Customer Reviews

National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Birds of North America

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book has just recently appeared and ranks with the top few Field Guides available.
The greatest choice you must make as a learning birder is between guides that use photographs and those that use illustrations to show the birds. Genrerally, illustrations do a better job of detailing the fine points you'll be looking for and are often more real than real. On the other hand ,when you come across birds in the field they are going to appear more like the pictures in this book.
Your choice will likely be between Peterson's,Kaufman's Sibley,and The National Geographic,which is now by far the most popular.I have written reviews on all of them.
This new book is a little cheaper, covers 750 birds as compared to the Nat Geo which covers every bird ever recorded in NA. A very important point with Field Guides is that they must stand a lot of abuse in all sorts of weather and must be far better constructed than even text books. All these guides are exceptionally well constructed.
This Guide and Kaufman's break away from the AOU order in an effort to put somewhat similar birds together,attempting to make it easier for less experienced birders. This may be a bit confusing when using this book with other birders or during bird study courses.
In the case of each Guide,the authors who are the top birders in North America, are trying to pass on their experience in identifying birds to you;and where there are differences in aproach,it is only the pros and cons that are involved.
If you become at all serious,you will probably want all these guides,so in the end,you can't go too far wrong with any of these guides.

Good Birding!!

I have picked up every bird field guide that has come along for the past 36 years and this is definitely one of the best of all time. When I first received my copy I literally could not put it down. Mr. Brinkley has the ability to bring each species to life in his descriptions, making this a very interesting read, unusual for a field guide. I thought the photos were excellent, as well as the range maps. I would recommend this book to anyone, whether you have years of experience studying birds, or are just getting started. For beginners, Mr. Brinkley helps you get started in an easily understood way. For the jaded, long-time birders, there are lots of neat tidbits of information that you may not know about, plus you can pour over the most up to date range maps in print. The author obviously has a great love for birds and the natural world and this really comes across in this book. There was nothing that I didn't like about this field guide.

MLPurdy

I have three books relating to bird identification. All more expensive than this. However, this one has the best photographs from which to help identify birds. It is not real heavy on prose as to their habits & breeding, but does indicate usual locations and migration paths. Well worth the price!

This new field guide would be a great buy (or gift) for a beginning birder or an advanced expert. The photos are excellent and the printing seems to be of the highest quality but what really stands out is the wonderful text accompanying every species. Ned Brinkley has somehow packed much of his lifetime's accumulation of bird wisdom into hundreds of easily understood but knowledge-dense nuggets of information. No matter how much you know about American birds, there is something new and worthwhile in this wonderful book. It's superb.

This is clearly the best photo guide to N. American birds. Rarities and common birds are shown in exellent photos. For difficult species and plumages there are multiple photos. The maps are accurate and the text is well-done. It is also a great value - good paper and binding. This and Sibley's N. American Guide will do the job.

A long-time birder who carries this book on all his outings recommended it to me (a photographer) so I could look up the occasional species I would come across on field trips. It's very easy to navigate, it is colorful with short informative descriptions and, so far, it has had every species I have needed to know about. Flipping through this book is a pleasure and an education in itself; for example, I have spent my life admiring Common Grackles, Robins and Red-winged Blackbirds and until I got this book I did not know that the female markings are quite distinct and different from those of the male. I was especially interested to learn more about the Whip-poor-will species and their range of territory. The Contents section is colorful and simple, yet precise. The Index is straightforward and all-inclusive - something I always look at first when buying any book. Highly recommended.

If you are looking for a photographic guide to birds, or if you want to supplement your Sibley's or National Geographic Guides, this is the book. Though the photos are small, the book is packed with information. More importantly, it is organized in a way that makes it learnable. Each bird has text on the photo telling readers what to look for. Some field guides put this information in a block of text on the opposite page, where it gets ignored or takes a lot of looking back and forth to figure out. This book shows all the ID stuff on the photos. And there are important variations of plumage shown for some species as well (worn feathers that look quite different.) The blocks of text on the opposite page contain snippets of natural history and info about vocalizations. This book contains more info and will teach new birders faster than many other guides that are bigger or flashier. There are also some two page entries on topics like "small brown birds," "raptors," etc., giving birders an overview about behavior and how to approach that type of group.

I lost my old standby, and was looking to replace it. I ordered 2 different books, and they are both excellent. However, this book is much more detailed and larger, making it harder to carry on trips. The info is great, so I will leave it at home to use there.

This book seems to be very comprehensive and well constructed. Good pictures. Recommend without reservations. By contrast I didn't like the NG Guide to birds only because it used illustrations which don't show subtle hues. Stokes is out-dated. A good option remains the Smithsonian Guide to birds which as a bonus provides bird recordings.

I ordered this as my first birding book. I didn't know much about them, my first impression was that this is a little thick to be a field guide. It's more of a shelf guide. But I couldn't argue that the amount of information packed into the book couldn't be any smaller. I would say it's a great guide to anyone wanting to start up birding. The thrill of identifying your first bird is quite fun.