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National Geographic Birds Field Guide 7th edition (2 Viewers)

Swissboy

Swissboy

Sempach, Switzerland
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Switzerland
It's just a good two weeks to the release of the new 7th edition of this excellent FG (National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America, its complete and a bit clumsily long full name).

I wonder how we all will fare with it. I'm opening this thread to hopefully get all the comments/opinions under one heading. Official release date will be September 12. 16 additional pages will make the book a bit thicker. All the hummingbirds have apparently been repainted, thus clearly something I'm more looking forward to than the new systematics that will split falcons from the rest of the raptors and instead placing them next to the parrots.
 
Oh no! Not the dreadful user unfriendly new taxonomy. Time publishers realised that a field guide was for field use, not a vehicle for instructing the great unwashed about taxonomy. Pity as Howell et al's bird order is well established in America & far more field worthy and its use here would have made the guide far more functional.
 
John Cantelo writes: "Howell et al.'s bird order is well established in America & far more field worthy and its use here would have made the guide far more functional....."

I'll express my disagreement more thoroughly elsewhere, but in what sense is the Howell and O'Brien sequence "well established in America"?
 
Rick Wright said:
John Cantelo writes: "Howell et al.'s bird order is well established in America & far more field worthy and its use here would have made the guide far more functional....."

I'll express my disagreement more thoroughly elsewhere, but in what sense is the Howell and O'Brien sequence "well established in America"?
Click to expand...

On reflection, the words "well established" were ill-chosen and something like "widely discussed and the idea, in broad terms, used in several recent guides" would have been better.

I tend to regard modern field guides with their plates-opposite-texts layout more akin to visual keys than an introduction to bird taxonomy. That's certainly how many birdwatchers use them and to sacrifice functionality on the altar of scientific purity seems a mistake given that the primary task of such books is to allow users to identify birds with accuracy and minimum hassle.
 
John Cantelo said:
Time publishers realised that a field guide was for field use, not a vehicle for instructing the great unwashed about taxonomy. Pity as Howell et al's bird order is well established in America & far more field worthy and its use here would have made the guide far more functional.
Click to expand...

It took me a while to get used to the warblers & vireos being separated, & to an order beginning with something other than grebes & loons. I vaguely recall one guide that put swifts & swallows together as comparison species, but in general AOU nomenclature & sequence have informed most North American guides (I think!).

I'm not sure that it's publishers so much as authors (or compilers?) insisting on a sequence that is reasonably in accord with the current taxonomic understanding. It's not entirely outside the realm of possibility that some of the great unwashed will glean a few useful insights through a relatively innocuous exposure to taxonomy.

I do appreciate the heads-up (via this thread) of the forthcoming release.

Gary H
 
gdhunter said:
It took me a while to get used to the warblers & vireos being separated, & to an order beginning with something other than grebes & loons. I vaguely recall one guide that put swifts & swallows together as comparison species, but in general AOU nomenclature & sequence have informed most North American guides (I think!).

I'm not sure that it's publishers so much as authors (or compilers?) insisting on a sequence that is reasonably in accord with the current taxonomic understanding. It's not entirely outside the realm of possibility that some of the great unwashed will glean a few useful insights through a relatively innocuous exposure to taxonomy.

I do appreciate the heads-up (via this thread) of the forthcoming release
Click to expand...

Agreed, we'll get used to the new changes in sequence just as we did to the others you mention. For the tyro, all it will take to meet his needs are a few cross-references.
 
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It should be mentioned that also, as we learn more about the evolutionary history of birds, the higher level taxonomy has settled down quite a bit. we're at the point where fewer and fewer changes will be made in sequencing, and new generations of birders will be so used to this system that they won't remember when Falcons weren't near songbirds, and so on.

FYI I am glad Howell's system hasn't been adopted. I much prefer taxonomy as Howell's system to me seems arbitrary and random. I also think there is something to be said that the current system in some ways enhances ID skill. Vireos for instance have a very distinctly different "feel" to warblers, and when I was starting out having those two groups separated helped me a lot in learning there distinctions
 
Mysticete said:
It should be mentioned that also, as we learn more about the evolutionary history of birds, the higher level taxonomy has settled down quite a bit. we're at the point where fewer and fewer changes will be made in sequencing, and new generations of birders will be so used to this system that they won't remember when Falcons weren't near songbirds, and so on.

FYI I am glad Howell's system hasn't been adopted. I much prefer taxonomy as Howell's system to me seems arbitrary and random. I also think there is something to be said that the current system in some ways enhances ID skill. Vireos for instance have a very distinctly different "feel" to warblers, and when I was starting out having those two groups separated helped me a lot in learning there distinctions
Click to expand...

Agree to a point but there is or should be, a difference between the quick, easy, almost intuitive layout required and favoured by many, of a field guide to what is appropriate in a slightly more scientific work?

