4 replies to this topic

[RustyE]

Hoping that someone can lead me to a few tips on what Bird Guide would be best for my area. I looked online and it seems there are quite a few of them out there. It's hard to tell which one(s) is the best. Please give your opinions or thoughts to help out a newbee birder.

Thank you in advance.

P.S. Not wishing to start a debate on who thinks what book is better, so please put your opinion on which one you thinks best and don't comment on others opinions. thanks again. 

[dklucius]

for a quick field guide or a local guide Stan Tekiela. published a field guide for each state and also some regional guides. Being i live in Colorado and am basically a backyard birder. i keep his book handy. mine is Birds of Colorado and is a paperback that is easy to carry around and easy to use.

Sibleys guides are the most popular and are considered the top guide but i use it more as a tabletop guide for research and for in depth study.

[fisherman1313]

If you are going to use only one field guide, I would recommend either the Sibley or National Geographic (Nat Geo) Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America. The Sibley is the one preferred by most birders but they both have their merits. Of course it is always beneficial to have more than one field giude. The best way to decide which one(s) is/are right for you is to go to your local library and check out a few and see which one(s) you like best. A word about state specific guides; the ones I have looked at (for California) tend to only show the more common species, while the Sibley and Nat Geo show all of the expected species for the area (also Nat Geo shows quite a few rare vagrants that Sibley does not). The Sibley is a bit smaller than Nat Geo but both are small enough to carry in a large pants pocket.

[timb]

I'm also a new birdwatcher and live in Texas close to Austin.  I got started after a trip to Big Bend last year where I met a park ranger who was leading a short walk to see the local birds.  He suggested the National Geographic but recommended that I consider which part of the state/country I wanted the guide to cover.  I believe Austin gets mostly birds from both the east so almost got the National Geographic guide for eastern birds. However, I do spend some time further west and wanted to get a single guide that would be useful for those trips as well.  So I picked up the National Geographic guide for North America instead of the eastern guide.

Tim

[Texachusetts]

I bought the Tekiela when I first came to Texas and find it very frustrating. I have seen many birds here that are not in the book at all ((Black Skimmer, White-tailed hawk, numerous sparrows). I brought my eastern audubon down and that helped, but rarely does either show female or juvenile birds. I have a western National Geographic I bought while traveling and the eastern addition is going on my Christmas list!