"Best" Beginners Bird Guide (1 Viewer)

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one eye joe

Member

• Apr 22, 2007

• #1

My wife and I are starting to enjoy the birdlife around our home. We would like a book that helps identify the different species in the East Texas area, and hopefully up thru Missouri, where we plan to move. Is there a single book that will help us? Is there a "best" book we should look for? Thanks.

 

scampo

Steve Campsall

• Apr 22, 2007

• #2

I don't know about your local area, of course, but I can say that as well as a book, if you can get hold of a CD-ROM or DVD of US birds, you will learn a whole lot more and much more quickly. This is because these have videos of the birds in the wild along with their calls - a very helpful thing when you are out and about as many birds make their presence known from their call.

 

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ehrodz

Well-known member

• Apr 22, 2007

• #3

I've been birding two years and during that time I tried several guides including Golden's Guide to Birds of NA, Peterson's Birds of Eastern and Central NA, the National Geographic Birds of NA and Sibley's Birds of Eastern NA. The best of these for me in terms of ease of use and quality of illustrations and information is Sibley's guide. I still use the others occasionally for reference.

Birding software is ok but you can find several free very good guides on the internet including the Cornell and Precivia sites.

 

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Ephily

Member

• Apr 26, 2007

• #4

I use the Sibley for Eastern/Western North America and love it! I highly reccomend the Sibley guides.

 

Storm-Petrel

registered dude

• Apr 26, 2007

• #5

Yes, i would defenitely reccomend the Sibley Guide to birds Eastern. It has EXCELLENT illustrations of side and front views of birds to make it easy to identify them

 

Robert / Seattle

Well-known member

• Apr 26, 2007

• #6

If you want to understand the life of birds a bit better, and go beyond merely identifying them, you may want to supplement your "Sibley's" with "Smithsonian - Birds of North America", available in both Eastern (your) region, Western, or a comprehensive hard bound "all inclusive desk top" version.

 

waka waka

Abuser

• Apr 26, 2007

• #7

I like "Stokes" field guides for id's. I do better with pictures than illustrations, so that's why i recommend. They make one for western and eastern U.S. regions. Otherwise I use the computer and sites like this one.

 

Last edited: Apr 26, 2007

jcwings

Well-known member

• Apr 26, 2007

• #8

Here's an old classic. Peterson, the Father of the original field guide, enjoyed Texas so much he wrote a guide to the birds of just that state. I have an old copy but I'm sure the text has been updated. I've owned this book for years and I've only been to TX once. His illustrations are very well done if you haven't seen Peterson's work. Sibley based his guide on the format of R.T. Peterson. You can't beat the price either.

http://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-B...2149565?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177592371&sr=1-4

 

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jedigrant

Well-known member

• Apr 26, 2007

• #9

Another vote for Sibley. I used that guide pretty much exlusively when I started, and it's the only one I've ever carried into the field with me.
For more info on it, I've written a review of them here

 

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one eye joe

Member

• Apr 26, 2007

• #10

Thanks, everybody. We will look for Sibley for sure, and maybe some of the others next time we get to Dallas. Anybody know a good shop in the metroplex area? We need to look for some better optics as well as a good field/desk guide.

 

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danehower

Well-known member

• Apr 26, 2007

• #11

To me it is a bit of a trade off - The sibley is superior in it's accuracy regarding ID - however I think the peterson guide is much more intuitive in its format. How many birders (experts aside) flip through the pages based on taxonomy? In addition the Peterson guide has larger plates - and the plates have comparison birds. I would love to see a marriage of the two - A peterson format and large plates with the sibley drawings. That is just my thought.