Features

Is there a group of birds with more field guide representation than raptors? It’s not hard to understand why, just think of the words commonly used to describe them: Majestic; fierce; enthralling. Confusing. Is there anything more frustrating than that speck in the sky that just won’t come close enough to identify? Well, how about the accipiter or juvenile buteo that just sits there for you, but you still can’t tell what the heck it is? So it’s definitely worthwhile to have a specialized guide for birds of prey. But such guides come in almost as many variations as Red-tailed Hawks. Which one (or ones) should you get?

In this comparison, I’ll briefly go over each of the major field guides to North American raptors, and then end with some recommendations. (Unless otherwise mentioned, each of these include the 34 raptors that routinely breed in the United States and Canada.) Let’s start with the newest…

The Crossley ID Guide: Raptors

by Richard Crossley, Jerry Liguori, and Brian Sullivan
Princeton University Press; 2013
$29.95

Highlights

• Similar format as The Crossley ID Guide: Eastern Birds
• 32 double-paged “mystery photos”, where you can practice identifying and/or ageing raptors
• Includes, by far, the most photos of each species, on average
• Relatively extensive species accounts

Richard Crossley takes the unique format introduced in his Eastern Birds guide and expands upon it. Every bird (except Aplomado Falcon) gets at least two pages devoted exclusively to it (Red-tailed gets ten!), plus inclusion in one or more of the mystery photos. These plates, where numbered images of different species are grouped together, are my favorite feature. With the answers in the back, they afford great practice at identification and provide the easiest way to compare species against each other. The Crossley raptor guide’s insane number of photos and innovative design make it fun to study raptors.

Hawks in Flight: Second Edition

by Pete Dunne, Clay Sutton, and David Sibley
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 2012
$26.00

Highlights

• Wonderful text from Pete Dunne
• Drawings by David Sibley
• Photographs with some great captions

This guide, first published in 1988, is a classic. Now in its second edition, complete with color photos and added species, it’s even better. The photos are nice, and you can learn a great deal about hawk ID just by reading their captions. But it’s the text and drawings that set this book apart. Sibley’s drawings are black-and-white, but that’s not a bad thing – it helps draw attention to pattern and shape, the most important aspects for identifying hawks in flight. And the text…well, let’s just say that it’s not only the most helpful but is actually fun to read!

Full review of Hawks in Flight: Second Edition

Hawks from Every Angle: How to Identify Raptors In Flight

by Jerry Liguori
Princeton University Press; 2005
$19.95

Hawks at a Distance: Identification of Migrant Raptors

by Jerry Liguori
Princeton University Press; 2011
$19.95

Hawks from Every Angle

Hawks at a Distance

Highlights

• The most extensive collection of in-flight hawk photos
• Wonderful composite plates of both single and multiple species
• Only includes birds most likely to be seen migrating (so no Gray Hawk, Snail Kite, etc)

I’m treating these together because they seem like one book that was published in two parts. Both deal exclusively with in-flight raptors that are likely to be encountered at hawkwatches. Angle uses the larger, more close-up views that you’re used to. But Distance features birds that are smaller and more distant. Combined, they contain more photos of each bird than even Crossley. Both include some really helpful composite plates. The text is fairly brief and to the point. Their unique approach and features make them invaluable to hawkwatchers.

Full reviews of Hawks from Every Angle and Hawks at a Distance

Hawks of North America (Peterson Field Guide)

by William S. Clark and Brian K. Wheeler
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 2001
$22.00

Highlights

• Illustrated with both paintings and photographs
• Includes 12 vagrants not found in most other guides (i.e. Roadside Hawk and White-tailed Eagle)
• Relatively extensive species accounts

The paintings are the primary illustrations, depicting just about any variation and pose you could want. And since this is part of the venerable Peterson field guide series, there are arrows pointing out what to look for. I’m not a big fan of the illustrations, though; they just look off to me. The photos are a nice supplement, but they are relatively few and small. The text includes a good bit of information, mostly related to identification.

A Photographic Guide to North American Raptors

by Brian K. Wheeler and William S. Clark
Princeton University Press; 2003
$29.95

Highlights

• Photos of birds both perched and in-flight (though fewer than most other guides)
• Side-by-side comparisons of similar species
• Includes 9 vagrants

This was intended to be a supplement to the authors’ Peterson guide, but in hindsight seems more like the forerunner to Wheeler’s later guides (see below). Unlike those, this one is more portable and field-usable. But it also includes far fewer photos (and of lesser quality) and briefer text. It’s still a decent guide, but is definitely showing its age.

