I had mentioned some time ago to Dad that a lot of the serious birders in "the forum" often refer to David Sibley's publications, and lo and behold!, he picked up a copy of the field guide for Eastern North America for each of us.

Good grief, this is an amazing book! Not only are the graphics tack sharp, but I'm simply amazed at the level of detail he manages to put into a field-sized manual. Of particular interest, so far, are the descriptive graphics and text on juvenile birds and the in-flight wing cadences. I learned to differentiate ducks and geese species from afar by wing cadence, so this is really interesting to me.

I've had my nose in this thing all afternoon and evening and plan to go back for more.

Thanks to all for the heads-up on David Sibley, this is great stuff! Now, I guess I'll have to order up "The Sibley Guide to Birds" which I assume is a desk-sized reference?

Mitch

Enjoy the guide, makes me want to get it now even though I already have the Audubon Society guide.

Mitch, the Sibley Guide to Birds is what most serious birders (that I know) use. I constantly use one as well.

Andy

Wing... I truly detest the Audubon Society Guide. ;-) I never got used to using photographs instead of the paintings. But, to each his own! I own the Sibley, National Geographic, Peterson, and Audubon Society Guides, and a few other desk references. I like the first three about equally, though I personally carry the Sibley. The Audubon is just used for reference. I hear good things about the Kauffman guide, I believe it's called.

But like they say, to each his own! As long as we can figure out what we're looking at, that's all that matters!

Ryan

KINGOFKNGS wrote:
Wing... I truly detest the Audubon Society Guide. ;-) I never got used to using photographs instead of the paintings. But, to each his own! I own the Sibley, National Geographic, Peterson, and Audubon Society Guides, and a few other desk references. I like the first three about equally, though I personally carry the Sibley. The Audubon is just used for reference. I hear good things about the Kauffman guide, I believe it's called.

But like they say, to each his own! As long as we can figure out what we're looking at, that's all that matters!

Ryan

Haha, I'm not promoting the Audubon guide, I had it before I was into birds like about 25 years ago, does the trick for me, never really had an urge to look at other guides. But now you guys are forcing me to walk into a bookstore for the first time in no less than 10 years (aside from the toddler department for my 4 year old) and look at that Sibley guide!

wing tong wrote:
KINGOFKNGS wrote:
Wing... I truly detest the Audubon Society Guide. ;-) I never got used to using photographs instead of the paintings. But, to each his own! I own the Sibley, National Geographic, Peterson, and Audubon Society Guides, and a few other desk references. I like the first three about equally, though I personally carry the Sibley. The Audubon is just used for reference. I hear good things about the Kauffman guide, I believe it's called.

But like they say, to each his own! As long as we can figure out what we're looking at, that's all that matters!

Ryan

Haha, I'm not promoting the Audubon guide, I had it before I was into birds like about 25 years ago, does the trick for me, never really had an urge to look at other guides. But now you guys are forcing me to walk into a bookstore for the first time in no less than 10 years (aside from the toddler department for my 4 year old) and look at that Sibley guide!

I'm not even 24 yet! Will be in less than a month though, . It's all my professor's fault for getting me into birds (and the correspondingly high priced glass to accompany that). I was already getting into photography at the time, so I decided I needed to start photographing them. Boy, that seems like so long ago, but it was really only four years ago. I say that all to say that my prof highly recommended Peterson. I found Sibley to be a slightly updated/advanced version of Peterson. Not exactly the same, mind you, and without the handy little arrows that Peterson has so nicely thrown in for the diagnostic markings, but pretty similar.

Mitch,

I work out of Sibley's Guide to Birds. I got the large desk reference book which has all of North America. But I have many other books as well. Sibley's is however the one I've worked the most out of since I got it.

Enjoy it. He has a book on bird behavior as well. I've got that one as well, but have not had a chance to read it yet.

Have fun with it & your new 500mm P - - I'm still waiting for photos...

Lil

Well thanks for the tip

I had no idea

Kaufman's is my drug of choice.

The full Sibley is not really a desk reference at 9.5"x6.5". If you have BIG pockets you can carry it.

Don't forget additional specialty guides to gulls, shorebirds, warblers, life history (Kaufman's is pretty good), etc., bird finding guides to the areas you live in and visit (ABA Lane guides cover the largest number of areas) Birds of XXX where xxx is your state, province country or whatever, breeding bird atlases, the list is almost endless.

Cheers,

Larry

The other contender for favorite field guide for serious birders is the National Geographic Guide. Others such as Kaufman's, Peterson's, Stokes have their advantages, so I just threw in the towel and bought them all. Let me tell you, that is a lot easier to do with field guides than with lenses!

Larry took the words right out of my mouth. Sibley is a good general reference but if you really want to learn more you have to get specific references. One example is The Shorebird Guide by Authors O'Brien, Crossley and Karlson.

Tim

If I'm sitting at home and behind my computer, I oftentimes browse this:
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/search.aspx
The nice thing I like about this site is you get some nice bird calls with it.