Customer Reviews

Lives of North American Birds (Peterson Natural History Companions)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The real advantage of Kenn Kaufman's book is its accessibility. Next to the Birder's Handbook, which tried several funky organizational and icongraphic systems at once, Kaufman is pure readability. The attractive, intelligent presentation here is immediately appealing. This serves double duty as a coffee table book and reference.

I read both this and the Birder's Handbook when I see something new. Kaufman gives you a solid account of each bird, but he's limited to individual species. (There are brief family introductions, written about at the level of the family intros in a field guide.) The essays in Birder's Handbook are very pleasing to browse into; in Kaufman, once you've read a species, you're on to another species. Kaufman has nothing to say, for example, about mobbing behavior. Birder's Handbook has a long essay, naming several species and discussing the state of research on the subject.

Kaufman is also less clear about what's missing about a bird. Birder's Handbook is held to its schematic approach, so you immediately know when there's a question mark in a location that's usually got a little symbol. Kaufman occasionally mentions that something isn't well known, but you have to read into the essay to find that.

As complements to a field guide, both this and The Birder's Handbook are useful and enjoyable. I personally wouldn't be happy without either one.

Kenn Kaufmann has provided a nice, highly readable, first place to look for general information on any North American bird. The information provided is somewhat more extensive, in most cases, than can be found in similar Birder's Handbook by Ehrlich, Dobkin, and Wheye. Unfortunately, however, Kaufmann omitted notes and bibilographical information (which were included in the Birder's Handbook). Had the bibliographical information been included, this book would easily have rated 5 stars. As it is, the reader is frustrated in the search for more detailed information. I should also mention that the visual presentation of this book is nothing short of first class. Although not a book of fine-art photography, it is nonetheless an aesthetically pleasing volume printed on high-quality paper.

Great book to have onhand. I also have Sibley's book, The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior and I love them both - they're very different and while they may overlap to some degree, they're definitely different. Lives of N. Amer. Birds has great photographs of the birds, each bird entry has an intro paragragh about the bird, then is followed by habitat they prefer/can be found in, Feeding to include diet as well as how the bird finds/hunts for food, Nesting to include typical nest sites, how they're built, number of eggs and what they look like, care oft he young. There is also a section on each bird that talks to conservation issues for the bird. Latin names are also provided. I think this is a great reference book. I like to augment my reading with the Sibley guide as well as some ofthe stokes books on bird behavior.

There are so many books about birds one wonders which are the best .There is no answer to that question.I have over 1000 'bird books' and I felt this one was worth buying.It is written by one of the most knowledgeable and dedicated birders in North America today.
His 'Birds of North America'is one of the best field guides for a birder to buy to carry with him to help learn about and identify birds.He particularly had the non-expert in mind when he wrote it.
His 'Kingbird Highway' is one of the best books around about his experiences as a 16 year old trying to beat the record of seeing the most species in North America in one year.
His 'Advanced Birding' was written for expert birders having difficulty sorting some of the toughest birds to identify.
Now he gives us a book filled with much more detailed information on each bird. He covers habitat,feeding,behavior,nesting,migration and the conservation status.He has also included up-to date range maps.He has written all this material in a very easy to understand manner.
One would not probably want to buy this as their first or only bird book;but it would be a great book to buy after having an identification book.It's a great book for any birder whether just getting started or been birding for some time.It is too large to take with you in the field (birding);but excellent to have at home for reference.

A lot of you that may see this book and it's dimensions and may think, a coffee table book. Or a book to put on a shelf and collect dust with. I'm here to say that that is definitely NOT the case. I have this book myself, of course, and I have suprisingly find myself reading this book merely for entertainment. I have learned a LOT from this book. You should see the marks and stains I have on mine. The Author, a great man with a great history (check his autobiography Kingbird Highway)
Must have done a LOT of research on all these birds and knows alot of them personally, to create this book with all the info on a single bird and well laid out with all the info you may need
on it (Except for the birds call, but I'm not holding him back on it.) For instance you have a picture of the bird in nature, a map of where it is red for summer, blue in winter and purple all year round resident. It has an intro on the bird, it's habitat, feeding, hunting behavior, nest, how many eggs, migration info and at last but not least, Conservation status. The book also shows info on foreign birds that occasionally enter the US from afar, but does not have all the info on an american bird, and doesn't have a picture. But still, there is a lot of information in this book. And if you ask why someone would make a book on how birds live, well, he has a very good reason. Read Kingbird Highway. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Of all my birding books this is one of them that I reach for often especially when I see an unusual species or when I'm planning a trip to a different part of the country. As mentioned previously this is not a field guide, it's a good resource on the biology of birds found north of the Mexican border.

This book is not the most thorough of reference books but it is organized well and is easy to access all the species accounts. There are good quality photos of almost all the species of North America. Each species account starts with a general interest paragraph about some of the unique habits of the birds or of their populations. There are then sections on habitat, feeding, migration, and conservation. Maps show color shaded areas for breeding, winter, and year around resident ranges.

I didn't give the book a five star rating because of the following reasons. The maps only depict Canada and the United States. Mexico is part of North America (as well as Central America technically) but there are no wintering ranges shown there. For example it looks like the Vermillion Flycather has an all season range along the Mexican border in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas but the lack of extended range into Mexico looks strange, abrupt, and graphically demonstrates the lack of information on the species range. This information is usually shown in most field guides. There is also a lack of information on the wintering range of neotropical migrants in the text. Many of the accounts do not mention the country the birds winter in for most of the year.

Despite the lack of wintering range information this is still a good handy book to pull off the shelf to refresh your memory on migration and habits of the birds found in the US and Canada.

I like the pictures and layout of the book. It is too heavy for a field guide. It gives you great detail of what to look for when spotting birds. Descriptions are right beside the pictures.