All the Birds of North America (American Bird Conservancy's Field Guide) [Paperback]

Jack Griggs (Author)

Book Description

Series: American Bird Conservancy's Field Guide | Publication Date: November 26, 2002

A Surer, Faster, Easier Way to Identify Birds

At last, a guide that successfully organizes birds by field-recognizable features for quick identification. For lack of a better method, bird guides have traditionally placed birds in evolutionary sequence, resulting in birding's classic Catch-22 -- you must recognize an unknown bird and know its place in the sequence before you can took it up!

All the Birds arranges species by their feeding adaptations -- features that are easily observed. How a bird feeds largely determines its form. It's nature's way of organizing species to fit ecological niches. The powerful bills and tree-climbing habits of woodpeckers, for instance, are prominent feeding adaptations. Recognizing birds' adaptations for feeding is the natural, no-nonsense way to identify; learn, and understand them.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Serious birders delight in autumn as migrating flocks provide the opportunity to observe the species that aren't normally around to observe. They don weather-proof shoes and layers of clothing, grab binoculars and All the Birds of North America, and head for the marshes before the football fans arise from their pre-game slumbers. With a weather-resistant coating, and an index that includes little boxes for ticking off the species that you see, the American Bird Conservancy's Field Guide has an easy-to-use format of icons (aerialists and shorebirds, fly-catching bills and straight bills) that allows you to zero in on type before dealing with the details that differentiate between Boreal, Carolina, and chestnut-backed chickadees. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Review

"A field-calibrated, fieldworthy field guide...[the author] has the design sense to project in a book...The process that birders have been using all along." -- New Jersey Audubon Society

"Amazingly compact and beautifully presented....Whether you're after another organizational system in your field guide, are a bird art aficianado, or simply love to look through field guides, be sure to add this comprehensive and beautiful work to your collection." -- --Bird Watcher's Digest

"In the `must-buy' category...A copy should be on every birder's bookshelf...An excellent companion in the field." -- --The Bluebird

"In the `must-buy' category...A copy should be on every birder's bookshelf...An excellent companion in the field." -- -- The Bluebird

"Makes positive identification quick and easy." -- --Sports Afield

"Makes positive identification quick and easy." -- -- Sports Afield

"The Apple Macintosh of field guides!" -- -- Birding Magazine

"[ALL THE BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA] will surprise birders with distinctively different features from other guides...Bird families are presented in a manner that makes identification easy...a really significant innovation." -- --Popular Science --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Collins Reference (November 26, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060527706
• ISBN-13: 978-0060527709
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #543,950 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding for actual field use., July 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: All the Birds of North America : American Bird Conservancy's Field Guide (Paperback)

I have been interested in birding for about ten years, and own several other bird guides, and have examined closely several more. As you might imagine, most guides share quite a lot in common. If I were using a field guide to simply look at a backyard bird, I might equally well use my Peterson's Guide or my NGS Field Guide to the Birds of North America. All three of these guides have good art and organization, and are very usable. I think this is the best guide for FIELD use for several reasons: 1) The size and shape easily fit in a normal pocket. 2) The weather resistant materials the book is made of. 3) The way birds are grouped, by similarities in behavior, habitat, and appearance, allows for easy comparison and rapid identification of a species. The authors have obviously put a lot of thought into the design and organization of this book and it has a lot to offer both the beginning and advanced birder.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Depth and clarity, June 24, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: All the Birds of North America : American Bird Conservancy's Field Guide (Paperback)

I've birded for more than 40 years, and I've used all the guides. This may seem heretical, but I have too much trouble with ambiguous identifications when carrying the much-vaunted National Geographic guide. I recommend this ABC (Griggs) guide along with Sibley's as the very top choices: Sibley's when you don't mind carrying 2 ¾ lb, and this one when you do. The best feature of this book, and the one that keeps me studying it at night, is that it is much more than an illustrated list. It explains what to look for in separating similar species. If you tend to throw up your hands at "LBJ's" (little brown jobs, meaning sparrows and other brown passerines), you need to read the detailed explanations in this book for orientation. It has equally useful introductory material for many bird groups. The unconventional organization is no impediment: I like the way birds are grouped primarily by similarity and secondarily by habitat.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A worthy second bird guide to take into the field, April 2, 2001

By 

Douglas A. Greenberg (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: All the Birds of North America : American Bird Conservancy's Field Guide (Paperback)

With so many birding field guides available these days, birders suffer from a veritable embarrassment of riches when it comes to selecting which volume(s) to take into the field. Even in the face of still competition, this still fairly new guide put together by the American Bird Conservancy has many strong points to recommend it. First, the illustrations are, for the most part, gorgeously painted and well-printed. Second, there is adequate emphasis on key identification field marks. Third, the book is small enough to be easily carried in a jacket pocket or field guide pouch. And fourth, although no single field guide can really be said to include "all the birds," this one comes close enough, and even features some special sections and illustration plates showing "accidentals" that occasionally show up in North America.

If there is a key problem for potential users of this guide, it is that its authors have daringly attempted to create a new way to organize the presentation of the many hundreds of species included. Rather than follow the taxonomic approach typical of other field guides, the authors have organized in part in accordance with habitat and geographical area. For novice birders unfamiliar with the way it's "usually done," this may prove quite convenient. For experienced birders, however, this distinctive organization will likely prove the source of headaches rather than added convenience.

The other problem with this and indeed, any field guide that is more than a year or so old is that ornithologists are constantly lumping and splitting species. With its 1997 publication date, the book is recent enough to have included some important "splits," including the California/Black-tailed gnatcatchers and the California/Canyon towhees. However, there are more recent changes that have occurred since 1997, including the newly recognized Gunnison sage grouse and the splitting off of Arizona from Strickland's woodpecker. Hopefully, the publishers of *All The Birds* will employ a periodic updating regimen to keep its readers current with regard to what is or is not considered a "real species."

Ultimately, the field guide that most avid birders will continue to carry with them in the field always is the *National Geographic Field Guide To The Birds of North America*. As a second and perhaps more portable reference, however, *All The Birds of North America* might be a good book to bring on one's field trips, as well.