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Now in its fourth edition, the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America is the ultimate birder's field guide. Sturdy, portable, and easy-to-use, it features the most complete information available on every bird species known to North America. This revised edition features 250 completely updated range maps, new plumage and species classification information, specially commissioned full-color illustrations, and a superb new index that allows birders in the field to quickly identify a species.

The National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America, Fourth Edition will continue to be a bestseller among the fastest-growing sector in the U.S. travel market—the nearly 25 million people who travel each year specifically to observe wild birds.

Average Customer Rating:

very nice	Customer Rating:
We have owls, hawks and other birds at our home and I was looking for a book to help to identify what we have. This guide has excellent pictures with descriptions for someone just starting out. And the best deal is I picked it up for a dime at a used book store. You can't beat that!

Really helpful	Customer Rating:
Really good bird ID book...even includes different plumages for recognition of birds at different times of the year

a great book for bird lovers	Customer Rating:
For anyone who wants to learn more about the birds of N. America. Written in clear concise detail even laymen can understand. Definitely highly recommended. Makes a graeat gift for friends who want to learn more about these amazing feathered friends. I give four of five stars.

Low quality compared to 3rd edition

Customer Rating:

I have been using field guides for over 30 years and for the last 20 have carried the 2nd and then 3rd edition of the Ntl. Geographic guide faithfully on travel and into the field. I have the Sibley's, Kaufman, Peterson's, Golden and plenty of others but have continued to use the Ntl Geographic when I only want to pack one book. I finally purchased the 4th edition when the price dropped to under $10. I am really disappointed in the quality compared to the 3rd edition. The colors are not as rich and in most cases are much duller than the 1st, 2nd and 3rd editions. Nearly every bird depicted in the 4th edition will appear to be lighter than it was depicted in the 3rd. What does this mean in terms of your use of the 4th to identify a bird? For complex birds seen at a distance with many similar looking possibilities, (shorebirds and gulls, for instance) you may misjudge what you have seen because you are looking at a bird much darker than it is depicted in the 4th edition of the Ntl Geographic guide. There are other problems related to quality in the 4th edition. Throughout the book there are numerous instances of black and white bleeding on wingbars and bills producing a blue where there should be none. The shrike page is the most obvious example, but it also occurs on the flycatchers and woodpecker pages. Thinking that perhaps I had just ended up with a bad copy or misprint, I verified this problem by checking the 4th edition at several stores in different part of the country. The dullness is universal and the blue bleeding seems to be a widespread problem but it manifests itself in different parts of the book depending on the copy. Up until the 3rd edition a birder had to purchase the Ntl Geographic guide at a specialty store or directly from National Geographic. Not sure if this is the reason for the change but, starting with the 4th edition, this guide is available at chain book stores and wholesale warehouses. Perhaps National Geographic has lowered its quality control standards for new markets. Finally, there are some technical problems with some of the new pages. Only a few pages are updated from the 3rd to 4th editions but surprisingly there are problems with three of them. The first one is excusable since the bird is so scarce in North American waters. The streaked shearwater undertail coverts have extended a good 1-2 inches from the 3rd to the 4th editions of the guide. The effect is that the brown tail will appear shorter than on a real streaked shearwater. The next one is comical, but again not a bird anyone is likely to see. The Cory's dark morph of the least bittern is illustrated in the 4th edition in front of a cattail sponge that would set a world record if it were an accurate depiction. It appears to be about a half size larger than it should in comparison to the bittern, which in turn might make you think a least bittern is even smaller than it is in real life. Last, the illustrations of mourning, MacGilvray's and Connecticut warblers on the new oporornis page all look like cutouts with no depth compared to the better illustrations of these birds in the 3rd edition.

National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America 4th Edition	Customer Rating:
I found the guide to be very helpful.