Customer Reviews

Shorebirds: An Identification Guide to the Waders of the World

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Make a plate-by-plate comparison of the new Waterfowl or Shorebirds guides with the original hardcover editions and you'll see that the sofcover illustrations look like cheap color photocopies. All of the subtlety and detail that made the originals the best field guides of their kind has been lost. Save your money for the used bookstores.

I have purchased this book some five years back in a local book exhibition. Text is accurate especially for one who is interested in bird hunting. But the real feast is the breathtaking illustrstions made by the single artist himself. His painstaking artwork for each species, male&female, juvenile upperwings, lower wings are really fine. Only minus aspect is if the book would have been little bigger the illustrations would have also become bigger.

This book covers all of the shorebirds of the world with 1700 full-color paintings. There are lots of general tips on identifying shorebirds, and each bird is covered extensively. When I first picked up the book at an ABA Teen Birder convention in Colorado, a birder near me said "You have to buy that! Look at the Dunlin page!" Well, the Dunlin page is indeed a good example of this guide's excellence! There are 28 paintings on the page covering the different plumages of the bird and how it looks in flight and from different positions. The text on the adjacent page gives brief descriptions of the bird in each of those plumages and a world range map. It also redirects you to the all-text section of the book that has extensive information on identification, voice, habits, moments, description, age/sex, races, and measurements of the bird. I definitely recommend this book to any birder interested in the identification of shorebirds!

I have purchased this book some five years back in a local book exhibition. Text is accurate especially for one who is interested in bird hunting. But the real feast is the breathtaking illustrations made by the single artist himself. His painstaking artwork for each species,male&female, juvenile upperwings, lower wings are really fine. Only minus aspect is if the book would have been little bigger the illustrations would have also become bigger.

This amazing guide sets the standards for shorebird identification guides.
Beautifully illustrated, over 1700 birds, depicting all 214 of the world's species of these magnificent waders on 88 color plate.
This book revolutionizes the way we identify the birds. The 2nd book in a series of 3. The 1st is Seabirds and the 3rd is waterfowl, both hailed as the best identification guides.
This book makes a great addition to any birder's library and is a great book for those long shore trips.

In 1986 when this came out I'm sure a huge sigh of relief was heard by all the birders puzzling over a drab looking "peep" moving along a shoreline. I purchased this book 20 years later after struggling over migrating shorebirds near my home. This was recommended by someone and I've never been unhappy since. I still go back to this book over the other shorebird guides I have. This book covers 214 species of "Shorebirds", though some are not very maritime, from Plovers to Jacanas to Oystercatchers and Seedsnipes, the gamut of shorebirds is covered in great detail with very good plates showing many plumages and flight shots. There are a couple of comparison plates for the tricky "peeps". Species accounts cover identification, voice, habits, movements, description, age/sex, races, measurements and references. Each of the plates is faced with a page with range maps and brief descriptions of each of the species images. There are also nine pages at the end with written comparisons for tricky species like Stilts, Golden Plovers, Sandplovers, snipes, stints and Dowitchers. This is still regarded by many as THE book to go to for shorebirds and I'm sure that will continue to be so for many years to come.

I was told this book was out of print and would cost about $200 dollars when the next printing was done. The fact that I could find one now and at a fraction of the cost makes me a happy birder.