Covering thirty-five of the most difficult groups of birds, from winter loons to confusing fall warblers, jaegers to chickadees, accipiters to flycatchers, this clearly written and beautifully illustrated field guide tells exactly how to solve the most challenging bird identification problems of North America.Stumped by seemingly indistinguishable immature gulls covering the beach? Wonder whether the accipiter raiding your feeder is a female sharp-shinned hawk or a male Cooper’s hawk? Well-known birder and author Kenn Kaufman presents some of North America’s most challenging bird-identification conundrums in this guide for the advanced birder. Each chapter covers a group of difficult-to-identify or similar-looking birds, with analyses, tips, and drawings to aid in positive identification. Improve your birding skills and add more species to your life list with this excellent resource.
Want to improve your identification skills? Get this book. This book is appropriate for anyone who wants to improve his bird identification skills, whether he is already “advanced” or not. Kaufman does an excellent job detailing how to go about identifying birds in many problem groups, such as accipiters, dowitchers, and fall warblers. In some cases the information amounts to helpful hints that will make identification a little easier (did you know that the nail on a Greater Scaup’s bill is substantially larger than that on a Lesser…
A MUST have for serious birders This is a great birding book with great tips in identification of difficult bird groups. Kenn is explaining the fine details of similar species emphasizing on fine differences in shape, plumage, and molt. The B & W figures help understanding the text however it’ll be great if publishers can incorporate color figures for the next edition. This book really helped me clarifying some of my birds beyond all field guides available (eg. Yellow bellied sapsucker without any red on the head). This will…
a “must have” This is a great book for serious birders. It contains a great amount of important information that is well organized and helpful. This is a technical book that I would not recommend for the beginner, however, I found it practical in its structure and content.I strongly recommend this book. I held back from awarding a full five stars because I felt that their illustrations lacked a little “life” although experienced birders will probably not find this to be a problem.