Product Description

David Allen Sibley, America's most gifted contemporary painter of birds, is the author and illustrator of this comprehensive guide. His beautifully detailed illustrations—more than 6,600 in all—and descriptions of 810 species and 350 regional populations will enrich every birder's experience.

The Sibley Guide's innovative design makes it entirely user friendly. The illustrations are arranged to facilitate comparison, yet still capture the unique character of each species.

The Sibley Guide to Birds provides a wealth of new information:
—Captioned illustrations show many previously unpublished field marks and revisions of known marks
—Nearly every species is shown in flight
—Measurements include length, wingspan, and weight for every species
—Subspecies and geographic varients are covered thoroughly
—Complete voice descriptions are included for every species
—Maps show the complete distribution of every species: summer and winter ranges, migration routes, and rare occurrences

Both novice and experienced birders will appreciate these and other innovative features:
—An introductory page for each family or group of related families makes comparisons simple
—Clear and concise labels with pointers identify field marks directly
—Birds are illustrated in similar poses to make comparisons between species quick and easy
—Illustrations emphasize the way birds look in the field

With The Sibley Guide to Birds, the National Audubon Society makes the art and expertise of David Sibley available to the world in a comprehensive, handsome, easy-to-use volume that will be the indispensable identification guide every birder must own.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4618 in Books
• Brand: Random House
• Published on: 2000-10-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 544 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780679451228
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
More than 10 years in the making, David Sibley's Guide to Birds is a monumental achievement. The beautiful watercolor illustrations (6,600, covering 810 species in North America) and clear, descriptive text place Sibley and his work squarely in the tradition of John James Audubon and Roger Tory Peterson; more than a birdwatcher and evangelizer, he is one of the foremost bird painters and authorities in the U.S. Still, his field guide will no doubt spark debate. Unlike Kenn Kaufman's Focus Guide, Sibley's is unapologetically aimed at the converted. Beginning birders may want to keep a copy of Sibley at home as a reference, but the wealth of information will have the same effect on novices as trying to pick out a single sandpiper in a wheeling flock of thousands. The familiar yellow warbler, for instance, gets no less than nine individual illustrations documenting its geographic, seasonal, and sex variations--plus another eight smaller illustrations showing it in flight. Of course, more experienced birders will appreciate this sort of detail, along with Sibley's improvements on both Peterson and the National Geographic guide:

• As in Peterson, Sibley employs a pointer system for key field markings--but additional text blurbs are included alongside the illustrations to facilitate identification.
• Descriptive passages on identification are more detailed than those in most other field guides. For example, Sibley includes extensive information on the famously hard-to-distinguish hawks in the genus Accipiter (sharp-shinned, Cooper's, and northern goshawk), noting differences in leg thickness and wing beat that will be of use to more advanced birders. A section on the identification of "peeps" (small sandpipers) includes tips about seasonal molting and bill length. Confusing fall warblers, Empidonax flycatchers, and Alcids receive similar treatment.
• As previously mentioned, ample space is given to illustrations that show plumage variations by age, sex, and geography within a single species. Thus, an entire page is devoted to the red-shouldered hawk and its differing appearances in the eastern U.S., Florida, and California; similarly, gulls are distinguished by age and warblers by sex.
• Range maps are detailed and accurate, with breeding, wintering, and migration routes clearly depicted; rare but regular geographic occurrences are denoted by green dots.
• The binding and paper stock are of exceptional quality. Despite its 544 pages, a reinforced paperback cover and sewn-in binding allow the book to be spread out flat without fear of breaking the binding.

Some birders will be put off by the book's size. Slightly larger than the National Geographic guide, it's less portable than most field guides and will likely spend more time in cars and desks than on a birder's person while in the field. For some it will be a strictly stay-at-home companion guide to consult after a field trip; others may want to have it handy in a fannypack or backpack. But regardless of how it is used, Sibley's Guide to Birds is a significant addition to any birding library. "Birds are beautiful," the author writes in the preface, "their colors, shapes, actions, and sounds are among the most aesthetically pleasing in nature." Pleasing, too, is this comprehensive guide to their identification. --Langdon Cook

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Amazon Exclusive Essay: Author David Allen Sibley on Spring Birding in the United States

photo credit:  Erinn Hartman

Birders are an optimistic lot--always looking forward to the next day, the next season--and no season is as keenly anticipated as spring. Everyone loves spring, of course, but to a birder that feeling is multiplied as spring is the season of discovery. Migrating birds make their way north from wintering grounds in the south to breeding grounds in the north, and no matter where you are you can see this migration in action. Every day brings new arrivals and new sightings, and the flood of birds can be overwhelming at times.

