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Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America
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List Price: $24.95
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Manufacturer: Collins
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 598.097
EAN: 9780061120404
ISBN: 0061120405
Label: Collins
Manufacturer: Collins
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 528
Publication Date: 2008-06-01
Publisher: Collins
Release Date: 2008-05-27
Studio: Collins
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Editorial Reviews:
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This new field guide provides a suite of modern tools to effectively aid in the identification of more than 750 species of birds across North America. It introduces a "whole bird" approach by concisely gathering a collection of information about birds into one portable and well-organized volume. - 2,000 stunning color photographs of birds in natural habitats show the most important field marks, regional population differences, life stages, and behaviors
- 700-plus detailed and up-to-date color range maps show summer, migration, winter, year-round, and rare but regular occurrences of every major species
- A DVD of birdsongs for 138 major species (587 vocalizations in all for 5½ hours of play); each high-quality MP3 file is embedded with an image of the bird, perfect to view on home computers and portable MP3 players
- Concise descriptions of habits and ecology, age-related and seasonal differences, regional forms, vocalization, and informative captions pointing out the most important aspects of the bird
- 46 group essays with information outlining taxonomy, feeding, migration, habitats, behaviors, and conservation status
- A thorough and accessible introduction to birds and birding includes sections on parts of a bird, plumage and molt, food and feeding, migration, habitats, conservation, tips on bow to become a better birder, and more
- A detailed glossary of terms, species checklist, and quick index
The new Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America is perfectly designed to give birders the most powerful and user-friendly collection of information to carry into the field or wherever they enjoy learning about birds and nature. A Look (and Listen) Inside the Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America
Click on an image below to sample one of the 587 different downloadable bird songs included with the guide.  |  |  | | American Wigeon | Common Loon | Mallard |  |  |  | | Red-Winged Blackbird | Mourning Dove | Northern Cardinal |
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Probably the best Photographic, General Field Guide for North America
Comment: Ok, I do think it is best in class (a narrowly defined class) but not the best general field guide out there. That bar still stands at The Sibley Guide to Birds which has painted illustrations rather than photographs that tend to work better for portraying idealized birds and page layout.
But this guide does stand heads and shoulders above the old Audobon Bird Guide: Eastern Land Birds in photo quality as well as layout. Audobon's original attempt really showed just how hard it is to identify birds from photographs due to changes in lighting and feather contours (see kinglet images.) This was improved upon greatly with Kaufman Field Guide to Birds of North America Kaufman reattempted a photographic field guide by using a lot of retouching and computer work to make more idealized photographs and was easily the best until this book.
This book succeeds in the most part because the pool of available high quality photographs is much larger than it was when the Audobon series came out. Each species is well represented with striking images. You can never have too many reference books when trying to make a difficult identification and this would augment the Sibley guide very well. However we are still talking about three images to identify a Thayers Gull, where sibley can dedicate 6 or more to a gull species. Also there are family specific guides out there like Gulls: Guide to Identification, The Shorebird Guide, A Photographic Guide to North American Raptors which this book cannot compete with, however it is surprisingly decent for covering these families.
Pros
Great high quality pictures
General design puts all information for a species on one page
Good species coverage
DVD of bird songs is a nice bonus (see caveats below)
Good additional reference for field identification
Size decent (approx the size of Sibley's, but does not fit in pocket)
High Quality construction
Cons
Photos make page design seem a little cluttered
Species information is pretty brief
range maps small somewhat confusing, somewhat optimistic in ranges.
DVD has limited species
Notes on the DVD
Much like this book in general, I would never pass on getting another reference, especially if it is kind of a bonus DVD of bird calls. But I was a little disappointed to find out that the 587 birds songs listed on the front was not 587 species, but only 587 clips of 138 major species. And it is a little strange what species they chose. It appears that they chose the most common species you would find in your backyard. This seems less helpful than choosing confusing sound alike species, or species that are most likely located by calls. It is odd that they don't cover all the epidonax flycatchers which are ID'ed by calls, or the call of the yellow billed cuckoo without the black billed. If you were hoping to learn bird calls from this DVD, think about getting Birding by Ear: Eastern and Central North America (Peterson Field Guides(R)) or Stokes Field Guide to Bird Songs: Eastern Region (Stokes Field Guide to Bird Songs) for a more complete species list.
All in all, if you are getting one field guide get The Sibley Guide to Birds, if you are getting just two, get this for your second, or if you are like me get this for your 23rd. It is a good but not perfect guide.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Exhaustive.
Comment: I grabbed this one on a whim, being a bird lover. And yep, every North American bird is in here. It's fascinating, the variety and breadth.
Of course, when you're cataloging so much, you trade being able to go into depth on anything particular, so, while this provides a huge overview, books on specific areas are a must if you're primarily interested in the birds in your own area or in an area you might be traveling to. And if these same people offer such books, I would be interested to see them and would assume they'd be of similarly high quality.