Field guides should be as simple as possible without all the scientific rigidity of academia?


A
 
andyadcock said:
Field guides should be as simple as possible without all the scientific rigidity of academia?
Click to expand...

Laying out a field guide in taxonomic sequence doesn't inherently impose academic rigidity. But it can promote a better understanding of taxonomic kinship, almost subliminally.

I pre-ordered my copy of the new guide through Amazon, thanks to the heads-up that originated this thread. Looking forward to checking it out. We all have our favorites and good reasons for supporting them, but NGS has (to my mind & eye) consistently struck a nice balance in the allocation of species per page, faithful renditions, and informative accounts.

Gary H
 
gdhunter said:
Laying out a field guide in taxonomic sequence doesn't inherently impose academic rigidity. But it can promote a better understanding of taxonomic kinship, almost subliminally.

Gary H
Click to expand...

Do you really think that many of the casual garden or park birders are in to 'taxonomic kinship', many can't understand why Swifts aren't on the same page as Swallows!

NGeo was one of the very first, foreign birds books I ever bought.

A
 
andyadcock said:
Do you really think that many of the casual garden or park birders are in to 'taxonomic kinship', many can't understand why Swifts aren't on the same page as Swallows!
Click to expand...

No, I don't think many casual birders are into taxonomy, but field guides are intended for a broad spectrum of the birding public. The NG guide may prove useful to many such birders, but it's also in widespread use among those who don't quite fit into the "casual" category.

In any event, no offense to the many who disagree. Always room in a forum for disagreement.

Gary H
 
andyadcock said:
NGeo was one of the very first, foreign birds books I ever bought.
Click to expand...

njlarsen said:
Me too (1990 or so). At the time I felt it was ahead of any European competition. Not anymore!
Click to expand...

Me three, in fact it was my first; a copy of the 2nd edition that I bought in the United States in 1997. It served me very well during the year I spent there at university.

Flicking through it brings back lots of fantastic memories, and it felt a much more "grown up" affair than the European field guides I used as a child. However, looking at it now for the first time in years, it's definitely not as good as my Collins Bird Guide, and looking at more recent editions online, neither are they!
 
andyadcock said:
Do you really think that many of the casual garden or park birders are in to 'taxonomic kinship', many can't understand why Swifts aren't on the same page as Swallows!

NGeo was one of the very first, foreign birds books I ever bought.

A
Click to expand...

I question the number of casual garden birders that actually pick up this book anyway. I am sure many of them also don't see the need for a bazillion pages for the "sea gull", or inclusion of every vagrant to have ever popped up in North America, even if the only record was a century go.

If you wanted to pare the book down to be completely friendly to people with only a casual interest, there are many more changes than just taxonomy. Hell, I expect the inclusion of vagrants is probably more hazardous to new birders.
 
Strontium Dog said:
However, looking at it now for the first time in years, it's definitely not as good as my Collins Bird Guide, and looking at more recent editions online, neither are they!
Click to expand...

Hate to divert this thread from intended focus, but is the Collins guide mentioned here the 2011 volume authored by Arlott (https://www.amazon.com/Birds-North-America-Collins-Field/dp/0007293348)? Presumably more detailed species accounts than the same author's Princeton Illustrated Checklist (https://www.amazon.com/America-Greenland-Princeton-Illustrated-Checklists/dp/0691151407), with perhaps a more comprehensive depiction of plumages?

Gary H
 
gdhunter said:
Hate to divert this thread from intended focus, but is the Collins guide mentioned here the 2011 volume authored by Arlott (https://www.amazon.com/Birds-North-America-Collins-Field/dp/0007293348)? Presumably more detailed species accounts than the same author's Princeton Illustrated Checklist (https://www.amazon.com/America-Greenland-Princeton-Illustrated-Checklists/dp/0691151407), with perhaps a more comprehensive depiction of plumages?

Gary H
Click to expand...

I think the Collins mentioned above is the European guide -- it all started when I mentioned that way back the NatGeo was way ahead of the European books.

Niels
 
njlarsen said:
I think the Collins mentioned above is the European guide -- it all started when I mentioned that way back the NatGeo was way ahead of the European books.
Click to expand...

Apparently some find the Collins guide superior in important respects, and I wonder if that sentiment extends to the Collins NA guide.

Gary H
 
njlarsen said:
I think the Collins mentioned above is the European guide -- it all started when I mentioned that way back the NatGeo was way ahead of the European books.

Niels
Click to expand...

Yes indeed, apologies for any ambiguity. I confess I had no idea there was a Collins guide for North America.
 
gdhunter said:
Apparently some find the Collins guide superior in important respects, and I wonder if that sentiment extends to the Collins NA guide.

Gary H
Click to expand...

I would be surprised because of the difference in authorship. Someone did mention his book on the West Indies with positive feelings on a different thread, but I have no personal experience.

Niels
 
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