilton Book

This site has many bargain books, including a whole birds & birding section. Here are some of the better deals:

• PITTAS OF THE WORLD: A Monograph on the Pitta Family $9.95
• AVIAN ARCHITECTURE: How Birds Design, Engineer & Build $9.95
• HUMMINGBIRDS $11.95
• OF A FEATHER: A Brief History of American Birding $4.95
• Peterson Reference Guides: Molt in North American Birds $9.95
• PETERSON REFERENCE GUIDE TO SEAWATCHING: EASTERN WATERBIRDS IN FLIGHT $9.95
• THE PRIVATE LIVES OF BIRDS: A Scientist Reveals the Intricacies of Avian Social Life $4.95
• THE BLUEBIRD EFFECT: Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds $8.95

Before we get started, I want to say that this is by no means a definitive list. I’ve seen a lot of bird books in 2014, but not nearly all of them. Two in particular – Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World, Volume 1 and H is for Hawk – have been highly regarded but I have not had the pleasure of reading. So consider this more as my favorite books of the year.

• Penguins: The Ultimate Guide
  by Tui De Roy, Mark Jones, and Julie Cornthwaite

  Overflowing with gorgeous photographs and information, this is the best book for birders on these endearing birds . Divided into three sections – an overview of penguins, essays on science and conservation, and species accounts – it follows the same pattern as the authors’ previous book on albatrosses (which I consider one of the best family books that I’ve seen). This allows you to skip around and read what’s most interesting to you, which, if you’re like me, will be just about everything.

• Ducks, Geese, and Swans of North America
  by Guy Baldassarre

  Two volumes. Over 1000 pages. Now this is a family monograph. It covers all 46 regularly occurring species in the US and Canada, and does so in great detail. Just about anything you want to know about ducks, geese, and swans – along with some great artwork and photographs – make this indispensable to birders, hunters, and anyone else who likes ducks.

• National Geographic Complete Birds of North America (Second Edition)
  by Jonathan Alderfer

  This is the National Geographic field guide on steroids – larger format, much more text, and updated with the latest species additions and splits. It’s a fantastic reference for when you need identification information beyond that found in field guides. [Initial Review]

• Rare Birds of North America
  by Steve N. G. Howell, Ian Lewington, and Will Russell

  This covers 262 species that are, well, rare for North America. Which pretty much means vagrants. Sadly, I haven’t had much cause to use this book as I live away from vagrant hotspots. But I’ve studied it, just in case, and it would be the first place I’d turn if I was going to chase any of these birds or if I was traveling to, say, Alaska to look for some awesome birds. The art and the text of this book would be worth getting separately. Together, they form a book that any serious birder would profit from. [Full Review]

• Phillipps’ Field Guide to the Birds of Borneo: Sabah, Sarawak, Brunei, and Kalimantan (Third Edition)
  by Quentin Phillipps and Karen Phillipps

  This will work well as a field guide – it’s small, has nice artwork and informative text, and is generally user-friendly. But it’s the extra touches that set this guide apart. “Graphic indexes” illustrate Borneo’s habitats and its most common birds and a relatively extensive section details the island’s best birding sites. But the feature I like most are the “ecological notes” scattered throughout the book that deal with topics of interest to birders and naturalists, but aren’t usually mentioned in field guides because they are not directly related to identification. I wish that more field guides included enriching features like these. [Full Review]

• The Sibley Guide to Birds (Second Edition)
  by David Allen Sibley

  The Sibley Guide has been my field guide of choice since I started birding and, along with the Collins Guide for Europe, I consider it the best field guide for anywhere, period. And with this second edition, it’s now even better with more species, illustrations, and information. The first printing of the guide had some issues with color reproduction, but those have been fixed in a second printing. If you bird anywhere in the US or Canada, you want this book. [Initial Review]

Picking out just one book as “the best” of the year is even more subjective than coming up with this list as a whole. The Sibley Guide will undoubtedly be the most used book on this list, and I would concede that it’s the all-around best. However, there’s another that I want to highlight as the book of the year…

When Eagles Roar: The Amazing Journey of an African Wildlife Adventurer

by James Alexander Currie and Bonnie J. Fladung

This is the story of James Currie’s infatuation with the natural world, from his work as a game ranger on a South African reserve to host of a nationally broadcast TV show on birding. The stories he tells are spell-binding, but it’s the way he connects them to a larger picture of conservation and people that really makes this book stand out. This was the most moving, compelling, and entertaining book that I read in 2014. [Full Review]

The countries and regions covered by bird field guide apps.

Being able to have a field guide with me at all times is one of the things I like best about my smart phone. Bird field guide apps provide all the material normally found in print guides, plus things like sounds, checklists, and extra information, with more features constantly being added. I love it!

These apps are even better for traveling birders, allowing you to have all the information of a field guide with none of the bulk. Many areas of the world now have a field guide app available for them. Here’s a list of all the apps available for Apple and Android devices.

If I’ve missed any, please let me know in the comments below.