If you’re lucky enough to be able to travel to a place like Gray’s Harbor in Washington state, Cheyenne Bottoms in Kansas, or Delaware Bay in the east, you can see hundreds of thousands of migrating shorebirds as they stop for a few weeks to refuel on their way to the arctic. Along the Gulf Coast beaches you can see birds that have just flown from the Yucatan or from South America and are dropping into the nearest patch of cover to rest. Even in urban areas--places like Central Park in New York City, Rock Creek Park in Washington DC, Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, and countless other parks in cities and towns across North America--you will find outstanding birding. During spring migration these natural oases can be filled with brightly-colored songbirds, and seeing an exotic bird like a Blackburnian Warbler or a Western Tanager, where there were none the day before, is a thrill unique to birding. You don’t even have to travel. Whether you’re a seasoned birder or a neophyte, just grab some binoculars and a bird guide, and head out to your backyard, or to your local park or beach to see what’s happening. Those warm spring days when all you want to do is take a long lunch break and sprawl out on the lawn are the same days that the birds will be migrating north, and all you have to do is look up.
--David Allen Sibley

From Publishers Weekly
The bird-watching world knows Sibley best as an immensely talented painter. His thick, attractive and data-packed color guide offers nearly 7,000 images, along with range maps and detailed descriptions of songs, calls and voices, for all the birds North Americans might see. It's a more informative volume than Kenn Kaufman's forthcoming Birds of North America (Forecasts, Sept. 11) but less portable and harder for beginners to use. An introduction describes the key parts of major classes of birdsDthe tomia and culmen of a gull's bill, the scapulars and coverts of passerines (songbirds). Sibley then moves on to hundreds of pages of birds in 42 categories, from Loons and Grebes to Silky Flycatchers and Bulbuls. A typical page has two columns, with one species in each: that species gets a color-coded range map, a description of its voice, and four to eight illustrative paintings. These multiple images of single species are the guide's most attractive feature; they let Sibley show some birds in several poses, as well as important seasonal and regional, juvenile and mature, breeding and nonbreeding, or male and female versions of the same bird. (Gulls, terns, and many other seabirds, in particular, change their patterns completely when breeding.) Sibley assists viewers by giving, on the same page, images of species that might be mistaken for one anotherDone column shows 13 kinds of thrushes. He also describes calls for every bird (not just the more common ones), and makes many more comparisons. If Kaufman's guide belongs in birders' coat pockets, Sibley's big, detailed book belongs on their desks; it's easy to imagine birders rushing to Sibley's guide to check details of plumage or to confirm an ID the smaller guide has helped them make.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Scientific American
For birders who cut their teeth on Roger Tory Peterson's Field Guide to the Birds, that book seemed definitive, like the King James Bible or Bogart and Bergman in Casablanca. But it's a new millennium, and David Allen Sibley and the National Audubon Society have produced an impressive new Guide to Birds.

How does it differ from earlier guides? When Sibley himself was asked, he replied: "My book relies much more on illustrations.... I believe the average field guide user spends the vast majority of time looking at the pictures, and when I was developing this layout I based it on the premise that most of the text in current field guides is redundant.... I wanted a book that would condense a huge amount of information into a portable size, and at the same time make the information 'patterned,' logical, and accessible to any reader."

He delivers. Full-color paintings--6,600 of them--show us 810 North American species in an array of shapes, stages, colors, markings and poses (at rest, in flight, perched, swimming and so on). Raptors are shown from below. All significant plumages are depicted: the Laughing Gull, for example, is shown in six different stages. Voice descriptions (songs, flight calls, juvenile begging cries, threats, displays) appear on every page. Full-color range maps show complete distributions, migration routes, and summer, winter and breeding locations. Measurements are there, too: wingspan, length and weight. To facilitate comparison, information and illustrations are arranged in the same way for each species, and birds are shown in similar poses. Happily, the text accompanies the drawings as captions, so you don't have to flip back and forth. Pointers guide your eye to the relevant feature.

The book's introductory material is a primer on how to look at and identify birds, beginning with the parts of a passerine, or songbird. The introduction also includes Sibley's "rules," the first of which is: "Look at the bird. Don't fumble with a book, because by the time you find the right picture the bird will most likely be gone. Start by looking at the bird's bill and facial markings. Watch what the bird does, watch it fly away, and only then try to find it in your book."

Even the endpapers overflow, in an organized way, with useful tools: metric conversions, rulers, a map of the area the guide covers. A sturdy, flexible cover, sewn-in binding, and heavy, nonreflective paper add to the pleasure of using this book. True, it's a little hefty for the field, but this is a quibble. Better to have all this information than to be able to tuck the book in your pocket. Besides, it fits easily in a backpack.

