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| National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds, Western Region | 
| Author: Miklos D. F. Udvardy
Creator: Jr. John Farrand
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy Used: $0.63
You Save: $19.32 (97%)
New (42) Collectible (1) from $10.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 59527
Media: Turtleback
Edition: Revised
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 822
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 4.3 x 1.3
ISBN: 0679428518
Dewey Decimal Number: 598.297
EAN: 9780679428510
ASIN: 0679428518
Publication Date: August 1994
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: May have some marks or highlights.
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| Customer Reviews:
 an overall decent field guide May 30, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
As a general all round guide, this book is helpful and has a place in any naturalists library. The color plates are the best of all the bird guides.
The index cross-references the color plates with the descriptions making it pretty staightforward. The cover is a durable leatherette, the binding pretty good (although the color plates will loosen up with use). The Audubon guides are definitely a step up from the Peterson and Stokes guides.
Now for the criticisms. The descriptions are far too brief and vague. An example: for the Cooper's Hawk, the voice description is:
"A rapid series:kek kek kek kek kek". Mmmm . . . Doesn't help much . . .
The summary is also 3 sentences long . . . c'mon, did the editors get tired here or what?
The descriptions throughout are not much more detailed than this, especially the voice descriptions. And trying to print out the phonetics/sound of a birdsong has always seemed pretty futile to me anyway; the most effective way of learning the signature of a bird's song is to listen to a recording.
Except for overhead photos of most of the raptors, there are almost no flying photos of all the other birds. I think this could be a much needed additon to any future editions. Feather identification is a big part of birding.
All in all though, this is the first guide I turn to when I need to know.
Extracts: A Field Guide for Iconoclasts
 Best Bird book on the market January 13, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
My wife and I have been using the Easten Region Field Guide for years and found it to be the best. We recently moved to the western area and quickly realized that we needed the Western Edition. A great book for birders.
National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds: Western Region - Revised Edition (National Audubon Society Field G January 11, 2007
Very good graphics and copy. Durable too.
 Western Audubon Guide November 10, 2006
A good book to take with you because of it's size but, to me, the photos of the birds are lacking. Although they do accurately display the bird they are lacking in detail and often, to us, don't show alternate views for better comparison and easier indentification.
 species misidentified January 3, 2006
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
I regret that I cannot recommend this book because it contains easily caught errors.
I suppose that misinformation in the text is not so important. Still, on p. 21 the book claims that "Every bird has a scientific name consisting of two Greek or Latin words." The author of this book, Prof. M. Udvardy, was a respected ornithologist who would never make such a mistake, so either it happened in the revision by J. Farrand or is due to an ignorant copy editor.
Much, much worse is the misidentification of photos, which of course is the heart of this field guide. For example, photo #172 purports to be a Pacific Loon in winter plumage, but as any birder worth his/her salt can see, this is clearly a Common Loon. Likewise, photo #175 is labeled Common Loon, and the bird shown is clearly not of this species.
A field guide should be 100% accurate in species identifications and also not promulgate misinformation about scientific nomenclature. With many alternatives on the market, this is a book not to buy.
--Jack P. Hailman (Fellow, American Ornithologists' Union and President, Florida Ornithological Society).
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