Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

Average Customer Rating:

Arguably the best photographic guide

Customer Rating:

I'm not going to argue the worth of photographs vs. illustrations. Everyone picks which works better for them, and that's that. I've tried both and prefer photos. My wife and I use both the Audubon and Stokes guides. Were we forced to pick a favorite, I would go with the Audubon guide, she with the Stokes. Both have different advantages and issues. The Audubon guide has a very flexible and convenient binding. The book is tall for its width and it lends itself nicely to thumbing through the pages. The organization of the photo section is by size within color within species type. Finding a male purple finch is as simple as flipping quickly to the handful of red, perching birds of the same approximate size, and zeroing in on the right entry. That, however, leads to the first disadvantage - unless the male and female share overall coloration, they will be shown on separate pages and/or in separate sections. While that makes some sense, given the intent of the book's organization, it makes subsequently reading about the species less convenient. That leads to the second disadvantage - photos and text are in separate halves of the book. Once you've identified a species from a photo, you have to look up the text page separately. It slows things down. By using both the Stokes guide (which has photos and text on the same page) and the Audubon guide, we get the best of both worlds. The coverage of the two guides is slightly different, so we actually have more species at our fingertips than with either guide alone. When we get frustrated by one or the other, depending on what the search issue happens to be, there's the other, organized differently, which often solves the problem. Both guides are photographic, and we find the different photos often make or break a particular species identification. The Stokes guide may be found here: Stokes Field Guide to Birds: Eastern Region (Stokes Field Guides).

Birds	Customer Rating:
Purchased two good "bird" books at the same time. This is the easiest of the two for finding birds, and I thoroughly recommend it.

A must have for all avid birders

Customer Rating:

This revised edition replaced my old worn out copy that I've had since the mid 1980s. This guide, and the Peterson's are two must have guides for every avid birder. When identifying a new bird, I find myself reaching for this one first. Because of the colored thumb tabs, identification is usually very fast. But if I am still not completely sure, then I'll pick up the Petersons and combine information. Of course one can never have too many bird books, but owning both the Audubons and the Petersons will have you covered.

birdies	Customer Rating:
I've had so much fun identifying birds since I received this book. There were many I had often seen but never knew what they were. Oila! Now I do. I even bought one for a friend. This is a great reference for those who are new to bird watching. Wish I'd taken it on vacation with me.

absolutely exquisite

Customer Rating:

The photographs in this book are incredibly gorgeous. There are over 600 photographs, all of them crisp, clear and close up. The book includes information about territories, nesting habits and even describes the sounds the birds make in detail. This is a wonderful book not only to be enjoyed by bird watcher but also to be used by couch potatoes like me who don't get out much. But you might be inspired to get out and look for birds after a mere glance through this beautiful field guide. Well worth having.