Our Favorite Bird Books of 2024

Unlike years past, when topics like migration or bird behavior predominated, we’ve been treated, in 2024, to a lively mix of titles about conservation and research, history and art, bird families, and country field guides. There were books by some of our most beloved and respected authors, auspicious new authors, and one bestseller by a world-famous author.

The 10,000 Birds reviewers (Donna, Dragan, Susan, Mark, and John) have here selected their choices for best bird and birding titles of 2024, books you may want to buy for the novice or experienced birders in your sphere or as gifts to yourself. Or you can simply read a copy borrowed from your local library (don’t hesitate to ask them to find you a copy if it’s not on the shelves!).

DONNA:

It was a tough job selecting titles this year, and I’m grateful I’m not limited to a certain number. (I just finished recording the American Birding Association podcast on Best Birding Books of 2024 with Nate Swick and Rebecca Minardi, where the limit is five Best Books per person; luckily Nate allowed us to sneak in some ‘honorable mentions.’ The podcast will be available after Thanksgiving.)

BIRDS AND ART:

Several books embraced the art of drawing birds, although in very different ways. In The Backyard Bird Chronicles, author Amy Tan embraces nature journaling. From 2017 to the end of 2022, Tan recorded the behavior and beauty of her Northern California backyard birds, finding comedy in Crow and Scrub-Jay family squabbles, tragedy in an injured Cooper’s Hawk, and a meditative peace in ‘being the bird,” her method for drawing the personality of each bird. I found the book inspiring and may start drawing birds in my local park (I don’t have a backyard) in the near future.

At the other end of the spectrum is Birds of the World:  The Art of Elizabeth Gould by Andrea Hart and Ann Datta (Prestel). This coffee-table sized book is a celebration of the life and art of the largely unknown 19^th-century artist who drew, painted, and engraved many of the bird plates for husband John Gould’s famous ornithological books before dying early in childbirth. Working from specimens, descriptions, and eventually from life, Gould’s depictions of the birds of South America, Australia, and Europe are stunning.

Kenn Kaufman’s The Birds That Audubon Missed: Discovery and Desire in the American Wilderness is about an iconic bird artist, creating art, and our North American ornithological history—its myths and realities, some only uncovered now by persistent researchers. Kaufman explores many, separate strands, from historical taxonomic puzzles to Audubon’s problematic life to his own artistic aspirations, weaving it together with intelligence and a sense of wonder that our ornithological forefathers (no mothers unless you count Lucy Audubon) navigated such a fantastic world of unknown birds and developing natural science.

FAMILY HISTORIES & IDENTIFICATION GUIDES

The Shorebirds of North America: A Natural History and Photographic Celebration by Pete Dunne and Kevin T. Karlson is exactly what the title says, a celebration of one of our most loved and feared bird groups (maybe fear is too strong a word, let’s say intimidating). The photographs, most by Karlson, are stunningly beautiful. The essays and chapters by both authors offer a wealth of natural history information, from nesting to molt to migration, on the 54 species that comprise the five families of the shorebird group. This book will be enjoyed by birders and people who simply love nature and good photography.

Field Guide to North American Flycatchers: Kingbirds and Myiarchus by Cin-Ty Lee with illustrations by Andrew Birch is the second volume in what will be a three-volume series. While the species covered here may not be as puzzling as the Empidonax species covered in the first volume, there’s enough confusion about identifying the six Myiarchus flycatchers and ten Tyrannus flycatchers that comprise this volume to more than justify its acquisition (there is also a bonus, a section on hybrids!). I love the ‘look’ of these books—clean design, elegant illustrations, with many of the identification charts that made the first volume so unique. Highly recommended for birders who love identification challenges and excellent birding books.

Over six years in the making, The Gull Guide:  North America, by Amar Ayyash, is a comprehensive, dense guide to North American gulls and beyond.  It’s a singular achievement, one that all larophiles and birders who want to advance their identification skills of gulls will want to own. It is packed full of gull photographs of seemingly every plumage of every species (molt is probably the most common word of the book), discussions of taxonomy, and guidelines from Ayyash, gull observer supreme, on how to identify the gulls at your lake, beach, and dump. (Review to come)

Surprisingly, Stokes Guide to Finches of the United States and Canada is the first comprehensive guide to this family that includes familiar feeder birds and charismatic boreal species. Authors Lillian Q. Stokes and Matthew A. Young make a great team. Stokes brings her long history of writing guides on birds and backyard bird feeding; Young brings his expertise on boreal birds. In addition to the 18 breeding species in mainland U.S. and Canada, the book includes vagrant finches and Hawaiian honeycreepers (who are finches). This is a book that every birder at every skill level will find useful.

CONSERVATION & INDIVIDUAL JOURNEY:

Feather Trails: A Journey of Discovery Among Endangered Birds by Sophie A. H. Osborn is one of my favorite books of the year, the one I think about the most. It’s about endangered species, the science of reintroduction, the importance of conservation, and Osborn’s individual, joyful and challenging experiences working with three endangered species: Peregrine Falcon, Hawaiian Crow (‘Alala), and California Condor. Osborn seamlessly goes from observing falcons on top of a mountain in Wyoming or tracking mischievous crows in the rainforest to histories of how these birds became endangered and how reintroduction projects seek to reverse these trajectories. Most of all, her writing brings us into her intense experiences with her birds and help us appreciate them even more.

HONORABLE MENTION:

I must give a shoutout to an incredible book, years in the making:  Dragonflies of North America, written & illustrated Ed Lam.  Over 300 species and subspecies are covered, each illustrated in exquisite detail (if you’ve ever tried to photograph or capture a dragonfly, you know how difficult closely observing these species may be). Like The Gull Guide, this is a significant achievement, achieved with artistry, expertise, persistence, and pure love for this fascinating group of predators. (Review to come.)

