A Guide to Guides: Birds and Birding
A Guide To Guides: Birds and Birding
One of the most fun things about going out into nature is the plethora of field guides and in-depth informational books available on just about any topic. In days gone by I used to read novels and non-fiction, but today I utilize my time by reading field guides – and I love them!
In addition, there are many apps available online for download onto mobile devices which are a tremendous help out in the field.
Today I will share some of my favorites, some of which I own, and some on my wish list. Due to the amount of topics field guides cover, the focus for this post will be on birds and birding.
The first bird field guide I ever received was A Guide to Field Identification BIRDS of North America, by Chandler S. Robbins, Bertel Bruun, and Herbert S. Zim, published by Golden Press (New York) My copy is dated – copyright 1986 – and falling apart. I’ve used it successfully over the years to identify various species of birds, and to learn more about their role in the ecosystem.
Two other excellent field guides are Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America, by Lee Peterson and Roger Peterson, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Press and The Sibley Guide to Birds by David Allen Sibley, published by Crown Publishing Group. Roger Tory Peterson (1908-1996) played an instrumental role in the way field guides look today. His clear, consise illustrations and informative descriptions of birds made that information accessible to ordinary people and did not require specialized scientific training. Roger Tory Peterson's legacy lives on not only in the miriad of field guides he wrote and inspired, but in the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History in Jamestown, New York.
Peterson also offers a field guide for children, called Peterson’s First Guide to
Birds of North America. These slim books are easy to pack along on a birding trip, and provide young birders with a good introduction into what to look for when birding.
Two guides I really like are Hawks At A Distance © 2011 and Hawks From Every Angle © 2005 by Jerry Liguori, published by Princeton University Press. These books offer photos of hawks in flight, from a distance. The books give information about what to look for in order to ID hawks, as well as what hawks look like in different flight patterns.
A fun book I bought last year is Bird Feathers: A Guide to North American Species © 2010, S. David Scott and Casey McFarland, published by StackpoleBooks. The photographs are excellent. The book details bird physiologyand features a rangemap with each bird in the book.
Many of these books are available at the Springfield/Greene County Public Library http://thelibrary.org/ which may be a good option to use them first before deciding to purchase the books.
Sibley has flash cards! Sibley Backyard Birding Flashcards: 100 Common Birds of Eastern and Western North America. The cards are divided into birds of Eastern US, Western US, and birds that are found across the
continent. The cards are beautiful, as one would expect from a Sibley product, and feature information on habitat, description, voice, and size of bird. When I want to exercise my brain but not get too deep into learnin’, I enjoy going through the flash cards a few at a time to try to keep my memory fresh about bird facts.
In this modern age mobile apps provide additional help for our birding experience. I use iBird Pro by the Mitch Waite Group. I find myself constantly referencing the app whenever I am in the field. This app offers illustrations, photos, bird call recordings, and access to Birdipedia and Flickr. Both Peterson http://www.petersonguides.com/ and Sibley http://www.sibleyguides.com/about/the-sibley-eguide-to-birds-app/ offer mobile apps.
As for online birding information, in my opinion, nobody can beat the Cornell Lab of ornithology. Their website, All About Birds offers so many options for so much information and education. The National Audubon Society also has a great online field guide and information on birding.
The Missouri Department of Conservation also has an online field guides http://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/field-guide/search?kind_selector=711 as well as several free print guides, including woodpeckers and raptors, ducks and night creatures, such as owls. The MDC free publications are available online at the MDC Nature Shop http://www.mdcnatureshop.com/ , or at MDC offices and MDC Conservation Nature Centers throughout the state.
Whew! This is a long blog, and I have not even begun to scratch the surface. There are field guides for every type of birding imaginable,
from warblers to finches, and from North America to South America and elsewhere around the globe.
I wonder what John James Audubon would think about birding today…. And the revolution he started with his first paintings of Birds of America in 1827. I don't know for sure, but I bet he'd be happy to know it is such a popular activity for people of all ages!