The Wheeler Guides:
Raptors of Eastern North America
Raptors of Western North America

by Brian K. Wheeler
Princeton University Press; 2003
$$$$ – out of print

Highlights

• Very extensive species accounts
• Large selection of nice photos, including perched and in-flight
• Largest, most detailed range maps that I’ve ever seen
• Excellent reference

Despite being “just” a decade old and published in both hardcover and paperback, the Wheeler Guides are now out of print and command big bucks on the secondary market ($100+ each!). So I hesitate to include them here, but they’re just too good to leave out! These are the best raptor references that you will find. The text is exhaustive (and exhausting, honestly), the range maps incredible, and the photographs plentiful. You know I love my bird books, but it says a lot that I still have my Wheeler Guides despite the price I could get selling them.

Full review of The Wheeler Guides

Recommendation

This may sound surprising (or like a cop-out), but each – well, most – of these guides have a place in your library depending on your needs. In my opinion, the best in general are Crossley and Hawks in Flight. I would recommend them to any birder, largely because I think they’re the easiest to study and learn the basics of raptor ID. If you’re looking for a guide to North American raptors, start with these.

If those are the best guides to study beforehand, the Wheeler Guides are where you would turn if you have a question or want to work out a difficult ID. If you can find your region’s volume for a reasonable price, get it.

Of all these guides, Jerry Liguori’s Hawks from Every Angle and Hawks at a Distance are the ones most targeted toward those who consider themselves hawkwatchers. If you spend much time at all around hawkwatches, you will want these two books. Other birders can certainly use them too, of course, but they aren’t as essential as Crossley and Hawks in Flight.

That leaves the Peterson and photographic guides by Clark and Wheeler. While they can still be helpful for raptor identification, they are older and have now been surpassed by the others listed here. Looking back, it’s amazing to see how much raptor photography has improved in such a relatively short time.

This post is part of the Raptor Blog Tour coinciding with the release of The Crossley ID Guide: Raptors. Be sure to check out all the other posts celebrating these wonderful birds.

Disclosure: The books included here were complementary review copies provided by the publishers, with the exception of Hawks from Every Angle, Peterson, and the Wheeler Guides.

I’ve never done a Book of the Year post. If I were to be honest, it’s usually been my fault for procrastinating. But instead, I choose to blame the Handbook of the Birds of the World. Until this past year a new volume in this landmark series has been published annually since I started this website. And it’s really hard to argue against any of them being the best bird book of their respective year. So what would be the point?

But I have no such excuse this year. The only question is: Did another book step up to fill the void in 2012? The answer, undoubtedly, is “yes”. Without further ado, my choice for the 2012 Bird Book of the Year is…

Save the Last Dance: A Story of North American Grassland Grouse

by Noppadol Paothong and Joel Vance

As I mentioned in my review, this book is filled with amazing photographs. It’s an enjoyable read as well, letting you really get to know these birds. But all of this, even combined with the fact that this is one of my favorite groups of birds and I was excited for them to get their due, may not have been enough for me to bestow the title of Best Bird Book of the Year on this book. What cinched it is not the book in and of itself, but rather its purpose. The author’s stated goal for this book is that it would let people get to know our grassland grouse, and that once they know these birds they would want to protect them. These grouse certainly need all the friends they can get. And I honestly think this book can accomplish that. What’s more, over $2,000 has been donated to grouse conservation organizations from the sale of this book.

Save the Last Dance is not only gorgeous and informative, but also a force for conservation of the birds that it so lovingly portrays. To me, that earns it the title of 2012 Bird Book of the Year.

Honorable Mention

• The Bluebird Effect: Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds
  by Julie Zickefoose

  I’ve heard this book described as “sumptuous”. That pretty much nails it. Zickefoose’s sketches and paintings – which adorn just about every page – are wonderful to look at, and her essays are even more wonderful to read. In fact, this may be the most enjoyable book I’ve read in a long time.
  My full review of The Bluebird Effect

• Cerulean Blues: A Personal Search for a Vanishing Songbird
  by Katie Fallon

  In this book, the author chronicles her (just slightly obsessive) need to get to know the Cerulean Warbler. It’s entertaining, informative, beautifully written, and – like Save the Last Dance – seeks to draw attention to this endangered bird. Like its namesake bird, Cerulean Blues deserves greater attention.
  My full review of Cerulean Blues

• Petrels, Albatrosses, and Storm-Petrels of North America: A Photographic Guide
  by Steve N. G. Howell

  This is how all family identification guides should be done! It has tons of great photographs and just about all the information you could want on these seabirds.
  My full review of Petrels, Albatrosses, and Storm-Petrels of North America: A Photographic Guide

I hope you enjoyed Warbler Week. If you did (or even if you didn’t), please consider doing something to help out these birds. Here are a few suggestions.