DRAGAN:

While Steve Mills started his guide with northern Greece, by the third edition he has expanded the coverage to encompass the entire continental Greece, apart from Attica (the surroundings of Athens) and the Peloponnese Peninsula. The 3rd edition of Birdwatching in Northern Greece is a remarkable achievement that surpasses its predecessors in both scope and quality. The inclusion of new sites such as Lake Karla, Messolonghi, Mount Parnassos and others expands the scope of the guide, while the addition of color-coded sections, detailed GPS information, updated status lists, and accommodation tips further enhance the usability of the guide. This book is sure to become an essential companion on my future birding trips in Greece.

There is one more reason to take my hat off: all funds raised from selling the books go directly towards bird protection projects in Greece. Now you know which guide you really want.

When the new NL 14×52 mm binoculars were announced by Swarovski Optik, even though I find this series a bit oversized for my tastes, I was still curious. I mean, which birder uses 14s? Do you know anyone using such a high magnification? Exactly, neither do I. NL Pure 14×52s come as a strong, specialised beast, great for larger but distant waterbirds and raptors, but also small, yet closer larks and pipits, and for open habitats such as grasslands, open savannas, deserts, lakes and marshes, cliffs, scree and mountain-tops above the tree-line, and shore-to-sea watching.

SUSAN:

BOOKS FOR CHILDREN:

If you are looking for one perfect book to draw children into the joys of birding, I recommend The Children’s Book of Birdwatching, by Welsh ornithologist and wildlife advocate Dan Rouse. Packed with photos, illustrations, tips and activities (you can make DIY bird food or seed bombs with the kids), this book focuses not just on the birds themselves, but on caring for them and caring for the planet. (Reading age 5-9)

For the kids in your life who are auditory learners, music-makers and tech-lovers,  Listen to the Birds by birdsong expert Donald Kroodsma, illustrator and designer Léna Mazilu, and interactive developer Yoann Guény  is a must. The team created a picture book of common North American birds that is accompanied by an augmented reality “Birdie Memory” app. With the app downloaded onto a phone and the phone camera pointed to a bird in the book, the bird seems to come alive, move — and sing. The effect is completely enchanting. (Reading age 4-11)

In the small (but essential for bird-lovers!) category of birding bedtime books, the husband and wife team of David Obuchowski and Sarah Pedry created How Birds Sleep, a lovely exploration of the many ways and locations that birds rest—including while flying in the sky, sleeping on one leg, or tucked inside a termite mound. The backmatter in this nonfiction picture book provides the adult readers with information to help answer some of the inevitable questions: how do you know if a bird is asleep—and what exactly is sleep, anyway? (Reading age 4-8)

MARK:

Avian Architecture:  How Birds Design, Engineer, and Build, by Peter Goodfellow, is a revised and expanded version of his book that first appeared in 2011.  The first edition was terrific; this new one is even better, with more case studies and illustrations of the extraordinary variety of nests (and other structures, such as bowerbirds’ bowers and sapsuckers’ and Acorn woodpeckers’ food stores) constructed by the world’s birds.  The Horned coot takes hundreds of trips to build a mound of stones weighing 1 1/2 tons just offshore in a lake in the high Andes — and that’s just to get its nestbuilding started.  This book is full of astounding stories like that.

If you’re planning a birding trip for the new year or merely fantasizing about one, you ought to look at The Joy of Birdwatching.  It gives you four well-designed and attractive pages on sixty different locales and the avian sights to see in them — Griffin vultures in the Pyrenees; Kingfishers in Sri Lanka; Sandhill cranes in Nebraska; Sooty falcons in Jordan; and others — with just the right amount of local color and tips to guide visitors.  And the writing and photography in the book is first-rate.

Twenty-three thousand images were submitted for the 2024 Bird Photographer of the Year competition (it’s run by British charities), with the winners published here, in various categories:  Best Portrait, Black and White, Birds in Flight, Bird Behavior, Urban Birds, Comedy, and others.  You will, when you open the book and start looking at the photographs, laugh at many of them, most of them, with utter delight.  They’re that good.

JOHN:

Spurn, in East Yorkshire, is one of my favorite places to watch birds, but I have never visited the Little Tern colony there. So Richard Boon’s Clinging to the Edge, an intimate look into the breeding season of a colony there, is especially welcome.  Boone paints a vivid picture of these delicate birds, from their arduous migration from West Africa to their daily struggles for survival on the North Sea Coast.   And he offers keen insights into the unique ecosystem of Spurn Point, a dynamic landform constantly shaped by the sea.  His book is a poignant reminder of the fragility of our natural world and of the urgent need to protect its most vulnerable inhabitants.

Those seeking to hone their avian auditory skills will want to consult Stanislas Wroza’s Identifying Migratory Birds by Sound in Britain and Europe, a comprehensive and holistic perspective on the flight and contact calls of 450 species. It includes sonograms, as well as QR codes linked to downloadable sounds.  And Wroza gives useful insights into migratory behavior and optimal listening conditions.  The book is a must-have for the serious birdwatcher.

In his ID Handbook of European Birds, Nils van Duivendijk has created an ID guide for the ages. His systematic approach makes identification a doddle.  And the emphasis on practical identification techniques – such things as behavior, habitat clues, molt strategy — makes this a book your should not dawdle to purchase and consult.  It comes in two volumes (but is also available as a downloadable PDF file); not cheap but nothing worthwhile is:  in other words, this is certainly worth the cost.

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M.C.!  H.H.!  God bless you all!