On 1 September 1914, between midday and 1 pm, in the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, Cincinnati, Ohio, a pigeon breathed her last, and with her died her species.
– Mark Avery, A Message from Martha

And thus, the Passenger Pigeon became extinct 100 years ago. You’re probably already aware of this, as much has been made of this centenary (it was even in the New York Times!). But this is one thing that we should make a big deal about, and things such as Project Passenger Pigeon are doing just that. But I want to focus on (what else?) some books. To mark this anniversary, no fewer than three books about the Passenger Pigeon will be published this year. I would strongly urge everyone to read one or more of these books. The story of the pigeon’s extinction is not only interesting in and of itself, but it holds many lessons that we dare not forget.

• A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon’s Flight to Extinction
  by Joel Greenberg

  Greenberg traces the history of the pigeon through those that encountered this amazing bird. Intriguingly, he also looks into their ecological role and postulates how the landscape of eastern North America would be different today if the pigeon had survived.
  For a more detailed look at this book, check out Rick Wright’s review for the American Birding Association.

• A Message from Martha: The Extinction of the Passenger Pigeon and Its Relevance Today
  by Mark Avery

  Avery frames the pigeon’s story around a trip he made to visit the bird’s former haunts. “With an element of travelogue as well as historical detective work”, he weaves in a broader view of what was happening in America at the time. But even more importantly, he doesn’t dwell exclusively in the past, but uses the pigeon to show how we can have a more sustainable future.
  Here’s a review of this book at The Well-read Naturalist.

• The Passenger Pigeon
  by Errol Fuller

  Not intended to be a detailed monograph of the pigeon, Fuller’s book is instead both a celebration and memorial of this important bird. Unlike the previous two books, this one is richly illustrated with many artists’ renderings of the Passenger Pigeon and photos of live birds.

Update: And here are a few more: Pilgrims of the Air, One Came Home (a young-adult novel), and The Lost Bird Project. Thanks, Ted, for bringing attention to these.

There are many kinds of bird books, from field guides to big year narratives, but at some point you’d think that every possible book about birds will have been written. I don’t know when, or if, that will happen, but one thing is certain: it wasn’t this year. 2013 saw the publication of some books that have brought something new to a familiar category, and others the likes of which have never been seen before.

Here are the four bird books of 2013 that I consider the best.

• The Warbler Guide
  by Tom Stephenson and Scott Whittle

  Let me get this out of the way – The Warbler Guide is the best identification guide available to these brilliant birds. Each of North America’s warblers is shown in a photo from just about every possible angle, including the all-important butt shot (the undertail and coverts). Vocalizations are given as much attention as the visual aspects, with annotated sonograms included for every type of song and call. An audio companion pack is available from Cornell ($5.99) with every single sound included in the book. If you want to learn warbler vocalizations, this is the best way to do it. What really makes this book so great is that it has something for birders of all skill levels, whether you’re just starting to learn warblers or want to not just identify, but age and sex, every one you see.
  My full review of The Warbler Guide

• Peterson Reference Guide to Seawatching: Eastern Waterbirds in Flight
  by Ken Behrens and Cameron Cox

  This new Peterson Reference Guide will let you in on the secrets of seawatching. Covering 111 species from 15 families, it includes most of the birds that you can see migrating along major bodies of water (not just the ocean) in the eastern half of the continent. Note, however, that it would also be of use to anyone in the rest of North America or even Western Europe. This identification guide is extremely well done, but its real beauty is that it opens up an entirely new aspect of birding. It makes seawatching accessible to all birders, just like Hawks in Flight did for hawkwatching.
  My full review of Peterson Reference Guide to Seawatching: Eastern Waterbirds in Flight

• Birds and People
  by Mark Cocker

  There have been books before that investigate the cultural significance of birds, but nothing like Birds and People. This book looks at each bird family and details our interaction with them and their influence on us. These accounts are utterly fascinating, dealing with everything from bird-inspired art to birds as food to conservation. You’ll learn about birds, of course, but also discover things about ourselves and why birds are so important to us. And as a nice bonus, this book is also packed with awesome photographs.
  My full review of Birds and People

Any of these could be (or already have been) designated the best bird book of the year. But when it came time for me to choose, the choice was clear. There was one book this year that I found particularly delightful…

The Unfeathered Bird

by Katrina van Grouw

Unique. That is the best word to describe The Unfeathered Bird. This large, coffee table style book is filled with exquisite drawings of birds. But birds without feathers! Most are of just the skeleton, while others illustrate the bird with its skin or musculature visible. And yet they still look alive, as they are posed engaging in natural behavior (i.e. loons swimming as if underwater). Rather than macabre, I find the art beautiful and instructive. And the accompanying text may be even better, as it explains how the bird’s appearance and behavior are determined by what you see in the drawings. This book is fun to both look at and read, and will deepen your appreciation for these amazing creatures.
My full review of The Unfeathered Bird

Yes, 2013 was a good year for bird books, but next year is shaping up to be even better (two words: new Sibley).