The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Western North America

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October 23rd, 2015 by Aldouspi

The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Western North America

Author: David Allen Sibley
ISBN: 9780679451211

The Sibley Guide to Birds has quickly become the new standard of excellence in bird identification guides, covering more than 810 North American birds in amazing detail. Now comes a new portable guide from David Sibley that every birder will want to carry into the field. Compact and comprehensive, this new guide features 703 bird species plus regional populations found west of the Rocky Mountains. Accounts include stunningly accurate illustrations—more than 4,600 in total—with descriptive ca

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3 Responses

Doug Tanaka writes:
October 23rd, 20153:30 amat

86 of 86 people found the following review helpful

1 of 2 favorite bird books, October 15, 2005

By

Doug Tanaka (Bainbridge Island, WA USA) –

This review is from: The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Western North America (Flexibound)

I have owned several bird books, including Peterson’s and The Sibley Guide to Birds (my two previous favorites), but find this book more useful because it’s smaller (though still not happily totable), you don’t need to refer to the back of the book for maps, and birds are confined to my half of the continent. I also find it useful that voice is included in the descriptions, and have used that several times as the tie-breaker.

While I understand that size constraints make it impossible to include everything, I do wish the illustrations weren’t primarily profiles. There are many times I want to know what the bird looks like from the front (or even the back, although that’s really asking a lot). Because of that I supplement this book with the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America, which features drawings of birds in more natural postures – less stylized and at random angles.

I find that the two books work very well together, but I always reach for Sibley’s first.

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Carpalis writes:
October 23rd, 20154:30 amat

179 of 196 people found the following review helpful

A disappointing compromise, May 12, 2003

By

Carpalis (Tucson, AZ) –

This review is from: The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Western North America (Flexibound)

Of the making of many books there is no end, and so here we have another volume from David Sibley, author of the (large) Sibley Guide, hands-down the best field guide available to North American birds. Even that book has its disadvantages, though, and Sibley (or rather, one is forced to suspect, his publishers) has sought to remedy two of them–namely, its physical weight and misleading range maps–by dividing it into two considerably more portable volumes. Unfortunately, while the book now fits into generously proportioned pockets, and while the maps are tremendously improved (residents of BC, AB, and Nunavut may disagree…), the new layout made necessary by the smaller format essentially vitiates the original guide’s great advantages. Gone are the startlingly large-scale images, replaced by what are for most species literally thumbnail-sized illustrations (well, I’ve got biggish thumbs); for most species, the images now float in the gutters and margins next to the text. The captions to these images still provide a tremendous amount of information, in a few cases even more information or more clearly stated than in the “big” Sibley. But the cramped layout means that it is impossible to compare some similar species without flipping pages; Western and Cassin’s Kingbirds, for example, are on different openings. The great strength of the original guide was the vertical orientation of the species accounts, and now that that is gone, the book barely holds its own against the more traditionally designed and meatier NatGeo. I suspect that birders sophisticated enough to use this volume efficiently will not need it; and those who need it will find it frustratingly cluttered.

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Christopher writes:
October 23rd, 20155:13 amat

37 of 39 people found the following review helpful

Take It From a Beginner With Zero Experience, March 1, 2005

By

Christopher (Wengen-en-esprit) –

This review is from: The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Western North America (Flexibound)

I have read all the other reviews on this page and my stance has not changed. I received this book for Christmas from my parents who got my hints that I like to look at nature a little more closely than most other people. By no means am I a great bird-watcher, but I’m definitely working on improving!

While this guide to Western N.America may not be the honkin’ encyclopedia other people want to sift through, this book makes for a great excursion guide, a quick way to look birds up. I am, at the moment, in possession of three other bird books, including the Audubon guide. Some have actual photographs, others have different charts. I can’t say how often I actually refer to Sibley’s in the end. It’s just a more “natural” book to flip though.

Sibley gives you the basics, here, not extraneous info that weigh down your backpack. I like to keep track of what I see, and then do further research relaxed at home with a drink.

The first 17 pages is the usual fare of introductions to birding, color recognition, song recognition and learning, maps, and season keys. The next 7 pages includes a “Bird Topography.” I don’t know if this is birding lingo or creative writing, but I reference these pages often. Sibley’s fantastic drawings are given black & white, sketch, and enhanced colorized treatments with breakdowns of body and wing parts for several different birds. Again, as a beginner, these are essential to me.

Thereafter are all the birds in the Western N.A. as detailed by Sibley’s hands. Living by the ocean, I have access to a huge variety of birds that I never enjoyed when living in the Rockies.

I wouldn’t state that the beginner should begin with only this one book. I found that I learned more about bird recognition by looking at several books. Every author has something original to say. But if there is one book to own, it would be Sibley’s.

Nycticorax!

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