Fifty Places to Go Birding Before You Die: Birding Experts Share the World's Geatest Destinations

Excellent book. Great for trAVELERS WITH TIME TO BROWSE IN THEIR DESTINATIONS. i GOT SOME GREAT INFORMATION FROM THE BOOK. Happy I bought it.

Still have about 46 of the places to go! Handy to have a reference for those cold winter days when the snow is blowing outside... and you're trying to pick out a place to go on "vacation". Should toss some info on "how to find a local bird guide" into the mix.

i have always wanted to take a birding trip around north america and possibly around the world. this book gives you 50 of the best birding sites in the world some of these places require a big trip like anwr alaska or are no trouble at all: central park. a lot of well known birders are included in this book:David Sibley, Kenn Kaufman to name a few and many of them share their stories of personal adventures so if you want to take a trip in search of birds Fifty places to go birding before you die is the place to start

I would like to start off by saying that I don't much care for the title, "Places to Go Before You Die". After you hit a certain age do you really need the additional pressure of "bucket lists"? I'm going to have to live to be 100 to do all of things that others think that I should before I shuffle off this mortal coil. Secondly, don't take the list too seriously and feel that your birding life will be incomplete if you don't get to all of the hot-spots listed in this book. It could have easily been "One Hundred Places to Go Birding Before You Die" or 200 or 1000. The point is that the world is still full of beautiful, exotic and interesting destinations for the bird lover. We should all try to avail ourselves of as many as we can before we (or the places themselves) are gone. That being said, I did enjoy this book and I plan on keeping it where I can browse through it when I need a lift. The birding experts are well chosen and their personal stories and insights are fascinating and, sometimes (in the case of Arthur Morris' account of first visiting Bosque Del Apache with his wife who died shortly thereafter of cancer) touching. I was pleased to see both some of my favorite birding spots and some of my favorite birders featured in this book. Each entry ends with a "If You Do Go" section that has the following information: * Getting There: The nearest major city and the airlines that service it * Best Time to Visit: The best months for both seeing birds and being greeted by pleasant weather * Guides: Popular tours that offer trips to the location * Accommodations: Inns, hotels and resorts nearby As far as anyone being afraid that this book will add to the over-crowding of natural areas; one of the places mentioned (Central Park) already has over 25,000,000 visitors annually, I don't think that this book will add too much to that number. The more that people are aware of natural oasis' the more that they will care to preserve them. None of the places mentioned are secrets and most are being protected to some degree. Visitors are often inspired to help protect the area by becoming a member or contributing to preservation efforts. These jewels need not be hidden in order to be saved, instead we need awareness of what is out there and what we can do to keep it there. The photographs are of high quality, but I would have preferred it if one or two photographers had been assigned to provide the photos (only about 20 of the entries have images of the location itself and there are another 25 or so of the birds that can be found there) instead of the publisher using stock photos taking by over 25 different individuals, but I'm hard to please when it comes to photography. Still, a beautiful book, though hardly a guidebook. I believe that it was meant to inspire us to dream of traveling to the world's best birding havens, other books can better tell you what to do and see when you get there, but we have to start with the dream. Fou