A very nice look at birds

outdoors

Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009

Since I own Canon myself, I was interested in having a look at it, and I obtained a review copy last week.

It's nice. Actually, it is very nice.

I also learned that it was in fact two new birding guides that had lately been published by Princeton University Press: Birds of Western North America and Birds of Eastern North America. Both are collaborative efforts by wildlife author Paul Sterry and nature photographer Brian Small.

I haven't looked at the one on western birds yet, but somebody put a whole lot of thought into the design of Birds of Eastern North America.

I've seen a lot of birding field guides over the years, and I even own a few, but this new effort by Sterry and Small I do believe is going to become my initial go-to reference when I want to learn more about a bird species or just initially identify what it is I'm looking at out there in the tree.

I really like the way this field guide is set up or formatted to have the bird photographs on one page while the text about them is on the facing page.

It's all photographs inside, not paintings, and I'm guessing a lot of them are digital images. They are indeed delightful to look at for the sheer beauty captured in the picture, plus they're set up to be most useful to properly recognize characteristics of individual species.

Females, males and juveniles are often pictured together and the individual pages aren't cluttered with too many different species as you find in so many other popular field guides.

The text on the facing pages often includes smaller images of the particular birds in flight, and also provides North America maps with shaded areas to indicate winter/summer plus all-year overlapping ranges in three different colors.

Those text pages have a bright white background and dark black printing which makes it easy to read and that's especially important for old eyes like mine.

The content has information about differences between adult males and females along with juveniles, plus more interesting facts about breeding, range, habitat, their calls and songs, similar species you might notice and other observation tips.

Additionally, you'll find the bird's proper Latin references and an indication of the species' size or sometimes wingspan is provided instead if the particular bird is more normally observed in flight.

All the pages are clearly numbered and made even easier to use with headers at the top such as owls, doves, vireos, orioles and the like. The provided index in the back of the book was also easy to use.

As I wrote earlier, a lot of clever thought went into the design of this new birding guide, and you'll find it easy to use plus especially helpful and simply jam-packed with lots of useful information.

In the very beginning of the book, it reads there that this guide is designed for the keen birder with years of experience, but also cautions the authors tried to not forget the beginner.

I personally think it's just a dandy reference for anyone, and I don't care what brand or type of camera was used. The photographs inside are generally quite superb in quality and in every way.

The authors also wrote that they "tinkered" a little bit with the customary order of which birds follow each other throughout the book, but I found it pretty standard throughout just like most other field guides.

I discovered a few little errors inside.

For example, the eastern bluebird is listed at 7.25 inches in length as is the common wood thrush.

That might be correct for the thrush, but I don't think so for the bluebirds, unless the ones measured were on some serious steroids. But, that's just a little thing, and they'll probably make it right on the second printing.

The really important items were done right, and this guide is so helpful and informative plus very smartly designed.

It's 336 pages in all.

The suggested retail price from Princeton Press is $18.95 for the paperback cover while $45 is the listed cost for the cloth cover. I checked online, and deep discounts are already being offered from different retailers.

Christmas is not that far away. And if you have someone on your list who is interested in birds, you could do a lot worse than by putting one of these new field guides from Princeton University Press under their tree.

I would highly recommend you spring for that cloth cover, for I'm pretty sure this reference will quickly become their first choice to pick up as a birding field guide, and cloth just feels so much better in your hand.

This Birds of Eastern North America new photographic birding guide is truly an impressive reference in nearly every way.

zbasser@aol.com