Best field guide about birds of Florida (2 Viewers)

[mszoszk]

Hello fellow bird enthusiasts,
I'm a birdwatcher from Poland and I'm planning a trip to Florida.
Can anyone recommend a good book about birdwatching in Florida? It's not my first birdwatching expierience in the USA and I've used Sibley guidebook so far.
Apart from Sibley I'm interested in a book that covers only birds of Florida. Are there any good position?
Secondly I would like to ask about Peterson guidebook. Is it worth to have both - Sibley and Peterson?
I appreciate any recommendations you can provide. Thank you in advance!

 

[Owene]

I was asking similar questions recently and pointed towards the Sibley app as you can set it for where you are and when and it will just give you the state birds with frequency data for the time period

 

[Owene]

I also bought this for general wildlife and it’s nice but does feel like it must be missing a lot

 

[ClarkWGriswold]

Just wanted to say welcome to BirdForum from all the staff and moderators.

I’ve got the Audobon app on my phone. That seems ok as well.

Rich

 

[Jim M.]

Apps are fine for songs or looking up a specific bird, but a paper guide is going to be much better if you're just learning the birds of a region because you can quickly flip through pages to see and compare the options, among other things.

If you just want a guide with fewer birds than the big Sibley, I would recommend instead of one of the many Florida-specific guides (which are of varying quality and sophistication) getting the Eastern regional versions of either Sibley or Peterson or National Geographic. Most of the birds in those guides will be found in Florida.

If you want information about finding birds in Florida and local information about distribution, there are birdfinding guides from Bill Pranty (2005) and Brian Rapoza (2007) that have lots of info (though a bit dated).

A Birder's Guide to Florida: Bill Pranty: 9781878788245: Amazon.com: Books

Birding Florida: Over 200 Prime Birding Sites at 54 Locations (Birding Series): Rapoza, Brian: 9780762739141: Amazon.com: Books

There is also this site for more up to date bird finding info:
GFBWT

Finally, yes, Peterson and Sibley have different approaches to ID. So while you can get along fine with just Sibley, Peterson contains additional useful info.

 

[raymie]

I recommend getting the eastern version of Sibley, it's much smaller and possible to carry into the field.

 

[mszoszk]

Thank you for all your recommendations, you helped me a lot
I would like to ask about general wildife guidebook in Florida. Owene recommends one book, are there any alternatives?

 

[Jim M.]

Thank you for all your recommendations, you helped me a lot
I would like to ask about general wildife guidebook in Florida. Owene recommends one book, are there any alternatives?

Just bring all the guides you have. Just about everything has become established in Florida thanks to the pet trade and irresponsible pet owners – it is kind of like the world's zoo – so you never know what you're going to find. But seriously, I have never used any such guide for Florida, but I was disappointed in the Ecuador guide from the same series – heavy and a lot of the text was generic stuff copied from a textbook. Looking on the US Amazon website, there look to be lots of alternatives: Amazon.com : florida wildlife