Customer Reviews

Peterson Field Guide: Eastern Birds' Nests

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a highly recommended book for identifying bird's nests. It's amazing to see all the different types of nests that birds make. These creatures have true workmanship. It must have been a great challenge for the photographer(s) to find and photograph all the different nests throughout this fascinating book. You don't see many books out there on the market like this, so I recommend it.

This book has information which to my knowledge cannot be found anywhere else. The photographs of nests and eggs must be seen to be appreciated. It is not difficult to identify a bird on the basis of its nest or egg using this book.

I was giving a class on monitoring bluebird boxes and I needed to show people the nests of predators and other birds that use the bluebird boxes. I wanted people to be able to see the difference between the nests built by bluebirds as compared to house sparrows, for instance. Also, I needed to show the different colors of eggs.

This book was absolutely essential for this. Once examining the photos in the book and reading the text, people were easily able to identify the different kinds of nests that had been built in the boxes we were monitoring.

I discovered this book while doing coursework at a teacher institute in northern Wisconsin. Like many amateur naturalists, finding an egg that has fallen from a nest is a momentous event, but I wasn't always sure of the bird that laid that egg. While I still might need to actually connect the actual bird with the egg visually, this guide goes a long way toward narrowing my choices.

A list of characteristics, such as oval, long and short pyriform shape, is clearly illustrated in a chart on the endpaper, accompanied by a ruler for measuring in the field. Most incredible to me are the photographs of bird nests in site containing typical egg clutches. Anyone who is a birder knows that these nests are very often difficult to access, as high as 80 feet up a tree! For the photographers to have not only located, but photographed, all these nests is nothing short of remarkable--and helpful. Detailed descriptions accompany the photos. The book is arranged in taxonomic order, making it easy for those of us used to this arrangement.

The average birdwatcher will probably be happy with a basic field guide to identify birds by sight. For those of us who always need "just one more field guide," this guide to nests is a unique addition to that ever-growing library.

We used this book as part of a homeschool/4H project to identify nests that we had found on our property. Using the detailed nest descriptions, photographs of the nests, and sketches of the birds (along with our pocket guide to Wisconsin birds) we had a great time identifying our nest collection. The book's organization makes it easy to narrow down the identification possibilities.

This little book is enormously helpful in identifying birds' nests and eggs. It is an easy read and very informative. Would recommend to all who are interested in birds and birding.

This is a nice guide, with full color photos of the nests & eggs of most species. Small enough to fit in your pocket.

I don't like that the photos are always from above the nest - my experiences are almost NEVER from that angle and so it really limits how helpful the pictures are.

This book is great for those who need to be able to identify bird nests as part of their job, or for those who have been birding for awhile and are ready for an extra challenge. The large, full color photographs are essential for identifying nests in the field, and the information provided on each bird's nesting habits is very helpful in narrowing down your choices. The only thing it is missing is some sort of key for quick access to various bird/nest classifications. This is definitely a book for those who already are familiar with the birds of their area!

Cheers, and happy birding!

This book is one-of-a-kind! It is an excellent resource for identifying eggs, bird nests and the surrounding habitat. It is not all inclusive; while it has pictures of most bird nests/eggs, some are only included with descriptions, some not at all. But, I've never seen anything that covered this area of birding, as extensively, as this book does. I would be lost without it! Would recommend to all bird lovers!

"Eastern Birds Nests" by Hal H. Harrison (Peterson Field Guides) is a very, very good field guide... and that is exactly what it is intended to be. Besides good photography and straight-forward descriptions this guide contains concise "Notes" segments in each entry that add a LOT of good information/observation for the reader. It is not a textbook. It is for the thirty or forty million people who want very valuable, applicable working knowledge and prefer to spend five hours a week in the field rather than in a classroom.