It has been my unfortunate experience that there is no "perfect field guide" out there, but this one comes close. I really like the concise, but extremely helpful, text describing each bird species. For example, Kaufman notes that the American Kestrel "often hovers in one spot on rapidly beating wings" and the Merlin is "A compact, dashing falcon, very fast and direct in flight." I saw a small falcon at a distance and noticed it was hovering over the ground with fluttering wingbeats and would periodically dive to the ground to try to catch its prey. Kaufman concisely matched me up with the bird, and I didn't have to look any closer for field marks. Obviously an expert wouldn't need this sort of information, but I find that Kaufman offers enough of this insight to help a beginning birder make tougher IDs than would be possible on just field marks.
Another part of the guide that I find very helpful is Kaufman's verbalizations of bird songs and calls. For some reason, I really struggle trying to "picture" Sibley's bird calls, but I find that I can often use Kaufman's to help match a bird to its voice. I used this feature in making the final decision on whether I was seeing a Western or a Cassin's Kingbird.
Although other people have complained about it, I like how Kaufman organizes this guide on the superficial appearance of birds instead of their genetic relationships. This means that coots are next to the waterfowl, and swifts are next to swallows. I can understand how someone who is used to the other organization method would find this annoying, but I find this more straightforward. It certainly minimizes the number of trips to the index; I can just page through the first part of the book if I'm looking for a water bird, etc.
Finally, the range maps in this guide are the best I have seen. Instead of just showing a bird's summer, winter, and migratory range, Kaufman has two shades of color for each range so that one can make a rough estimate at how frequently a bird is found at a location at a given time of year. The Sibley field guides, for example, only show "summer, winter, migratory, and rare" and one is left to make a guess at what time of year one might find the rare birds.
For all its benefits, I mentioned at the beginning of the review that this guide is not-quite-perfect. My one complaint is that I have found it difficult to make bird IDs on a lot of the photographs in the book. The photographs for Brown-capped Rosy-Finches make it difficult to see how this bird is different from the other Rosy-Finches. The photos of Swifts and Swallows in flight are mostly blurry and/or have bad lighting, which in my mind renders them useless (and there is no underwing photo of a Barn Swallow!). Many of the fly catchers look essentially identical (even more identical than they are in reality), and the photos really don't seem to exaggerate any of the differentiating features enough to make one able to use them for an ID. Even Say's Phoebe barely shows anything of a ruddy belly in the pictures; compare this to the unmistakable picture in Sibley and you'll see what I'm saying. In addition, the glossy paper which is necessary to print good photos makes it hard to see in sunlight, so an already difficult picture becomes even worse.
The last point is a major drawback to what would be an awesome all-around field guide, but it is perhaps partially redeemed by all the other strong points in the guide. For example, the text for Say's Phoebe emphasizes that the "orange-buff" belly is a distinguishing feature.
The result of this is that I have a dilemma each time I go birding as to which field guide to bring with me: Sibley West or Kaufmann. For someone who wants the finest illustrations for visually identifying a bird, Sibley is the clear (no pun intended) answer. But Kaufman has so much else to recommend it that this really is too close to call. Perhaps someday a genius will pair the illustrations of Sibley with the text and maps of Kaufman, and then we really will have the perfect field guide.
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