• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

America west coast Guide (1 Viewer)

barry robson

Well-known member
Hi anyone who may be able to help!

Planning a trip down Pacific coast from Seattle to San Francisco, out to Grand Canyon, Lake Taho, Yosemite National Park back to and need to update my 1980s Roger Tory Peterson Guide to a better one (if there is such a thing). Any suggestions much appreciated!

Cheers

B
 
well I suppose the two obvious are the Field Guide to the Birds of Western North America by David Allan Sibley and the Nat Geographic guide which covers the whole of North America. I'll leave those more knowledgable than me to comment on the differences.
 
pduxon said:
well I suppose the two obvious are the Field Guide to the Birds of Western North America by David Allan Sibley and the Nat Geographic guide which covers the whole of North America. I'll leave those more knowledgable than me to comment on the differences.

Both of those are good and well liked but if I had to carry only one the Sibley western guide would be my choice. Excellent illustrations and in a nice portable size plus none of the confusiion of having all the eastern species that you'll unlikely to see. The Sibley western is pretty much the standard over here at the moment it seems whilst about 20% preferiing the national geographic, of the birders I see in the field.
 
You didn't mention what time of year you'll be traveling, but two other more specialized ID guides that I'd highly recommend since you'll be covering a lot of coast as well as desert areas are:

A Photographic Guide to North American Raptors by Wheeler & Clark. This is invaluable for IDing especially problematic juveniles, whether perched or flying.

and

Ocean Birds of the Nearshore Pacific by Rich Stallcup. Because North America's west coast has a lot of nearshore deep water (especially in areas like Monterey, CA, which is south of San Francisco), you may very well see albatrosses, shearwaters and petrels from shore that you otherwise would have to take a boat to see.

If you have the time on your itinerary, I do hope you can make it to Monterey as it has one of the most diverse marine habitats in the world; submarine Monterey Canyon runs literally from the beach out into Monterey Bay. And Debra Shearwater's boat-based day trips (Shearwater Journeyss) are world renowned for the variety of species encountered.
 
Thanks for the tips, people - much appreciated! And to think I only posted this a couple of hours ago! I'm in a party of 4 and the only real birdwatcher, and though taking telescope and bins, there won't be any really serious watching, but there's always next year…

Thanks again
Barry
 
barry robson said:
Hi anyone who may be able to help!

Planning a trip down Pacific coast from Seattle to San Francisco, out to Grand Canyon, Lake Taho, Yosemite National Park back to and need to update my 1980s Roger Tory Peterson Guide to a better one (if there is such a thing). Any suggestions much appreciated!

Cheers

B

I think that the Sibley Western Guide is the best single volume for this part of the world at this point. If you used the latest version of the National Geographic guide you certainly wouldn't be sorry, however.

You should go to the American Birding Association's web site and peruse their "store." They have a variety of geographically specific birding guidebooks, some of which other posters have already mentioned. It's worth a look.
Best,
Doug Greenberg
 
barry robson said:
Hi anyone who may be able to help!

Planning a trip down Pacific coast from Seattle to San Francisco, out to Grand Canyon, Lake Taho, Yosemite National Park back to and need to update my 1980s Roger Tory Peterson Guide to a better one (if there is such a thing). Any suggestions much appreciated!

Cheers

B


http://fog.ccsf.cc.ca.us/~jmorlan/rare.htm

This site has a lot of interesting info on California and will lead to others as well
 
Warning! This thread is more than 19 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top