Perhaps the main thing you can do is to purchase shade-grown coffee. Yes, it really is that important. Anything with the Smithsonian “Bird Friendly” seal you can know with certainty will by 100% shade-grown, organic coffee.

The American Bird Conservancy does some fantastic work on the behalf of warblers (and all the other birds as well). Please consider donating to them. What’s more, until June 20, all donations (I don’t think memberships count) will be matched by private donors, up to $100,000. This is a great way to make your donation go even further.

Finally, here are some organizations that are working to protect the Appalachian region, home to the Cerulean Warbler. This bird is declining very rapidly, largely due to habitat loss on its breeding grounds. (Thanks to Cynthia Ellis for the links.)

• West Virginia Highlands Conservancy
• Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition
• Appalachian Mountain Advocates

As I was kicking around ideas for today’s Warbler Week post, I thought about doing one on my favorite warbler book. But I realized there was a problem with that…I didn’t know what it was. Just as I can’t single out one particular warbler as my favorite, there are too many warbler books to pick just one.

I don’t know about you, but when I think of warbler books, I think of identification guides. There are several such guides, but at least among this group I do have a clear-cut favorite – A Field Guide to Warblers of North America, in the Peterson field guide series.

But the granddaddy of all warbler books, even though it doesn’t focus exclusively on them, just might be Handbook of the Birds of the World, Volume 15: Weavers to New World Warblers. It covers all of the world’s wood-warblers, and has some of the best photos you’ll ever see of them. If I needed to find out something about warblers, this is the first place I’d look. However, it’s not cheap. If you’d like to have a book that contains all the warblers (not just the North American representatives) without having to take out another mortgage, then there is Warblers of the Americas: An Identification Guide. It’s a little old now, and from what I understand the text may not be the best. But I think the art is great.

Speaking of old books, there are also the classic warbler texts by Frank Chapman and Alexander Sprunt, Jr. Chapman’s The Warblers of North America, first published in 1907, features art by the legendary Louis Agassiz Fuertes. The text, however, seems dry and straight-to-the-point. In contrast, The Warblers of America (1957 and updated in 1979) by Sprunt is much more readable and also contains essays by other ornithologists (such as “The Resident Warblers of the West Indies”, by James Bond (whom the fictional spy was named after)). The color plates aren’t the best, but have a charm to them. Of the two, I have to say that I prefer Sprunt.

But if I had to pick, Chasing Warblers, by Vera and Bob Thornton, just might be my favorite. In it, the authors describe their quest to photograph all of the nesting warblers of the U.S. and Canada. I read this book a long time ago, back when I had been birding for less than a year and had seen only a handful of these birds. It was thrilling to read about all these warblers that I also hoped to see some day. I’m curious to see if it holds up for me now that I’ve seen most of them. But there’s no doubt that the Thornton’s photos are still fantastic!

So what about you, what’s your favorite warbler book?

This post is a part of Warbler Week – a celebration of warblers in print and other media.

I reviewed A Field Guide to Warblers of North America, in the Peterson guide series, a while ago. Actually, it was one of the initial reviews posted when I started this site. Well, I hesitate to call it a “review” – it was just a few short paragraphs with no images. But I’ve remedied that now.

If you don’t already have this guide (and if you’re a birder in North America, you should), check out the new and improved review of A Field Guide to Warblers of North America.

This post is a part of Warbler Week – a celebration of warblers in print and other media.

No, I’m not referring to some creation by ILM similar to some of the “birds” in The Big Year movie. Rather, this is about warblers in digital media. These birds are featured in all kinds of books, but are sadly underrepresented in the digital realm. In fact, I’m only aware of two items: a set of DVDs and an iPhone app.

