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How many people use field guide book in the field? (1 Viewer)

jurek

Well-known member
Switzerland
I started using books only on a mobile few years ago, as pdfs or self-made photos of a page after page.

How many people on a larger twitch actually take out a paper book and compare it with a bird?
 
Hi

I do not twitch. But I do take a birding rucksack which includes paper ID books for UK birds, mushrooms, plants, butterflies and moths :)
 
I used to photograph key plates of likely finds/difficult species in the Collins bird guide so I always had them on my camera when I was in the field, in the days pre-mobile phone. Worked for me despite never finding anything 'decent'
 
Was seawatching a few years ago when a Black Browed Albatross went past. There were some VERY knowledgeable birders there but even they found it useful to have a look through my very detailed field guide to seabirds to eliminate anything more rare.

I find it handy as well to get an image in my brain as to what features to look for with unfamiliar birds. Also it is good sometimes to be able to sex/ age birds with the extra information available in bird books.
 
I take a small one with a waterproof cover, tucked in my trouser pocket, on most walks - the times it doesn't come are because I forgot to pick it up!

But, I'd say I only really use it when seeing something unfamiliar or confusing (note my neverending inability to learn waders and young gulls!), which could be something exciting but I don't want to spend allll day thinking maybe I got a new lifer then it turns out to be something else when I get home and check. And even then, I tend to do it on a slight time delay - I'll grab a few photos and carry on watching the birds themselves, rather than standing near them but not looking cos my nose is in a book, IDing them comes second to just enjoying them. Then, I'll get the guide out a bit later, like if there's a place to sit down or an open stretch of nothing much to look at - that's the kind of time I'll pause to see if I can confirm what I did or didn't see earlier!
 
When I started birding in the '60s it was considered a grave faux pas (within my circle of birders at least) to be caught using a field guide to identify what was before you. The logic was that you used the field guide to bone up on bird ID before you went out into the field so that you could confidently identify most (if not all ) the birds you saw. When faced with something you couldn't ID there & then, out came your notebook into which you put your sketches & detailed notes. Only when you had exhausted your descriptive powers (or the bird had flown off) was it considered OK to check in your guide (if you had one with you which wasn't always the case). The method taught you how to look at a bird systematically, helped to give you an understanding of different bird families and avoided the temptation to 'fit the bird to the picture'. If it wasn't in your description then it wasn't there!

Roll forward to the present day and I still seldom use a field guide to ID birds to species level in the UK & Europe thanks to the solid grounding these methods gave me in the 60s & 70s. (But I seldom use a notebook these days!) There are some exceptions with sister taxa which are almost identical (esp. recent east/west splits). However, having a guide on my phone is a great temptation. I sometimes use a guide in the field in the UK/Europe to decide the sex/age of birds and check the calls of the increasingly few birds I can still hear. When I'm outside Europe (which isn't often), I'm still loathe to use a field guide if I can avoid doing so by learning salient ID features of the birds I anticipate seeing. However, my capacity for learning & retaining information isn't what it was so I always have a field guide handy as a back-up in such circumstances. It doesn't help either if the bird families are radically different. I still suffer a scintilla of annoyance, though, when I have to pull out the guide.
 
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If possible I'm using both electronic and paper. I backpack/camp a lot but if the paper field guide is somewhat transportable, then I still like to have it. On my last foreign trips I used the Merlin app and had a paper field guide in my daypack, which was still referenced quite often.

I also like to have paper guides to prepare for my trip, and as reference afterwards.
 
I have carried a copy of this around with me since 1982 after my Dad bought me a copy. Always makes me think of the days I went birding with my Dad, happy memories.

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I also have no qualms about carrying a copy of the Collins Bird Guide to the birds of britain & europe if I am visiting a migration hotspot. Ive never felt the need to hide the fact that even after birding for 40 years I still have plenty to learn!!
 
Locally I just use a copy of Sibley's on my phone (and Merlin for song ID). I am familiar enough with most of the likely local birds that I seldom need to consult a guide. However, if I am birding anyplace far from home I usually also carry my Sibley and/or Nat Geo, and may also have herp and mammal field guides with me, if either of those is something I expect I might need.
 
When I started birding in the '60s it was considered a grave faux pas (within my circle of birders at least) to be caught using a field guide to identify what was before you. The logic was that you used the field guide to bone up on bird ID before you went out into the field so that you could confidently identify most (if not all ) the birds you saw. When faced with something you couldn't ID there & then, out came your notebook into which you put your sketches & detailed notes. Only when you had exhausted your descriptive powers (or the bird had flown off) was it considered OK to check in your guide (if you had one with you which wasn't always the case). The method taught you how to look at a bird systematically, helped to give you an understanding of different bird families and avoided the temptation to 'fit the bird to the picture'. If it wasn't in your description then it wasn't there!

Roll forward to the present day and I still seldom use a field guide to ID birds to species level in the UK & Europe thanks to the solid grounding these methods gave me in the 60s & 70s. (But I seldom use a notebook these days!) There are some exceptions with sister taxa which are almost identical (esp. recent east/west splits). However, having a guide on my phone is a great temptation. I sometimes use a guide in the field in the UK/Europe to decide the sex/age of birds and check the calls of the increasingly few birds I can still hear. When I'm outside Europe (which isn't often), I'm still loathe to use a field guide if I can avoid doing so by learning salient ID features of the birds I anticipate seeing. However, my capacity for learning & retaining information isn't what it was so I always have a field guide handy as a back-up in such circumstances. It doesn't help either if the bird families are radically different. I still suffer a scintilla of annoyance, though, when I have to pull out the guide.
I'm with John on this one. In my experience there is nothing like the 'traditional' 'write a description and check the book later' method to increase the likelihood that you will remember the species long afterwards. In particular, when confronted with a new avifauna in Zambia and Malawi in the mid 1970s I persisted with writing descriptions in the field, no mean task when dealing with what were then 50 or more lifers in a day sometimes. It was some forty years when I next visited Zambia and I was surprised and pleased to find that I could (can) still recognise and name most of the birds encountered. I contrast this with short guided visits to South America, where I did carry a field guide and also benefited from the knowledge of a human guide. I have a record of all that I saw but I cannot remember what quite a few of the birds looked like nor do I even recall seeing some of them at all. Lasting benefit demands effort and application.
 
Totally respect the people that still bother with making notes in the field. The tricky thing tho is knowing exactly what are the main id features to look for. Probably easy with prolonged views/ prior in depth knowledge of a species but a lot trickier with brief/ rubbish views.

Also I'd features often change over time with increased knowledge e.g Marsh/ Willow Tit appears to have evolved over the years.
 

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