National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds: Eastern Region, Revised Edition

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.

These are the best books for bird watching. I haven't seen a bird that I couldn't find in this book. Living in the country in Tennessee and feeding our wild birds we see a lot of different species and some are hard to differentiate. The Audubon color plates make things a lot easier. I've been able to identify 6 species of woodpecker on one tree alone. If you like watching wild birds it's a must have.

I carry several guides with me everytime I go to the field. This is one of those I take (have since it's publication). While I do not feel it is as good as Peterson's guides (or even those of Sibley for that matter), I do find this work to be very useful as a supplemental guide. It does have information not found in a couple of the other guides and at times the actual photograph, rather than a drawing, help identify. I cannot say that I would be comfortable with only this as a guide, but I have found it useful. The photographs are quite good actually, and a joy to examine. For quick identification though, after a brief glimps of a given bird, I really need a bit more. Overall recommend this one highly.

For amateur bird-identification, this is clearly the best book of its kind. The photographs are clear and vivid, and capture many birds in natural settings, showing them doing things that they actually do. For identification, this helps, as you get a sense of what kind of place you're likely to see the bird. For example, the pictures of the thrushes clearly indicate that they are deep-woods birds.The text descriptions of wonderful, offering detailed information about physical appearance, egg size and number, breeding season, male/female physical differences, migration pattern, and food preferences. One of the most useful descriptions is of the birds' songs. In addition to these "technical" data, every bird has a section of general description where the editors include comments on behavior (for example, telling you how friendly chickadees can be), their history, environmental factors, and the bird's relationship to humans. Sometimes, the editors are a little too human-oriented in their descriptions. For example, the book accurately describes European Starlings as pests, and mentions that starlings ended up in America because people brought them here from Europe. However, the book loses a golden opportunity to make a comment on the ignorance of introduced species. Likewise, in the description of the Common Crow, the editors mention how they are more numerous now than when settlers first arrived in the United States. However, they fail to explain that there is a connection between human actvity and the rise in crow populations.This criticism aside, the text descriptions offer some great insights into the lives of the birds, and allows you to see your backyard visitors, or those deep-woods residents, in a whole new light. Anyone who has even a little interest in birds should have this book on hand.

The only way this book could be improved would be if audio were added for the bird call. I have two other Audobon Guides and plan to add more to my collection.