Choosing a Bird Field Guide

For a quick look at the choices see our 'Snapshot'

My Mom and I used to have an on-going 'discussion' (read argument!) of which of our two bird guides were the best. She had grown up using the Peterson Guide (East), and then the Western version when we moved to California.  My ornithology professor assigned the Golden Guide to Birds of North America for our field book.  If my 1982 memory serves correctly, he liked having the range map and species  information on the page facing the illustration.   Those guides were just about the only two to choose from until National Geographic raised the bar with their Guide.  Now, not only do several states and regions have their own guides, but there are some nine different books and at least four different software programs (see Thayer/Cornell Lab of Ornithology for our favorite software) to choose from.  I've also heard that my ornithology professor now lets his students choose their own field guide!  We've been trying to work out a 'key' to help you find the best book, until then, here are the key questions, and the books that fit.  We've also put together a 'snapshot' table of the different features.

Photographs or Drawings?  Until Kenn Kaufman digitized the photos for his Focus Guide series, this was a fairly easy question to answer.  Most birders preferred paintings as photographs were dependent on lighting, the bird's posture, and scratches could be misinterpreted as field marks (photos are one bird, on one day, in one lighting....).  Kaufman eliminated all of those by spending over 3,000 hours working on the photos used in his guide.  David Sibley has stepped up to fill the gap left by  Roger Tory Peterson as a bird artist.  His books have the most illustrations per species of all the guides.

Area covered:  Any one living close to I-35 (Texas - Minnesota - Saskatchewan) has a harder decision to make than people who live in areas of North America that can be safely called East or West.  MOST guides that don't cover all of North America use the 100th Meridian (I-35 is pretty close to the 100th Meridian), some guides for other fauna use the Rocky Mountains, the Peterson Guide to Bird Nests uses the Mississippi River!  Sibley's new guides to Eastern and Western birds use the Rocky Mountain States, the Western book includes the Trans-Pecos area of Texas (Big Bend- El Paso), the rest of Texas is included in the Eastern Guide.  It looks like Texas is the only state that is divided between the two Sibley guides.

The advantage of dividing the guides into east and west is that you can provide more information for each species or about birding and in some cases use bigger pictures.  Some people prefer having 400 birds to sort through instead of the 700 plus in the national guides. The national guides (All the Birds, Golden, Kaufman,  National Geographic, Sibley) can go with you wherever you go, and are handy when a bird normally found on the other side of the country shows up unexpectedly in your town. 

Size  If you are only going to use the guide while you look at birds through a window at home, or in the car, size may not be that important.  If you enjoy going out on nature walks, then size may matter.  How much it matters depends on how you will carry your book, how long you'll be in the field, and even your endurance.  I spent a lot of time tucking bird books in between my T-shirt and the back of my pants (and consequently picking them up off the ground!).  Thankfully there are now several good field bags (we like the Pajaro bags)  and birding vests.  All the Birds, and the Audubon books are narrow and fit rather easily into jeans pockets (as long as you wear them loose!), the other two guides that are the most portable are the Golden and Kaufman.  Some people are put off by the size of the Sibley guide, I have some petite friends that stick their Sibley in their Pajaro Bag (even before the new Pajaro Grande bag, designed with Sibley in mind was available) and spend the day in the field, no problem.

Durability  One of the best selling points for the All the Birds was it's durability, for some reason though, they've reprinted it in a different format, so I can't vouch for it's durability.  The best books in the field are those that are flexibound (Sibley, Kaufman, the newest Petersons), they are designed so that no matter how many times you've dropped them in the water, and opened them up, the pages don't fall out.

Ease of use (tabbing, index, taxonomy), For years, those of us who haven't memorized the taxonomic order of birds (and would then be able to guess how far back in the book woodpeckers are, for example)  had to struggle with looking up birds in the index, then going to the proper page.  The Stokes were the first authors to add a quick color tab index for major groups of birds.  It's so nice to go to one page and be able to find the right section of the book for ducks, sparrows, hummingbirds, etc.  Stokes, Kaufman and All the Birds have a tabbing system.  Sibley's includes a Quick Index.

A second helpful feature is pointing out field marks, special things to look for that help you distinguish one bird from another that looks very similar.  For several years, these could only be found in the Peterson guides. These are now included in the Sibley and Kaufman guides.

Esthetics   This where it really gets personal!  Do you want to see the birds pictured in their habitat (All the Birds does this the best) or do you want a plain background.  If you want a plain background, then you can choose white (National Geo, Sibley), or colored (Kaufman, Peterson).

How do you decide?  When we see people at shows, we tell them to choose the book they like the look and feel of.  If they get serious about birding, all the people in their lives who give them gifts, will love having the opportunity to help build up their birding library!

Our Challenge to You.  Ideally, we'd all leave our field guides at home, and hit the outdoors with a pencil and pocket notebook.  When we see a new bird, butterfly, tree etc., we'd spend the time watching it and then make notes and/or sketches.  That way, we wouldn't miss another bird, or another opportunity to see it do something, while struggling with identification.  If we'd all do this in the field, then the size of the field guide really wouldn't matter.  This means studying the field guide when you are at home, and getting familiar with field marks that require special attention.

Bird Guide Snapshot