The Birder's Handbook: A Field Guide to the Natural History of North American Birds (Paperback)

~ (Author), David S. Dobkin (Author), Darryl Wheye (Author) "BREEDING: n lakes, ponds. 1 brood..." (more)
Key Phrases: small verts, aquatic inverts, selfish colony, Blue List, North American, Decline of Eastern Songbirds (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Compact and yet filled with information, this portable encyclopedia of North American bird behavior is a complement to field guides. Learn more about the species you see in the field, and--when in doubt--use this handy reference as another tool for identification.

Review

Thomas E. Lovejoy Smithsonian Institution Anyone who owns a field guide to the identification of North American birds will want The Birder's Handbook as a companion volume. -- Review

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Product Details

• Paperback: 785 pages
• Publisher: Fireside (June 15, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671659898
• ISBN-13: 978-0671659899
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #89,991 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Treasure Trove - and the map is appropriately cryptic, April 26, 1999

By	I. Westray (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book isn't as immediately appealing as some of its competition, and its organizational scheme, and heavy use of symbols, can put you off. Use it for a week, though. I agree with another review in being mildly frustrated with its excessive use of symbols, often when a tiny printed word would have done the same work. But it's indispensible, and I'd recommend it to everyone.

A number of unique choices set this one apart. At first I was somewhat irritated by the placing of broader essays on the right page next to the species descriptions on the left. Then, with long use, it became clear to me just how well that worked. It's the perfect browsing format - just right for when you go to learn more about the thing you just saw. Also, the essays are written above the individual species level, so you can start out reading about Cowbirds and end up understanding the issue of nest parasitism, and the human impact on birds that practice it, far more completely than you would if you'd read Kenn Kaufmann's individual species description. It works.

There are some formatting issues here that do puzzle me. I don't really see the virtue in ordering the birds to correspond with the order in the NGS guide. There are other guides, to begin with, and now that we're about to get a new NGS guide, even the page numbers are going to be wrong. In any case, I can't see how you'd easily flip from one book to the other unless you were reading them sequentially. Who does that?

But those are quibbles. This is a terrific book, quite useful as a complement to your field guide and very nice to just read through. It could use a face lift, but it's got a heart of gold.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An essential bird watcher's guide., July 3, 2000

By	Jerry Mcallister (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

When I'm not on the trading floor, I spend my free time watching birds. I would say that it wasn't until I picked up this essential birder's guide that I became an experienced and knowledgeable birder. This book increased my ability to identify birds, thus making bird watching infinitely more enjoyable. Since purchasing the Birder's Handbook, my weekend hobby has blossomed into an intense love for birds. I highly reccommend this to anyone with any level of interest in birding.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must for every birder's library., August 21, 1997

By	[e-mail] (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews

This is the book every birder needs to supplement her or his field guides. Intelligently organized and brilliantly indexed and cross-referenced it tells you concisely and in plain english what the field guides don't have room to tell you. It is also packed full of fascinating facts; for example, an oystercatcher opens bivalve shells in only one of two ways and it learns how to do this from its parents.

The left-hand pages each detail feeding, mating, nesting, habitat, conservation concerns, & much more, for a single species. As well as being described in text, basic information appears in icons at the top of the page, so you tell at a glance such things as preferred habitat, feeding patterns, breeding behavior, egg and nest appearance.

The right-hand pages contain essays which apply to more than one species (for example, bill shapes or learned feeding behaviors) or which are not species-related (for example, biographical sketches on the great ornithologists). I would buy this book just for these essays alone.

The species descriptions are in the usual AOU order and are cross-referenced to the major field guides.

This book is a joy to use and an absolute bargain.