Watching Warblers
Watching Warblers West

These two DVDs from Birdfilms almost single-handedly make up for the lack of warblers in digital media with their exceptional quality. Together, these two films feature all the breeding warblers of the United States and Canada. The video footage is simply amazing and looks spectacular on these discs. But not only are these a feast for the eyes, you’ll also learn a good bit about the birds as well.

If you like warblers, you’ll love these DVDs. For more details, here is my full review of Watching Warblers and Watching Warblers WEST.

birdJam HeadsUp Warblers

HeadsUp Warblers is an app for the Apple family of mobile devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad) dedicated to North American warblers. It includes some beautiful photos (although not enough to cover the entire spectrum of warbler plumages), but really shines in the audio department, as would be expected from birdJam. Each species has multiple sound clips and a nice feature makes it easy to compare birds by song type.

However, as nice as some of the features are, I’m not sure it provides enough value to recommend it in addition to a general field guide app. Full review of birdJam HeadsUp Warblers.

If you know of any other “digital warblers”, I’d love to hear about them.

This post is a part of Warbler Week – a celebration of warblers in print and other media.

I love warblers. If you’re a birder I could stop right there, for the reasons why are obvious to you and no further explanation is needed. But if you have no idea what I’m talking about, the warblers are a family of small, insectivorous songbirds found in the Americas (sometimes called New World warblers or wood-warblers to differentiate them from the unrelated warblers of the Old World). Very few warblers will visit bird feeders, and most of them remain hidden in the upper reaches of trees or within thick vegetation. This means that, unless you’re actively looking for them, you are unlikely to see one. And that’s a shame, because many of them are absolute stunners! For my money, warblers – as a group – are the most attractive birds in North America.

But flashy good looks aren’t nearly the only reason to love warblers. This is an extremely interesting and diverse group of birds. One is among North America’s rarest birds and many others are in trouble. Most undertake amazing migrations every year. Many are hard to find, and can be difficult to identify once you do (which only serves to increase birders’ desire for them).

Overall, this is just a great group of birds; one worth celebrating. And since it is currently the peak of warbler migration throughout much of North America, I thought now would be a good time to do it. This week, The Birder’s Library will present some warbler-related reviews and posts. I hope you enjoy them almost as much as the birds themselves.

• Cerulean Blues: A Personal Search for a Vanishing Songbird – Warbler Week starts out with a review of one of my favorite books from this past year
• Digital Warblers – A survey of warblers in digital media
• Revisited Review of A Field Guide to Warblers of North America
• Favorite Warbler Book – I try to pick out my favorite
• The Kirtland’s Warbler: The Story of a Bird’s Fight Against Extinction and the People Who Saved It – A history of mankind’s dealings with this intriguing bird, especially those people who have studied and saved it from extinction.
• How to Help Warblers

When I started birding, I carried a pencil and small notebook into the field to record sightings and make notes. It was a great way to learn, but a little cumbersome. A few years later, I met a birder who dictated sightings into a cassette-based voice recorder. How cool was that! Well, not the cassette part. So I bought a digital voice recorder with a remote mic. I could keep the device in my pocket, clip the mic to my binocular strap, and be able to record notes without ever lowering my binoculars. Plus, it could record bird sounds in a pinch. I love that thing and never imagined that I could bird without it.

And then comes the iPhone with all its wonderful apps. Smart phones and listing-keeping applications seem to be made for each other. It’s very convenient to keep your list on a device that you always have handy. Although I still use my trusty voice recorder from time to time, I’ve pretty much fully switch over. If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, I highly recommend using one of these apps. But which one? I’ll briefly describe and compare the iPhone listing apps that I’ve used. (Note, some of these are also available on Android phones, but I haven’t used those versions.)

First, all of these apps will obviously let you record which birds, and how many, you see. They will also email lists, export them in a format acceptable to eBird, and keep a rudimentary life list.

BirdsEye BirdLog North America

$9.99

Website

Worldwide version ($19.99)

The Good

• Submits directly to eBird
• Very fast to enter data in the field, unless you want to note male/female, etc (see below)
• Records your location with GPS, or you can use eBird hotspots

The Bad

• Not as fully featured as some other apps. For example, it uses GPS to note your location, but you cannot tag the location of individual birds.
• Besides the count, you can only enter text notes for sightings. There isn’t any way to easily keep track of male/female, age, heard-only, etc. You can enter that as a note, but it takes longer and is more cumbersome than it should be
• Expensive, especially for the worldwide version
• Requires the use of eBird (but aren’t you doing that anyway?)

