Customer Reviews

A Field Guide to Western Birds: A Completely New Guide to Field Marks of All Species Found in North America West of the 100th Meridian and North of Mexico

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I just got the 3rd ed. of Petersons to replace my ancient copy. Although I was tempted by the newer National Geographic guide, the illustrations in Petersons, with the birds posed consistently and without distracting backgrounds, looks cleaner and less confusing. Peterson's paintings also emphasize patterns, rather than rendering every feather, making them more useful in identification. The book's shortcoming is that the range maps are grouped at the back, rather than with the text and pictures. On the other hand, these maps are larger and more detailed than the maps in the nationwide guides. Overall, while the NGS is a beautiful book, and it certainly wouldn't hurt to have both, I think Peterson is still the best for its stated purpose of identifying birds in the field.

The Peterson Field Guide to Western Birds is the best such guide you will find. The nice thing about birds and birding is that there are few enough species out there that you can get virtually all of them in one regional guide.

This book is outstanding. It relies on illustrations rather than photographs to show markings and other details used to ID birds in the field. I find that photos are often sub-standard, not showing characters essential for identifying birds due to the position of the bird, markings of the individual chosen for inclusion in the book, etc.

In this book each entry includes a bird's common and scientific names, a brief physical description of the body and coloration, a drawing(s) of the bird, a brief description of habitats where they are likely to be seen, a blip about their geographic distribution, notes on their song, and reference to similar species (if any). The entry also refers the reader to a map number that shows the summer and winter ranges for each bird.

This is "the bird book" to have for western birds for the novice and experienced birder alike. If you've never had much luck figuring out which birds you are looking at try this book.

5 stars only because that's the highest rating possible.

Note: if you travel much throughout the USA, you ought to pick up the Peterson Guide to Eastern Birds as well -- it is the sister book to this one. With both of those books in hand you will be in good birding shape.

Alan Holyoak, Dept of Biology, Manchester College, IN

Often called the birdwatcher's "bible," Roger Tory Peterson's Field Guides revolutionized bird identification and started a series of books on everything from Atmosphere to Wildflowers. It is still one of the best tools for bird identification, especially for those just learning how to recognize different birds. Its text is straightforward, consistent, and well-organized, and the illustrations are unsurpassed. Taxonomic (name and species) changes will come and go, and no book is going to be able to keep up with all of them for very long. Fall birding will always be challenging, but this is still the best book to have if you only want to carry one.

This is the late Mr Peterson's best book and his most beautiful. The information supplied here is exhaustive. The paintings are worth the price of admission alone. Each picture is beautiful and so full of detail that even photographers might have a difficult time duplicating them. Also, the paintings serve as better illustration of field marks than photography. This is a grand book for the beginning birder and experienced birder alike. *****

I've got the Stokes guides - Western Birds, Hawks and Buteos, and Nests of Western Birds. I have borrowed some other books that have photos instead of artwork. I FAR prefer the Peterson guide. With photos you have to worry about color-rendering, trueness, et al.
With Peterson's guide that's not a worry. I have yet to find a bird that did not very closely match the artwork, which could be another book in itself (coffee table-type book).
The only exceptions to this would be in the instance of birds like Red-tailed Hawks, who have a great variety of coloration. I'm buying another copy because I've lost my first. Lament, chagrin, because I've marked my observations in the old book (back of the book). The maps are another excellent feature which have helped me determine exactly what I'm looking at.
With this book and a pair of good binoculars, a little patience, the whole of the Pacific flyway will be opened up to you.

This field guide comes in a near-pocket size for easy outdoor toting and appears in its third revised edition to provide a field handbook based on the unique Peterson Identification System. Over a hundred paintings display over 1,000 birds from 700 species, with range maps accompanying the natural history and identification details. Western Birds is more solid than an ordinary paperback, yet contains some of the rigidity of a hardcover, lending to its durability.

So we have this pond in our backyard and it's attracted alot of birds. My husband and I have no idea what species they are or what they eat since we work in the judicial system not for the Forest Service. The solution seems pretty simple...go to Amazon and buy a bird book. So, after reviewing several options; many of which seem to require at least a Master's level education in biology and years of field experience in identification, I wildly and in some what a desperate state picked this book. What a relief when it arrives and lo and behold it is written in English with lots of pictures! We use this book at least 3-4 times per week. It is very user friendly and a great resource for the average person who wants to know what to call the yellow bird eating all the sunflower seeds...besides greedy.

With a budding interest in birdwatching, and after careful consideration and shopping around, I purchased this book. I was not disappointed. I have identified many different birds using this guide. Nice size for field work, and the wonderful illustrations aid identifications immensely.

A wonderful guide, as expected! I live in the eastern US and use my Peterson guide to the birds of eastern North America almost daily -- it is, in my view, a perfect field guide to birds. I bought this guide for use when traveling on the west coast.

I have two relatively minor complaints with the Field Guide to Western Birds. First, unlike in the Field Guide to Eastern Birds, there are no thumbnail range maps next to the descriptions -- all the range maps are in the back of the book. Second, nowhere in the descriptions are we told how common the species is (also unlike in the Field Guide to Eastern Birds). This latter piece of information is helpful in the field -- in identifying birds, it's good to know how probable or improbable it is that you're seeing a particular species, both to help rule out unlikely birds and to gain appreciation of conservation issues.

Other than these pretty minor quibbles, I love this guide.

As someone new to birdwatching I needed to find some good field guides at several points on my recent World Cruise and I bought Peterson's Western Birds to use for my visit to San Francisco. I found this a very impressive book, considering the fact that it covers 700 species in such a small book. The illustrations are excellent and arrows show clearly the distinguishing points to look for with closely related species. They include summer and winter variations, juvenile plumages and birds in flight.
It is not a full field guide and does not give details of habitat but it has all the essentials for identification. It is slightly irritating to have the maps in a separate section at the end but this must aid the concise nature of the book.
All in all I would recommend it as a handy pocket guide to take in the field, supplemented by an alternative source of fuller details. Even the hardbacked version is fairly portable. Excellent value for money.