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

[Mabouya]

Anyone out there into bird-watching?

My sister (who lives a bit NE of Portland, ME) enjoys checking out the birds in her back yard, and my mother and I figure she might like a semi-serious book on birds / birdwatching. Any ideas are welcome.

(I already gave her some pretty nice binoculars for X-mas, so that's covered, at least for now.)

TIA

[Nierman]

I'm a sucker for illustrations - so the pocket field guides (like Peterson's) are very nice.

[alexstar]

+1 Peterson field guide. I also like the Sibley guide, of which there are regional variations as well.

[guido]

The Sibley is pretty much the gold standard. They now have an app version that runs on android (and probably ios) that has most of the virtues of the book form plus the ability to play the songs/calls of the birds as well...

[Tom]

Those apps are great. Karen and I were sitting on the front porch trying to decide who built that hut like nest in the hanging basket of impatiens out front. We thought we might be out of the range but that little loud guy had to be one, and when I played the app on my phone he promptly attacked. I took that as confirmation.

Sometimes when I'm feeling homesick I play the hermit thrush app.

[Mabouya]

Thanks guys - I'll check out the Peterson and the Sibley.

[SpeedyChix]

Besides the binocs and guide, we also make use of an app, iBird Pro.

[11.4]

Does she already have a bird identification guide? If so, a second one may be redundant or something she won't really like because she favored a different style of book. However, Sibley has a general guide to birding -- Sibley's Birding Basics -- that's not so much species identification as ornithology, bird behaviors, genetics, migration, and all kinds of other information about birds and how to appreciate them. There are books about techniques to identify birds -- Kaufman's Field Guide to Advanced Birding (not really advanced despite the title), Peterson's Birding by Impression, National Geographic Birding Essentials, etc. -- that are intros to the big guides but make them more than a reference book and actually a tool. Without the info in these technique books, the big guides are like reading a dictionary because one doesn't really know how to differentiate similar birds or what the relevance is. Also, she is in a good place to get north Atlantic seabirds and also many raptors that migrate through, and there are guides focused on raptors and Atlantic seabirds so they are a little more topical to her location. I don't usually recommend books on birds in specific areas because birds move around and the books inevitably don't cover the most interesting cases. Maine doesn't have particularly amazing birding locations like Texas or New Jersey does, so a state location guide may not be that interesting; plus you said they were interested in their own back yard.

Have you considered, by the way, going to wildbirdsunlimited.com and getting them a nice suet feeder or something like that? It'll attract a lot more birds and bring them closer.

[CallMeJay]

Sibley.

[Mabouya]

Ordered these two for her:

[Mark Walberg]

Anyone out there into bird-watching?

My sister (who lives a bit NE of Portland, ME) enjoys checking out the birds in her back yard, and my mother and I figure she might like a semi-serious book on birds / birdwatching. Any ideas are welcome.

(I already gave her some pretty nice binoculars for X-mas, so that's covered, at least for now.)

TIA

Fastest Things on Wings: Rescuing Hummingbirds in Hollywood by Terry Masear

[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?

[j44ke]

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?

More of a consultant I guess. Or a pair of knowledgeable eyes. He was one of the birdwatchers called in for the Cornell expedition in Louisiana to try to establish whether or not there were actually Ivory-billed Woodpeckers down there. He spent several weeks in a canoe with his fingers crossed but no luck.

Side note: Birdwatchers are kind of excited about the normalization of relations between the US and Cuba, because it may mean that a team of ornithologists will be able to join the Cuban Museum of Natural History (think that's the title) in a search of the southeastern mountains for the Cuban Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principals bairdii) which is also thought to be extinct. The Cuban government has kept these mountains totally off limits for years, except for the military. However, firewood poachers have told some of the Cuban ornithologists that they see these birds fairly regularly in those mountains. Kind of cool if true. Cuban is an amazing place, and much of their habitat is pristine due to years of benign neglect. From an ecological standpoint, it is like Florida in the late 1800's.

[guido]

I had my fingers crossed as they were looking for Ivory-billed Woodpeckers too... Exciting to think what they may find in Cuba!

Woodpeckers are such cool birds. I no longer do more than casual birding, but I had a banner year for Pileated Woodpeckers last year. They are present but not often seen here in suburban MA. But I had several great viewing sessions when out riding or just walking in the near by woods. Always sweet when it happens.