Bird watchers - please recommend a good book on birds for me to give my sister

[XR2]

I have a 20+ year old version of this and love it.

[slowSSer]

I have a 20+ year old version of this and love it.

yes! the red book! always a good choice.

[j44ke]

I would get her the Sibley Guide for sure, and if she isn't carrying the bird book with her, get the full version, not just the east or west version. You wouldn't believe how many amateur birdwatchers best the pros by finding something rare for their area like a Harris Sparrow at their feeders because they have all the US birds in their book.

I'd also suggest the Crossley Guide. It is valuable because it uses photographs and it shows birds in behavioral poses. With the Sibley, the Crossley makes a nice 1-2.

[j44ke]

There is a relatively new app from Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology that your sister might like, called eBird. This is essentially Strava for birdwatchers. You use the app to tabulate the types and numbers of species you have seen, and then you can upload that data to Cornell's eBird site and look at what everyone else has seen, organized by city, region, state, country, etc. There are jokes about eBird jams, where suddenly a number of birdwatchers appear at a certain spot all at the same time because of a rare sighting posted to eBird. Suddenly a parking lot at a pond that is usually empty of cars becomes a jumble of Priuses, telescopes, hiking pants, and sunscreen while everyone waits for the reef heron to reappear. I use eBird to keep track of birds seen in Amagansett while I am in the city. And vice versa. For a birdwatcher, it can become almost as obsessive as say a cyclist and a favorite cycling web forum.

[rwsaunders]

This bad boy and his mate (Flickers) have been terrorizing our feeders this Winter; primarily the suet. When they come around, the other birds step to the side until they have finished eating.

[j44ke]

I've taken Flickers out of a mist net at a birdbanding station, and I can vouch their beaks as a stabbing tool. However, they also have this crazy long tongue (for finding/eating ants) that actually wraps around the back of their skull like a measuring tape. The first thing they do after getting caught in the net is stick their tongue out. As a result, you have to first untangle their tongue and then the bird.

[monadnocky]

I used to work at a wildlife rehabilitation clinic, and the only animals that really scared me were squirrels, great blue herons, and flickers. We wore goggles for the GBHs and the flickers for a reason. They go for the eyes... curiously, raptors really don't. Except for eagles. eagles do.
And the squirrels? Laugh all you want, but being bitten by a squirrel is an experience you will never forget. And their skin is like leather- 21 ga needles just bounce off. I still fear those lil' bastards, and shudder when I see the old men in the park feeding them. They are hateful.*

Jorn... I can't remember who it was here on VSalon... was it your old man who worked for the Cornell Ornithological Labs? Or was this someone else?


*the squirrels. Not the old men. Although they might be hateful as well, what do I know?