wouldn't it be great! (1 Viewer)

AM I crazy or has this been done, if not why not!

I know there is a myriad of bird ID books, but I struggle with them constantly, the illustrations hardly ever match the bird picture I have taken!
Wouldn't it be great if all the members here could make a decent book, app whatever, using real pictures that the members have taken. Real descriptions with variations and all the names.
EG, I posted a yellow bird and found out the yellow rumped and Korean or tri coloured fly catcher are all the same species.

Simplify the book, for us idiots(me) how do I know where to start looking for an ID! Maybe a beginners guide by size and shape, focusing on easy things like beak and legs, give comparisons to other birds, ie "Robin sized"
I think real pictures are better than illustrations and plain talk is better than technical talk.
I have started a Power point with my pictures with the names and clear pictures, I hope to build this up over time as I have such a hard time with bird ID! I have two books on my computer and one is better than the other, but neither I find are easy to use!

Rant over 8-P

It has been done in the US and in Europe, but Asia is a much bigger job, many more cultures, more species and more territory.
Afaik, the 'Birds of East Asia' by Mark Brazil is the English language standard guide at present. but have no idea whether a Chinese or Korean language equivalent has been published.

Etudiant, the Mark Brazil book is the one I hate vehemently. I find it hard to use and the pictures/illustrations very poor and incomplete.
I find the key hard to use and the illustrations completely useless. We need a comprehensive book using real pictures, far better than illustrations and easier to show real variations.

I notice a cultural difference when it comes to field guides. Most Europeans I know tend to favour illustrations over photographs, while most Chinese seem to consider that photographs are better
(...and yes, I know that doesn't cover all cultures: I apologise for that, but I don't have the experience to comment on other countries preferences!)

Also, those starting birding recently, equipped with a camera, seem to favour photographs while those who have been birding for a number of years and use mostly binoculars/telescope tend to favour illustrations.

I think one outcome from this is that most field guides are prepared by those who personally favour illustrations, so they tend to prepare something with illustrations rather than photographs.

I have heard that one or two photographic guides to China are being prepared, although I have no idea about the progress of these or exactly what format they will take. One difficulty is coverage - there are a very large number of species in China, some of which are very similar and some of which are poorly known. Trying to fully cover all those species in a single book is extremely difficult (and would make the book very large!)

It takes considerable experience, knowledge and time to prepare a good field guide. You may need to wait until someone with the knowledge has the time to prepare one for your region.

In the meantime, keep practicing bird ID and spend time reading about identification in field guides or online. Don't expect all birds to be easily identified at first - over time it will gradually make more sense and some IDs will become easier, but you will never stop learning!

shrek48 said:

Etudiant, the Mark Brazil book is the one I hate vehemently. I find it hard to use and the pictures/illustrations very poor and incomplete.
I find the key hard to use and the illustrations completely useless. We need a comprehensive book using real pictures, far better than illustrations and easier to show real variations.

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Comparing to many other field guides in Asia, the Brazil is outstanding good.

I personally prefare drawings over photographs, because you can usually highlight the ID-markers much better.

In Europe we are very spoiled with the Collins. Sadly this standard is not usual when Iam looking for field guides for travel destinations.

Dortmundbirder said:

Comparing to many other field guides in Asia, the Brazil is outstanding good.

I personally prefare drawings over photographs, because you can usually highlight the ID-markers much better.

In Europe we are very spoiled with the Collins. Sadly this standard is not usual when Iam looking for field guides for travel destinations.

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Agree with all three points.

Drawings over photos for me too, every time.

johnallcock said:

Also, those starting birding recently, equipped with a camera, seem to favour photographs while those who have been birding for a number of years and use mostly binoculars/telescope tend to favour illustrations.

I think one outcome from this is that most field guides are prepared by those who personally favour illustrations, so they tend to prepare something with illustrations rather than photographs.

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I think this is a really good point. Many people do Not ID birds in the field anymore. Photo taken and ID back home on the computer. This leads to a Lot of people struggling to ID birds in the field and they have issues with illustrated guides because they dont find the birds drawn how they photographed IT.

Imo this leads to a Lot of ID questions of birds which could have been identified easily in the field but are difficult on a picture.

Haha, the only solution is to get the amazing artists who did illustration for Svensson to go around the world and do everything! My library of world ID books ïs beginning to bloat, but everything really pales when compared to the golden standard ...

I think it's just a question of time though. As birding gets more worldwide, no doubt great books are gonna appear. I would say that first it will be photographic ones, because with today's technology that's just easier to do well. Then finally someone will appear who is both a gifted artist and exceptionally thorough in research and a great drawn guide will be done.

What I think you need is a version of the Crossley ID Guide for your part of the world, similar to this:-

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9384.html check out the Sample pages here.

I use the 'Britain and Ireland' version and find it extremely useful. Especially the plates that show similar birds to the one being ID'd side by side so that you can compare them without having to find and flick to another page of a book to compare them.

JohnCu64 said:

What I think you need is a version of the Crossley ID Guide for your part of the world, similar to this:-

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9384.html check out the Sample pages here.

I use the 'Britain and Ireland' version and find it extremely useful. Especially the plates that show similar birds to the one being ID'd side by side so that you can compare them without having to find and flick to another page of a book to compare them.

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The Crossley guide is a big step up in terms of depicting the birds in real life.
Only drawback is that that makes it big.
An Asian Crossley model guide would be huge, a reference volume rather than a field guide. We need a better model to get field friendly guides useful in birdy regions such as Asia or Latin America.

I find the shortage of decent global field guides on a par with what we have in Europe and North America to be utterly baffling. The untapped market must be huge, and growing. When you see the money that publishers throw away on even very niche interests, it's doubly mystifying.

Strontium Dog said:

I find the shortage of decent global field guides on a par with what we have in Europe and North America to be utterly baffling. The untapped market must be huge, and growing. When you see the money that publishers throw away on even very niche interests, it's doubly mystifying.

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I think the answer is simple: it's difficult! A good field guide is something at the cutting edge of human ability. Throwing money in the right direction is simply not enough, you need talent and passion.

opisska said:

I think the answer is simple: it's difficult! A good field guide is something at the cutting edge of human ability. Throwing money in the right direction is simply not enough, you need talent and passion.

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Actually, it is more than difficult, it is impossible within the existing formats.
The Collins is borderline for a field guide, a global version would be more than five times bigger and at least ten times more confusing.
Publishers can't fit what we need into a conventional field guide, we need an electronic version to tame the bulk of the data. Something built around Google's Glass gizmo, which allows the user to thumb through the world's birds quickly without losing the detail that makes a field guide useful.
My guess is that Apple, which has the monopoly on the digital Collins, will be the one to introduce this, because they appreciate that birders are the kind of irrational buyers that are needed to make this kind of product profitable.