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| Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America | 
| Author: Ted Floyd
Publisher: Collins
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $14.38
You Save: $10.57 (42%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  45 reviews
Sales Rank: 15242
Media: Paperback
Edition: Pap/DVD
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 528
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.2
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.4 x 1.4
ISBN: 0061120405
Dewey Decimal Number: 598.097
EAN: 9780061120404
ASIN: 0061120405
Publication Date: June 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Absolutely Brand New & In Stock. 100% 30-Day Money Back. Direct from our warehouse. Ships by USPS. 1+ million customers served-In business since 1986. Happy Customers is Our #1 Goal. Toll Free Support
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
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 5 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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| Customer Reviews: Read 40 more reviews...
 Exhaustive. August 21, 2008
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.
I'll be taking this one hiking with me August 19, 2008
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.
This "Holistic" Guide to Bird Identification Will Please A Lot of Amateur Birders. August 18, 2008
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.
Great book, better DVD August 18, 2008
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.
Photographs versus Illustrations August 14, 2008
Field guides to birds can be divided into two categories - those with drawn illustrations and those with photographs. I admit my preference for drawings, because I believe that they can better emphasize the distinguishing characteristics of a species than a photograph of a particular bird. On the other hand many birders prefer photographs, and it is to that group that this book will most appeal.
The different groups of birds are not listed in the same order as most guides, which has something to do with the way the American Ornithological Union lists birds. Most books follow the 7th Edition of the AOU checklist, while this book follows the order of the List of Species of the AOU. This can lead to confusion in searching through the book for a particular bird, but the user will probably become familiar with the order after a little use. The book also excludes exotic birds like the orange bishop, which some other guides include.
Descriptions vary from one-half page to a page in length, apparently depending on the variation in the bird's plumage, although the red-tailed hawk with its many morphs gets two whole pages. Where there is substantial variation, several photographs are included. There is also brief descriptive text relating to the molts of each species as well as a range map and a description of favored habitat. The print is not quite bold enough for my taste, or rather my aged eyes.
The pictures are uniformly excellent, usually revealing the most salient characteristics, and sometimes approach the level of art photography. This is by far the best of the several guides illustrated with photographs that I have seen.
Included in the back of the book is a DVD featuring 587 MP3 sound files of 138 species of birds that can be transferred to play in the field. (Apparently birds are no more able to recognize the lower quality of MP3 recordings than humans.) There is a flimsy brochure, illustrating each bird whose song is recorded, that will not last long in the field. Luckily instruction on the use of the recording is included in the main volume.
The book is a little large, being an inch wider than the National Geographic Guide. It fit into my Pajaro waist bag, but not into the cargo pockets of my field pants.
After several weeks of use, I found this book to be helpful for difficult identifications, and if a birder prefers photographs to illustrations, he owes it to himself to examine this book.
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