Customer Reviews

Birds of Indiana Field Guide

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Two years ago my family and I moved from Costa Rica to Indianapolis. From one of the world's great bird paradises to an endless succession of corn field bejeweled with a gray ring road.

Or so we thought.

'Truth be told, America's Heartland is a great place to live. This extends even to backyard birding. We live across the street from a marvelous park, half of which is kept in forest and meadow. The good folks at the local Wild Birds Unlimited are just a short drive away, which makes running out of saffron seed something less than a tragedy.

And Stan Tekiela's BIRDS OF INDIANA FIELD GUIDE is on my den shelf, where it's stunning photos and one-page-per-bird descriptions provide instant identification when a first-time guest arrives at my feeders. I pair Tekiela's work with the Peterson Field Guide for this part of the country.

Tekiela's photos are a stunning complement to Peterson's drawings. I also appreciate Tekiela's seasonal habitation map for each bird, which appears in the upper left corner of each description page. Finally, he pulls a 'birding for dummies' move that I appreciate by arranging the birds by color. This makes it easier to locate a bird's identity when all you know is what you *see*.

This well-done work should be in every Hoosier birder's home.

This guide is wonderful! Organization of the book is well done and there are large full-color photos of each bird that makes them easily identifiable. I would definitely recommend this field guide for every beginner and enthusiast.

Wonderful photos, easy to use color guides. I really love the quick info on how to tell the difference of similar birds. My 8 year old son and I checked this book out of the library first to be able to identify our backyard visitors but loved it so much and he quickly was able to use it we just had to buy our own copy. I would highly recommend it.

This is a well organized, easily accessible guide covering the most commonly encountered birds. Something like The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America might be in order as a supplement to this fine volume, but on the whole Birds of Indiana will suffice for most backyard bird watching. A great gift for the budding ornithologist, or just to learn what that bird is you see at the feeder so often.

One of the first things that I noticed when I moved to a small town in Indiana was the richness and variety of wildlife that I encountered. The most fascinating of them all were the birds, and it seemed that there was and endless supply of them coming to our back yard, hanging out on our trees, or just casually flying over our heads. Soon enough I had a bird feeder set up, and have been doing my share to feed these beautiful creatures. Nonetheless, aside from a few educated guesses the exact nature of these birds remained mostly a mystery to me. A college of mine was into birding, and from him I learned a few of the fundamentals. However, I wanted to expand and deepen my knowledge, as well as have a handy reference with me for all those occasions when my friend wasn't around to help me out identify particular bird. "Birds of Indiana" perfectly fits all those requirement. It is small and portable, yet pictures are large enough and birds can be easily identified. Birds are categorized according to their color, which is particularly useful for all of us who are not experts on birds. Each bird is described in some detail, and information on its seasonal and geographical distribution is provided. All the information is to the point and without any redundancy. This is a very handy book for both novices and all those who already have some experience with bird watching.

My 12 year old son wanted this because he started watching birds in our backyard. It seems to cover all the birds in our area, and it was easy for him to understand. It included a checklist of birds sighted, which is really fun for him. I would say this is a perfect book for anyone who likes to watch and identify birds.

Great book, great pics and great information! I constantly use this tool to identify birds in my yard. Great stuff!

This book makes it so much easier to find what you are looking for in a hurry. It is color coded on the edges.

When I first moved to Indiana, I was eager to get to know the local wildlife, particularly the birds that visited my garden. When I went to buy a pictorial guide to locals bird species, I was lucky enough to pick up this volume, which is perfectly designed for a birdwatcher like me, who knew virtually nothing about backyard birds, other than the names of a few common varieties.

The genius of the book is the way the information and photos are arranged. First, the book is divided into sections, each one containing birds of a particular predominant color (grey, black, brown, red, white, etc.); all the pages in that section have a colored tab along the edge that corresponds to that particular color. Then, within the section, the species are arranged in order of size, from small to large. For each bird, there are two facing pages, one with a photo of the bird in its natural milieu, facing a page with information on the various characteristics of the bird -- appearance, habitat, feeding and nesting practices, number of young typically produced, the various songs or calls, etc. If the male and female of a given species are of significantly different appearance, each is given its own page, according to its size and color. Although I bought this volume to identify backyard birds, it also contains a variety of species found in wetlands, open country, and the like.

This arrangement makes it very easy to identify any species, even if you know absolutely nothing about birds. Was it small and brown? Go to the brown-tabbed section and start at the beginning (smallest species). If the pictures and physical descriptions do not suffice to distinguish your bird from others, read what it says about feeding or nesting practices -- does the bird fly up to the feeder to eat, or does it graze on seeds that have fallen to the ground? Does it nest in shrubs near the feeder, or in the top of a tree? You fill find plenty of information that should help you to identify the exact species, and distinguish it from look-alikes that may also frequent your area.

I really love this book, and while I was in Indiana I kept it near the windowsill for ready reference. With its help, I was amazed to learn that I had about two dozen different species that visited my feeders during the year. (Too bad I never followed through on my desire in going on a wetlands tour to spot water birds.) For duffers like myself, this book is perfectly arranged, and should be used as a model for bird-watching fieldbooks. Now that I am back in Texas, I'm hoping to find something similar for my home area.

This was a surprise gift for my husband who really enjoys the book and finds it very helpful in indentifying birds at our backyard feeder. Very user-friendly.