Birdlog is very easy to use (especially after figuring out some shortcuts). I thought the disappointing support for noting details about a sighting would be a deal-breaker for me. But although I hope it will eventually be added, it hasn’t been a very big deal. The speed with which you can enter sightings in the field and the convenience of direct uploads to eBird more than make up for the app’s shortcomings.

Birdlog does not include any life list features within the app. However, once you get your sightings into eBird, you can manage your lists there. This app also does not support any export options other than eBird. But again, you can do that from eBird. This is why I mentioned that Birdlog requires the use of eBird in the Bad list above. As I see it, this isn’t really a knock on Birdlog – the app was designed to be a mobile interface to submit sightings to eBird. So this is more of something to be aware of rather than a flaw in the app.

Birdwatcher’s Diary

$12.99

Website

The Good

• The most powerful and fully featured list-keeping app
• Can submit directly to eBird
• Usable worldwide
• Flexible and extensible – can import lists for anywhere and of anything, not just birds (i.e. mammals)
• Keeps track of time and can record GPS location
• Export lists as Google Earth KML
• Uses iTunes for backup, or can upload to ftp sites
• Life list functionality relatively robust

The Bad

• Price
• Complicated
• Runs through battery quickly if GPS is being used
• Cumbersome to separately count by gender, age, and plumage

Birdwatcher’s Diary is the most powerful listing app I’ve used. By downloading and installing lists, it can be used anywhere and for just about anything. The filtering capabilities seem especially well-suited to bird surveys and big days. The life list feature has options, unlike most other apps, so you can have it tell you what birds you’ve seen in a given location, time period, etc. You can count different “types” of the same bird individually (male/female, subspecies, etc), but it takes much more effort than in birdcountr.

However, this is not the most intuitive app. I had to actually read the manual to figure out how to use it. But the good news is that the manual is a fairly good and easy-to-follow tutorial that walks you through the myriad features.

Lifebirds Journal

$4.99

Website

The Good

• Easy to use
• Worldwide coverage
• Can record GPS coordinates
• Can keep track of age, sex, subspecies, and even add voice memos – just about everything
• Species search is very quick and easy

The Bad

• Takes more button pressing (and thus time) to record sightings
• You have to manually enter subspecies and location information

I’ve found Lifebirds Journal to be very easy to use. You can start it up and begin logging sightings immediately without reading any documentation whatsoever (although I’d still recommend going through the help and tutorial available on their website). I like to keep track of “identifiable forms” within species. That is, I keep a separate count for male/female, immature, subspecies, etc. Lifebirds can do that for you.

This app offers a lot of options, but there is a big problem: entering a sighting requires way too much button tapping. To record the most simple sighting – a single bird, without GPS coordinates – requires five taps. And if you’re recording multiple birds, especially of different ages or sex, it can easily require twice as many taps. I find that to be too much time and effort in the field.

My Bird Observations

$2.99

Website

The Good

• Usable worldwide, with preloaded lists for states and countries
• Simple, fairly quick data entry
• Price
• Exports to Birdstack, and uploads to box.net for backup

The Bad

• No easy way to separately count by gender, age, and plumage
• Does not use GPS to record location
• Lack of smart scrolling bar makes it more inconvenient to scroll through a long list of families or species

Of these listing apps, My Bird Observations is the most basic. It will automatically note the start time for each trip, but if you want to record other details (duration, county, etc) you must enter them manually. It does not use GPS. But it is easy, quick, and intuitive to use. The only way to keep track of different types (male/female, etc) is to manually type notes for the species.

Recommendation

First, check out each of these apps’ website. Many of them offer demos and walk-throughs that, while not as good as hands-on experience, will still give you a feel for what the apps are like.

All of these apps will allow you to record the birds you see and create bird lists that can be uploaded to eBird. But ultimately, the one that is right for you depends on your needs. If you need a quick and easy way to count birds, without worrying about recording GPS or various “types”, then My Bird Observations or Lifebirds Journal should work fine. If you think you’ll take advantage of its advanced features, then Birdwatcher’s Diary may be the best choice. And if getting your sightings into eBird is your primary concern, then BirdLog is your app.

Update 8/4/2012: Birdwatcher’s Diary, as of the latest update, can now submit directly to eBird. As soon as I’m able to test it out, I’ll update this page again.

