Hawks from Every Angle: How to Identify Raptors In Flight [Paperback]

Jerry Liguori (Author), David Sibley (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 12, 2005

Identifying hawks in flight is a tricky business. Across North America, tens of thousands of people gather every spring and fall at more than one thousand known hawk migration sites--from New Jersey's Cape May to California's Golden Gate. Yet, as many discover, a standard field guide, with its emphasis on plumage, is often of little help in identifying those raptors soaring, gliding, or flapping far, far away.

Hawks from Every Angle takes hawk identification to new heights. It offers a fresh approach that literally looks at the birds from every angle, compares and contrasts deceptively similar species, and provides the pictures (and words) needed for identification in the field. Jerry Liguori pinpoints innovative, field-tested identification traits for each species from the various angles that they are seen.

Featuring 339 striking color photos on 68 color plates and 32 black & white photos, Hawks from Every Angle is unique in presenting a host of meticulously crafted pictures for each of the 19 species it covers in detail--the species most common to migration sites throughout the United States and Canada. All aspects of raptor identification are discussed, including plumage, shape, and flight style traits.

For all birders who follow hawk migration and have found themselves wondering if the raptor in the sky matches the one in the guide, Hawks from Every Angle--distilling an expert's years of experience for the first time into a comprehensive array of truly useful photos and other pointers for each species--is quite simply a must.

Key Features:

• The essential new approach to identifying hawks in flight
• Innovative, accurate, and field-tested identification traits for each species
• 339 color photos on 68 color plates, 32 black & white photos
• Compares and contrasts species easily confused with one another, and provides the pictures (and words) needed for identification in the field
• Covers in detail 19 species common to migration sites throughout the North America
• Discusses light conditions, how molt can alter the shape of a bird, aberrant plumages, and migration seasons and sites
• User-friendly format

Editorial Reviews

Review

Hawks from Every Angle is a major advance in our knowledge of identifying raptors in flight and as such needs to be in the library (and field pack) of every serious raptor biologist, hawk watcher, and birder going afield in North America. -- ald S. Heintzelman,"International Hawkwatcher



Perhaps no one knows the intricacies of raptor identification better than Jerry Liguori. . . . There is no doubt that this book will advance the identification of raptors, and that every hawkwatcher will want to own this great new book. -- Dan R. Kunkle, Wildlife Activist



This book does a splendid job of educating its readers as to the specific characteristics the experts use to make their identifications. . . . [T]he book's strength is its numerous crisp diagnostic photographs that, if diligently studied, should make readers competent to correctly identify virtually any hawk species. This book is a fine example of the sophistication of field identification in the study of birds. -- Choice



I was a bit skeptical about the value of a photo guide, but Liguori, a raptor conservation biologist and excellent photographer, sweeps any doubts away. The book's 371 images, nearly all in color, of hawks from the front, side, below, and above, provide a new perspective on the 19 most common North American species. Read this handy guide and you'll never again have to say, 'All I know is it was a buteo.' This book definitely lives up to its title. -- Val Cunningham, Birding Business News



Hawks from Every Angle takes advantage of recent developments in digital photography and computer enhancement to offer a fresh approach to identifying raptors--as the titles promises--from every angle: head on, above, below, sideways, and from the rear...The guide's succinct but flowing text includes introductory material on light conditions, molt aberrant plumages, migration sites, weather, optics for hawk watching, and photography...As good as the text is, the guide's 339 color photographs are even better. Showing the birds as they actually appear in the field, the photos are its hear and soul. -- Keith L. Bildstein, Birder's World

Review

Jerry Liguori has spent most of the last twenty years in the field watching and photographing hawks, and thousands of hours poring over photos and research to piece the puzzle of identification together. The result . . . is this guide, which is the most detailed and confident explanation yet of the myriad clues that lead to successful identification of hawks. This book is the first of its kind that deals with the real-world problems of identifying flying raptors from different angles. . . . The understanding of what hawkwatchers actually face in the field comes through on every page.
(David A. Sibley, author of the National Audubon Society's "The Sibley Guide to Birds" ) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 129 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (September 12, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691118256
• ISBN-13: 978-0691118253
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #96,722 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #31 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Biological Sciences > Zoology > Ornithology

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

60 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good, November 7, 2005

By 

N. Anich (Ashland, WI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hawks from Every Angle: How to Identify Raptors In Flight (Paperback)

As the title indicates, this book focuses primarily on flight identification, and does a good job of showing and comparing raptors from multiple angles. So if you're looking to identify which hawk is perched in a tree in your yard, look elsewhere. But if you're interested in hawkwatching or honing your ability to identify distant raptors, this is a worthy pickup.

This book nicely fills a gap between the Wheeler Guides (which have very close detailed photogaphs) and Hawks in Flight (which has mostly illustrations focusing on shape). This book has photographs, but the emphasis is on shape and structure more than plumage. It's got some really helpful pages where they put similar birds together and the same size flying overhead, then all flying to the right, then all flying at you, then flying away so you can directly compare subtle differences. It's got some nice photoshopped stuff where they inserted another bird into a photo for comparison (e.g. a nice one of a Peregrine and a Gyr both flying together). There are also "pitfall" images where they show similar birds you could confuse given certain looks at them.

I haven't read all the text yet, but the stuff I've read seems spot-on. It's got some fun hawkwatch numbers, like record days and seasons and a map of hawkwatch sites. (Although some of the dots on the map seem to be off). Overall if you're interested in hawks enough to still be reading this review, you'll probably find this book to be cool.

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A useful supplement, November 15, 2005

By 

A. E. Wright "Reader, writer, birder" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hawks from Every Angle: How to Identify Raptors In Flight (Paperback)

One of the continent's most expert hawkwatchers, Jerry Liguori here presents a set of very helpful notes intended to make the identification of distant raptors easier. The many carefully chosen photographs show the birds at literally "every angle," showing the reader birds head-on, wing-on, and in retreat, just as they often appear to the observer. Many of the images are carefully manipulated to elide obvious differences of size and color, making it possible to concentrate on more subtle distinctions of shape and habit in otherwise similar species; one could watch hawks for decades without witnessing the extremely informative juxtapositions effected here by the printer, and hawkwatchers new and experienced will find much to profit by in the book's plates.
The text, while it contains many nuggets of little-known information, is another matter. It reads very much like hastily scribbled notes, and the often meandering stream of the author's consciousness would have benefited from a careful editor's guidance (and a proofreader would have been helpful, too). Most experienced birders will be able to strain through the information to find what is valuable to them, but neophytes are likely to find navigating these waters occasionally troublesome, a difficulty not much eased by the glossary, which, for example, uses the word "base" in at least four different senses.
All in all, though, this is a book highly recommended to the hawkwatcher with some experience--or the hawkwatcher with a patient mentor or friend to help understand it.

89 of 99 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars another mistitled hawk book, January 13, 2006

By 

Peter J. Moulton (Phoenix AZ, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hawks from Every Angle: How to Identify Raptors In Flight (Paperback)

If you're looking for a book that covers all the raptors that regularly occur in North America, forget it. A more honest title would've been 'Raptors of Northeastern Hawkwatch Sites.' Even then, northeastern hawkwatchers won't find Harris' Hawk in the book. The raptors Liguori does cover are done well, by and large, and I was particularly impressed with the treatments of both Harlan's Hawk and the Northern Harrier. But if you live in the West, as I do, you'll find the book less useful than the title suggests. Get yourself a Clark and Wheeler--it'll serve you much better. I'm looking forward to that frabjous day when hawkwatchers will escape their eastern bias, and discover that we have hawks in the West too.