Field Guide to the Birds of North America

The Publisher’s View:

Field Guide to the Birds of North America is a complete, compact and user-friendly guide to all the birds of the USA and Canada (excluding Hawaii). Drawing on years of guiding experience, the book is perfectly designed for use in the field.

Pocket-sized and at just 372 pages, it covers 1,100 species – more than any other guide to North America – and includes over 6,000 illustrations. Distribution ranges of all native birds are mapped, and many confusing subspecies are included for the first time in a field guide for the region. The book gives special attention to the key differences between troublesome species, with comparisons to help the reader get to the right identification.

Compact and comprehensive, this new field guide includes:

– Colour-coded maps showing resident and seasonal distributions to help plan which birds to expect when and where.

– ‘What’s the difference?’ information boxes providing easy guidance on the most challenging species to identify.

– Conservation and abundance status, with subspecies separately mapped.

– Current taxonomic order and up-to-date common names.

The clearly labelled illustrations detail plumage variations by sex, age and colour morphs. Birds are illustrated in flight, in profile and in typical habitats. Concise descriptive captions highlight the most important field identification signs, including habitat, nesting and feeding behaviour. Calls are described for every species. Written and illustrated by a professional birding guide with decades of experience, Field Guide to the Birds of North America is a must-have book for birders of all ages and any level of experience.

The Author: Miles McMullan was born in Belfast in 1967. He studied Art and Design at University of Ulster, and Humanities at Trinity College, Dublin. He has lived most of his life in the American tropics, working as a bird guide and naturalist. Titles that he has written and illustrated include Field Guide of the Birds of Colombia, Fieldbook of the Birds of Ecuador, Field Guide to the Hummingbirds and Field Guide to the Galapagos Islands, as well as over 30 other regional guides.

Fatbirder View:

When I first visited Australia, I had a bewildering choice of fieldguides… every one of them fit for purpose, accurate, comprehensive and lovely to behold. One I rejected just on size, I used it a lot on my return to check distribution maps and subtle distinctions. I could easily have taken any one of three other guides. I ended up with the one which was most recently published. I was very happy with my choice and, although it dated, I took it with me on later visits. It had a flexible cover which kept it in good shape nice layout etc., etc., but, to be honest, any one of the others would have done.

I’m not about to jet off to the states but, if I did, it would probably be with the Sibley guide. It was ground-breaking when first published, but other guides caught up. Nothing wrong with Peterson et al. All are good, all help- ID, show where you are likely to see what, etc., etc. The styles are different and there’s the thing. Whether you wear a green polo-shirt or a checked lumberjack outfit is more about your style than it is about the job they do. Both keep you warm and are a barrier to mossies and so forth. Maybe you prefer your arms covered or hope for a tan, but both do the job.

I’d still choose Sibley, but would not be unhappy if this new guide was substituted. The print is a bit small; for my aging eyes and the pages a little cluttered, but it does the job. It’s as compact as you can get a fieldguide that covers all of N America (Sibley did well to split it east-west in two slimmer volumes.) That makes this a tad heavy for the pocket, but not prohibitively so.

Most of the illustrations, small as they are, are finely drawn and attractive. There are a few exceptions, for example the scrub jays look like they just flew through a shower and haven’t quite dried out. I’ve had a Florida Scrub Jay eating out of my hand and up close they are smooth feathered beauties.

It’s an ID guide for the field… it exists to help you identify what you see and it does that job well. It doesn’t try to teach you all there is to know about a species or genera, which is a compliment, by the way. Take the empids, for example. It gives the great advice that song is diagnostic and everything else tough. I know how true that is. Apparently, I’ve seen Alder Flycatcher and Willow Flycatcher, almost side by side during migration in Texas. My tin-ear didn’t help… and swinging the bins from one to the other helped very little either. My expert guide pointed out that the eye-rings were different… I took his word. This guide shows the salient features separate from the species accounts and clues you into what to look for in each.

That’s what makes this fieldguide a great addition to the North American shelf. Its compact and comprehensive and doesn’t try to be anything other than it is and that makes it birder-friendly.

Buy this book from NHBS

Fatbirder