Born to Bird

The son of Yale ornithologist Fred Sibley, David Sibley taught himself to draw at age six by tracing Arthur Singer's illustrations in Birds of the World. After two semesters at Cornell, he dropped out to work at the Cape May Bird Observatory. Several years later he left Cape May and crisscrossed the U.S. in his pickup truck to study birds, storing his sketching equipment in the cab and sleeping in the back. By his late 20s he was an acknowledged expert, leading tours for WINGS. Now 39, he is married to Joan Walsh, an ornithologist he met at Manomet Bird Observatory, and the father of two young children. Sibley starts his drawings in pencil, working from photographs and field sketches. He then puts the illustrations on an opaque projector and adjusts for size so they are exactly proportional to the others on that page of the guide. After correcting for size and shape, he traces the projection and paints the final version in gouache, working in transparent layers until he reaches the desired color and texture.

EDITORS OF SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

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Customer Reviews

The best field guide for identifying birds.
The latest attempt to publish the perfect bird guide book comes very close. The Sibley guide is more comprehensive than the National Geographic guide (NG) in its inclusion of views. In examining each page of the book I was bewildered at the number of views. The first published drawings I have seen of some species in flight are in this thorough book.

The group accounts to begin each section are excellent. These accounts show all species in a family on one page; often examining hard to identify plumages like first-winter female wood-warblers. The range maps and voice details are much better than any previous attempt. Identification skills are sprinkled throughout the book in areas where they are most needed. In this regard, the Sibley guide gives the user some of what Kenn Kaufman's Advanced Birding, Jack Connor's The Complete Birder and the American Birding Association's Birding magazine provide.

It falls short of perfection in four areas that will be considered minor by most readers:

The drawings are not as sharp as in the NG. The feather detail is often absent and edges are blurred leaving less of the feather texture affect found in the NG. This may be a purposeful attempt to get users to focus on the feel of the bird rather than searching for details that can sometimes only be seen with a bird in hand.

The habitat information is not as complete as in the NG. Unlike the NG where habitat and historical details are provided with individual species, the Sibley guide gives their habitat info in group descriptions at the tops of most pages.

There are still some omissions. While I have not had time to search for every vagrant species, two birds I have personally seen in North America are not included - the whiskered tern and the brown shrike.

It is not field worthy. In this I expect some will disagree. It will surely fit in a shoulder bag or backpack. Perhaps more important, it may be good for birding if birders don't take it with them. Birding skills are developed by viewing birds and trying to remember and record details. This guide's utility will be as the definitive guide for pre and post observation.

I am still giving this book five stars and advise every serious birder to purchase it, study it, and learn from it. It will be the first guide I turn to when I'm back at my car after a cool morning in the field.

New Standard for Bird Field Guides
David Sibley has written an excellent field guide. This book surpasses National Geographic's "Field Guide to Birds of North America" and the Peterson's Series of Bird Guides. It includes a greater number of illustrations and portrays more of the various ages of the birds. One has to appreciate the flight views of the many birds.

The colors of the illustrations are excellent. This corrects one compliant of the 3rd edition of National Geographic Field Guide. Advanced and beginning birders will benefit from the examples. The range maps have been adjusted in several cases. Sibley has taken great care in producing the most up-to-date field guide.

The accompanying text is very informative. It is packed with information about each species. Sibley "Guide to Birds" definitely shows that years were taken to produce this comprehensive reference.

If there is a downside, this book is heavy. Many pages were required to incorporate all the interesting and informative information contained in this fabulous book!

Sibley has set a new standard in Bird Field Guides. It will be years before this book is surpassed. Sibley's "Guide to Birds" is a must book for any birders library.

A wonderful, practical guide!!
After spending a weekend in the field with the new Sibley's, I can attest to the value of this book. Initially I was impressed by the many illustrations and detail that obviously go into every species description. Sibley spends needed time and space on difficult-to-identify species instead of just a couple of head profiles. On a weekend when I saw both Harlan's and Krider's Red-tailed Hawks (as well as the usual birds), this was quite welcome. The only item that could be a possible drawback with this book is that I don't feel enough attention was given to identifying habitat for many birds. When one is trying to Empidonax flycatchers, habitat is vital when making identification. While habitat is mentioned, I just don't think that it is given the importance it should have. That said, this book is a winner!! I wouldn't hesitate to purchase this book (or give it as a gift). It may replace your field guide of choice, but even if it doesn't it is an excellent supplement. As an aside - with all the splitting going on, this is the first book I've seen (I haven't looked at Kaufman's) that places Vireos with the Jays they have now been classified with. Also, all the most recent name changes have been included. Quite a benefit!