Field guide books for bird watching

This page will provide you with many choices of the most invaluable tool after binoculars - the field guide to identifying birds. A good guide will be small enough to fit in your pocket for quick and easy use and also give you accurate and useful photographs and location data. You will need information on the range of birds and the habitat and annual movements of species to aid you with identification. Often you will be confused by a bird's appearance (called "field marks") and will want to see if it even occurs in your location and the guide will direct you to region and habitat type. A good guide is a great deal more than just pictures of birds.



On the other hand, there are well over a thousand field guides written. Some cover regions as large as North America and some are restricted to certain states. Select "Books" and enter "bird field guides into the search window and click "go".

These are my own personal notes regarding field guides. It is quite possible that you will find your own preferences and can simply ignore mine.

A. Size: A good guide must fit into your pocket or carrying device such as a fanny pack. You will not want to be carrying it in your hand when you want to use the binoculars.

B. Organization: My background is from the academic side of bird watching and I appreciate a book that is arranged in phylogenic (evolutionary) order.

C. Clear images: I like large, sharp images - photos are often not as good as artist renderings which are drawn from photos and museum specimens.

D. Textual descriptions: Word descriptions can help you pick up slight discrepancies between your bird and the image on the page.

E. Distribution information: It really helps to know if the bird on the page is even likely to be found in your region and in your habitat. There are many examples of look-alike birds that do not coexist.