Also, just to note, Hawai'i (not being part of North America) is not included in this volume.
Customer Rating:
Summary: I'll be taking this one hiking with me
Comment: This will be an excellent companion when I'm out hiking in the Columbia River Gorge. The book features all the species of bird found in North America (including some I'd never heard of). Each entry features three to five clear, full-color pictures of the species discussed, usually with variants in plumage shown for identification purposes. Written information about the size and shape of each bird, its seasonal ranges, and basic habits adds just enough information to clarify positive I.D. While further research should be done to find out more about the species identified, this is an excellent text out in the field.
Customer Rating:
Summary: This "Holistic" Guide to Bird Identification Will Please A Lot of Amateur Birders.
Comment: This "Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America" was written by "Birding" magazine editor Ted Floyd to incorporate a "holistic" approach to bird identification that includes behavioral, ecological, and morphological aspects, not just field marks. The result is a guide in which the field marks are not as clearly illustrated as they are in a Peterson guide but which presents other useful information alongside the classic identifying features, including a DVD of 587 bird calls that can be transferred to your computer and portable audio devices. The guide covers 730 species which occur in North America north of Mexico and up to 200 miles from shore. Birds are divided into 46 groups of related species, each with an introductory essay. The American Bird Association code indicating the frequency of occurrence is provided for each group and each species.
There is a substantial introduction that will help the reader understand the book's philosophy and format. It explains the types of information given for each bird, provides overviews of bird habitat and behavior, and provides illustrations of bird anatomy and terms that may be referred to in the guide. Progressing to the field guide, each group of birds in clearly designated by a colorful band at the top of each page containing the group's common name (e.g. waterfowl, hawks and falcons, jays and crows, thrushes, sparrows and allies) along with the scientific name of that group's order. This makes it easy to locate the part of the book that will contain the species you want. There is also a good index of both common and scientific names at the back of the book.
For each species, there are 1-5 photographs. My other field guides have drawings, which I have always liked for identification purposes, but photos of what the birds really look like, not an idealized version, has advantages as well. There are 2000 photos, most very good. They illustrate the species in different plumage, in flight, male and female, and sometimes unique behaviors. It is generally more difficult to see identifying marks in a photo than in a drawing, but the field marks are explained in the captions. Other information included for each species are: length, wingspan, weight, number and type of molts per year, sex/age/seasonal differences, habitat, vocalizations, a range map, and often some comment on behavior. The range maps are small; you may not be able to see clearly if a bird occurs in your area. If there is audio available on the Birdsong DVD, it is indicated by a symbol.
Consistent with the holistic approach to bird identification, this is also a guide to the sounds of North American birds. The included Birdsong DVD features 587 calls from 138 species, 1-8 calls per species, in MP3 format. It's nice to have multiple calls or songs for a single species. When there is only one call available, it never seems to be the one the bird is making. Samples are typically 30-40 seconds. You can import them into iTunes, WMP, or other MP3 software, and from there into a portable audio device. This works, but it's inconvenient to clutter my iTunes with 587 calls (1 gigabyte of data) that will not be grouped together in my music library. They're not grouped together, because both the artist and album name are the bird species' name. I think that must be an error. The album name should be "Birdsong DVD". To alleviate the clutter, I suggest only uploading the files for species found in your area. A picture of each bird shows up as "album art", which is also downloadable to your portable device.
I am enjoying the "Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America" quite a bit. I don't know if this is the best or easiest way to identify birds. I'm accustomed to looking for field marks. The "best" way may depend upon circumstances and personal preference. But this guide is a complement to my other field guides and a worthy addition to my library. It addresses multiple aspects of what distinguishes birds from one another, I like the photographs, the organization is uncommonly good. It is a little big to carry into the field at 6 x 8 x 1.25 inches (15 x 20.5 x 3.5 cm) but no bigger than necessary to hold the information. I think that novice to intermediate birders of all ages, including backyard birders, will like this field guide a lot.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great book, better DVD
Comment: This field guide both excels in many ways and is pretty typical in others. The bird photographs are excellent and the book well organized. For each bird the author includes average length, weight, and wingspan as well as various notes on habitat, habits and other help for identifying the bird. Of course there is an extensive index as well as introductory information for each section to help in classifying.
If your goal is to identify birds, then I personally still prefer the Sibley Field Guide to Birds even though it contains illustrations and not photographs. It provides more information on flight patterns and more illustrations of birds at different stages and angles.
But, I did say at the beginning that there are ways in which this book excels. The greatest way it excels is the phenomenal DVD of bird calls. Most birding books do not come with CDs and you end up trying to look them up on the Internet if you are interested. This DVD has several different calls - common, variations, mating, immature, songs, cries, and other sounds as appropriate. This is the most extensive collection of bird sounds that I have ever come across and that makes it worth the price of the book by itself. The Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America is highly recommended and especially so for those who want a great collection of bird sounds to help learn to identify local birds.
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