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National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of Western North America | 
 enlarge | Creators: Jon L. Dunn, Jonathan Alderfer
Publisher: National Geographic
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $13.57
You Save: $6.38 (32%)
New (41) Used (9) from $11.61
Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 18984
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 448
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.4 x 1
ISBN: 1426203314
Dewey Decimal Number: 598.097
EAN: 9781426203312
ASIN: 1426203314
Publication Date: October 21, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
New enthusiasts are flocking in record numbers to the fascinating pastime of birding. National Geographic has been meeting their need for clear and accurate information for 25 years with our million-selling Field Guide to the Birds of North America. Now, to better serve the expanding market, we’ve customized our field-guide format to offer unique coverage for birders east or west of the Rocky Mountains. These new volumes deliver in-depth information on every bird officially recorded in the specified area, with illustrated accounts of the different plumages and life stages, along with hundreds of color-coded range maps.
Unique features set these guides apart from the competition and promise to win a new generation of readers: A full-color visual index, printed on the inside covers, makes the content accessible visually —a real boon to beginning and intermediate birders. Annotated artwork highlights birds’ key physical features, making identification easier. Thumb-tabs help readers find information fast. Durable covers stand up to outdoor use, with integrated quick-reference flaps that double as place-markers.Field Guide to the Birds of Western North America offers 750 regular species, 600 new range maps, 100 casual and accidental birds, and 55 rarities.
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| Customer Reviews:
 New standard in birding field guides! October 24, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Well - I wrote an in-depth review and this site or IE lost it. So, here is the short version.
Simply a new standard in birding field guides! Will absolutely replace all other field guides I might take with me out into the field while birding in NA. The new features are outstanding, useful, and thoughtfully designed.
The construction quality of the book is outstanding. Paper and covers of high quality.
Combines all the best features (and then some) from all the best field guides.
Must buy!
 Some great strides forward, some strides backward October 22, 2008
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
Comparison to the previous 5th edition:
The good: Extensive annotations have been added to the plates. This vastly increases the amount of information in the book and corrects one of the major flaws of earlier editions which was a failure to actually mention the critical field marks. A huge improvement (although the type can get small and dense at times)
The bad.
1) The new split editions are about the same size as the old combined version. Since this volume covers 905 species and the full one covers 967, it seems like the split edition was a marketing gimmick. Many comparisons of E and W species are no longer included (Wood-Pewees is an example) and will make it harder to ID vagrants.
2) There are very few updates to the plates or accompanying text. Many of the plates are looking old and dated.
3) The overwhelming strength of this book was its treatment of vagrants. In the new edition many vagrants that received full coverage in the previous edition have been shunted to the appendix with much smaller illustrations. Eastern vagrants get even less treatment. if you want full coverage of vagrants, you need to carry both E and W books (and maybe the old combined editions as well)! This means the split editions make things harder, not easier, to carry in the field. This relegation of vagrants to an appendix must have been done to appeal to the masses but will make the book much less valuable to seasoned birders. It would be OK to have a separate vagrants sections, but the birds there deserve full treatment.
Overall, Sibley is still the best field guide for North America. The quality of the illustrations is just unsurpassed and the simplicity of presentation of complex information is amazing (time for a new edition however!). Sibley's weakness however is that he treats few vagrants. The revisions have made the NatGeo guides closer to Sibley for regular birds but the reduced treatment of vagrants has weakened its greatest strength. Therefore a mixed bag.
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