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I've been having a grand time reading this book a few pages a day for months, and I finally reached the end! It calls itself an "advanced" birding book, which at first intimidated me because I thought it meant I had to be advanced to understand what it was saying, but no, it's a book that is designed to take any birder and teach them the skills needed to become more advanced.
I loved the underlying mindset of the book, that the best way to be a birder is to bird in the way that makes you happy, and a good birder is a birder who finds joy in the experience, however they approach it. And this book is merely meant to be a resource for the kind of birder who's into getting really careful and detailed about bird ID, but that doesn't mean it's the only way to bird, and this approach isn't for everyone.
But this approach IS for MEEEEE.
The book starts with an extensive section teaching you things that are relevant to ID for any type of bird: about the structure of feathers in wing, tail, and body; about molting and other changes to feather appearance over time; about behaviour; about songs and calls; and so forth. Then it goes on to illustrate its principles by discussing specific groups of birds for whom ID can be challenging, and what you can do to help you better understand what you're seeing in these contexts.
The example birds are all North American, so it's a book that may be best for a North American birder, but the first section is relevant for birders no matter where they live and what birds they're looking at.
I found it very engagingly written, not dry at all, and I have learned SO much from it. I have started looking at birds in a whole new way since getting into this book, and it's added so much to my birding experience!
I also appreciate that it's very practical, discussing what you're likely to experience in real world contexts, and what to do about it. So for example in the chapter on seabirds, it's like, you're almost certainly going to only ever see these birds in the context of a chartered birding experience on a boat, with an expert on board to point things out, so here's some good ways to help you to make the most of that context.
I will admit I did a bit of skimming in the chapter on Empidonax flycatchers. The author makes it clear in a number of places throughout the book that sometimes the correct ID answer to a bird you see is "there isn't enough information available to me to make a certain ID" and that is particularly emphasised in the Empids. For a number of Empids you can only really be certain about your ID if you hear the voice, because they look so similar and the amount of visible variation within a species can overlap so much with the variation between species. So reading through careful descriptions of what kinds of barely noticeable field marks MIGHT be a mildly useful sign in pointing towards one Empid over another just....didn't feel worthwhile to me personally to spend that many pages on, at least at this stage of my birding skills. It's possible I'll feel differently once I have a lot more experience in looking at birds and recognizing extremely subtle variation, and then I can come back to Empids and feel like it's an exciting challenge instead of a "wow no thank you."
But other than the Empids I read through every page with fascination, even for birds that live in parts of North America that are nowhere near me, because it was still teaching me more about how to look at birds, even if that particular bird isn't relevant to me.
And I will definitely be regularly referring to this book in the future for help with some of these difficult-to-ID groups!
I loved the underlying mindset of the book, that the best way to be a birder is to bird in the way that makes you happy, and a good birder is a birder who finds joy in the experience, however they approach it. And this book is merely meant to be a resource for the kind of birder who's into getting really careful and detailed about bird ID, but that doesn't mean it's the only way to bird, and this approach isn't for everyone.
But this approach IS for MEEEEE.
The book starts with an extensive section teaching you things that are relevant to ID for any type of bird: about the structure of feathers in wing, tail, and body; about molting and other changes to feather appearance over time; about behaviour; about songs and calls; and so forth. Then it goes on to illustrate its principles by discussing specific groups of birds for whom ID can be challenging, and what you can do to help you better understand what you're seeing in these contexts.
The example birds are all North American, so it's a book that may be best for a North American birder, but the first section is relevant for birders no matter where they live and what birds they're looking at.
I found it very engagingly written, not dry at all, and I have learned SO much from it. I have started looking at birds in a whole new way since getting into this book, and it's added so much to my birding experience!
I also appreciate that it's very practical, discussing what you're likely to experience in real world contexts, and what to do about it. So for example in the chapter on seabirds, it's like, you're almost certainly going to only ever see these birds in the context of a chartered birding experience on a boat, with an expert on board to point things out, so here's some good ways to help you to make the most of that context.
I will admit I did a bit of skimming in the chapter on Empidonax flycatchers. The author makes it clear in a number of places throughout the book that sometimes the correct ID answer to a bird you see is "there isn't enough information available to me to make a certain ID" and that is particularly emphasised in the Empids. For a number of Empids you can only really be certain about your ID if you hear the voice, because they look so similar and the amount of visible variation within a species can overlap so much with the variation between species. So reading through careful descriptions of what kinds of barely noticeable field marks MIGHT be a mildly useful sign in pointing towards one Empid over another just....didn't feel worthwhile to me personally to spend that many pages on, at least at this stage of my birding skills. It's possible I'll feel differently once I have a lot more experience in looking at birds and recognizing extremely subtle variation, and then I can come back to Empids and feel like it's an exciting challenge instead of a "wow no thank you."
But other than the Empids I read through every page with fascination, even for birds that live in parts of North America that are nowhere near me, because it was still teaching me more about how to look at birds, even if that particular bird isn't relevant to me.
And I will definitely be regularly referring to this book in the future for help with some of these difficult-to-ID groups!
