You are browsing the archives of field guide.

As most birders will undoubtedly be aware this month is the centenary of Roger Tory Peterson’s birth. Given that RTP (I can’t bring myself to casually call such a legend ‘Roger’, and using ‘Peterson’ sounds a bit brusque and disrespectful somehow - like calling The Queen ‘Windsor’) is indisputably one of the most important naturalists […]

Ah, what a time to be a young birder in America! Not only is there an endless, free torrent of thrilling birding content online, but some of our sharpest minds have tackled the thorny task of creating a field guide strong enough for an adult, but made for a kid. Thus we have Bill Thompson […]

A new field-guide by the birding powerhouse family that is Bill Thomson III and Julie Zickefoose, published by the excellent Houghton Mifflin in the notable “Peterson Field Guide” series? Now there’s a pedigree that should appeal to most birders - after all it’s almost guaranteed that it’ll be well-written, well-illustrated, and beautifully put-together. And […]

I’ve spent quite a few hours lately reading and paging through my recently arrived field guide, Birds of Europe. With a planned trip to Germany in October I want to be prepared to identify everything I see and hear…which isn’t too likely but I can dream, can’t I?
Having never birded outside of the […]

The 3 Bs of birding, those items without which this activity just cannot be enjoyed fully, are Bins, Books, and Birds. That last B probably goes without saying, while the first one can be considered the least essential of the three, though still mighty important. Books, on the other hand, are almost as essential to […]

Summer, by which I mean true summer and not just that fallow period after spring migration subsides, is finally upon us. In many parts of the world, summer means shorebirds, a prospect that inspires equal parts excitement and trepidation. This loose organization of sandpipers, phalaropes, lapwings, plovers, oystercatchers, stilts, and avocets represents a little […]

The first thing one notices about Pete Dunne’s Essential Field Guide Companion is its intimidating bulk. This massive tome, larger even than The Sibley Guide to Birds, is not likely to accompany any but the strongest-backed birders into the field. Next is the astonishing realization that, apart from the dust jacket, this book is […]

The field guide guiding us on our January 2006 trip to the Bahamas was A Field Guide to the Birds of the West Indies by James Bond. This volume, written by one of the most well respected names in Caribbean aviafauna, edited by Roger Tory Peterson, and illustrated by Don R. Eckelberry, Earl L. […]

Collins Bird Guide (Britain and Europe), K Mullarney, and Svensson L et al (Collins 2001)
I’m often asked by colleagues in the US, “Charlie, which field-guide should I get for a trip to Europe?”. If they’d asked me this in the 1990s, chances are I’d have had to list a number of then current Guides […]