A number of unique choices set this one apart. At first I was somewhat irritated by the placing of broader essays on the right page next to the species descriptions on the left. Then, with long use, it became clear to me just how well that worked. It's the perfect browsing format - just right for when you go to learn more about the thing you just saw. Also, the essays are written above the individual species level, so you can start out reading about Cowbirds and end up understanding the issue of nest parasitism, and the human impact on birds that practice it, far more completely than you would if you'd read Kenn Kaufmann's individual species description. It works.

There are some formatting issues here that do puzzle me. I don't really see the virtue in ordering the birds to correspond with the order in the NGS guide. There are other guides, to begin with, and now that we're about to get a new NGS guide, even the page numbers are going to be wrong. In any case, I can't see how you'd easily flip from one book to the other unless you were reading them sequentially. Who does that?

But those are quibbles. This is a terrific book, quite useful as a complement to your field guide and very nice to just read through. It could use a face lift, but it's got a heart of gold.


A concise reference book of information on NA birds   September 21, 1998
 14 out of 14 found this review helpful

I have found this book to be a valuable source of background information on North American birds. I take it off my shelf and use it with considerable frequency. I find, however, the extensive use of symbols to be an occasional source of frustration. Until one becomes well acquainted with the meaning of the various symbols (this coincides, roughly, with the time that the book's spine starts cracking), there will be considerable time spent flipping back to the front of the book to find the meaning of the symbols used.

Probably the most valuable aspect of the book is the extensive bibiography found in the back of the book. Not only do Ehrlich, Dobkin, and Wheye give you the basic information, they point you to more detailed sources of information.

Since this book is now several years old, we can hope that a new edition--with an updated bibliography and less reliance on symbols--will soon be in the works.


A must for every birder's library.   August 21, 1997
 14 out of 14 found this review helpful

This is the book every birder needs to supplement her or his field guides. Intelligently organized and brilliantly indexed and cross-referenced it tells you concisely and in plain english what the field guides don't have room to tell you. It is also packed full of fascinating facts; for example, an oystercatcher opens bivalve shells in only one of two ways and it learns how to do this from its parents.

The left-hand pages each detail feeding, mating, nesting, habitat, conservation concerns, & much more, for a single species. As well as being described in text, basic information appears in icons at the top of the page, so you tell at a glance such things as preferred habitat, feeding patterns, breeding behavior, egg and nest appearance.

The right-hand pages contain essays which apply to more than one species (for example, bill shapes or learned feeding behaviors) or which are not species-related (for example, biographical sketches on the great ornithologists). I would buy this book just for these essays alone.

The species descriptions are in the usual AOU order and are cross-referenced to the major field guides.

This book is a joy to use and an absolute bargain.