More Bird Apps

• Comparison of Bird Field Guide Apps for iPhone – a similar comparison I’ve done for the North American field guide apps available for the iPhone
• BirdsEye – a bird-finding app utilizing eBird
• birdJam HeadsUp Warblers and HeadsUp Sparrows – warbler and sparrow-specific apps

Disclosure: The apps reviewed here were complementary review copies provided by the developers.

2010 was a good year for bird field guides. The highlights include new editions of the most famous field guide in history, a great new field guide for North America, a real field guide to the world’s most avian-rich country, and what was arguably the most highly anticipated field guide update ever (at least since I’ve been birding). Here’s a brief look at the field guides from this past year.

It seemed like there were an unusually high number of new editions and updated field guides in 2010, most of which were published, at least in the U.S., by Princeton University Press.

• The Collins Bird Guide, or Birds of Europe as it’s known in North America, is probably the most highly regarded field guide in the world; and deservedly so. Every birder, regardless of location, should have a copy, if only to see how good a field guide can be. But the original edition (review), published a decade ago, was starting to show its age. This second edition makes some updates and additions, but is still the same amazing guide.
• The new Birds of Peru is billed as a “Revised and Updated Edition” rather than a second edition. I don’t have the first edition to compare the two, but I think this is an accurate reflection. The binding has been changed from a jacketless hardcover to paperback, making it more portable. It also includes an additional 25 species, and some revised range maps. Anyone birding in Peru or the surrounding countries absolutely has to have it. Full Review
• In 2008 the famous Peterson field guides, which had previously only been available as separate regional editions, were updated and combined into a single book (review). It should come as no surprise that they were again split into the sixth edition Eastern and Central North America and fourth edition Western field guides.
• Australia was blessed with two updated field guides in 2010: the eighth edition of Simpson and Day’s Birds of Australia, and the second of The Slater Field Guide to Australian Birds. If you’d like to learn the relative merits of each of Australia’s field guides, there is an excellent comparison on Birdforum.
• The second edition of Birds of the Middle East looks like it would be a very useful field guide for the region. I don’t have the first edition, so I can’t compare the two. But it sounds as if this guide has been completely redesigned and updated, much of it for the better. It now has a more traditional layout with birds on the right-hand page and text and range maps on the left.

But there was also a good selection of new field guides in 2010.

• Each of the last four years has brought us a new photographic field guide to the birds of North America. They’ve each had their merits, but The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America is my current favorite photo-based guide. It is an excellent reference that is worth having even if you already have a dozen other NA field guides. Here’s a look inside.
• Of all the field guides published in 2010, Field Guide to the Birds of Colombia may be the most impactful. Columbia, which boasts more bird species than any other country on Earth, is once again becoming a safe place to bird. But until now, its only field guide, while good, is old and unwieldy. I’m still not sure what magic the authors used, but they managed to produce a guide to 1800+ birds that is both useful and very portable. Full Review
• Birds of the West Indies is a very compact guide to Caribbean birds. But it doesn’t completely supplant its predecessor, a field guide with the same name by Herbert Raffaele. Having been able to use this guide in the field recently, I will be writing a review shortly.
• The Birds of Panama, like the new Columbian guide, is a very welcome addition since it’s the first good, readily portable field guide to this popular birding destination. I haven’t seen it yet, but if it’s as good as the companion book to Costa Rica (by the same publisher and illustrator), it would be highly recommended to anyone birding in Panama.
• According to the very helpful site Avian Review, the Field Guide to the Birds of Ghana, as only the second field guide to west Africa, is a book that you’ll need if you’re planning on birding in western Africa.
• Bird Feathers: A Guide to North American Species isn’t a field guide in the same manner as these other books, but is rather a field guide to bird parts. Ever find a lone bird feather and wish you could figure out to which bird it belonged? This is your book.

If I’ve missed any, and inevitably I have, let me know and I’ll add them.

Digital cameras, digital photo frames, eBook readers, it seems like the whole world is going digital these days. And now digital field guides are here. You can think of these as traditional field guides on steroids, yet even smaller.

You still get the regular stuff found in field guides: illustrations, range maps, basic identification and natural history information. But the format also allows for much more. You can play a bird’s song from within the field guide. Or access information that otherwise would have required cracking open another book or doing an internet search.

Aside from the portability, possibly the best thing about the medium is that it allows you to search for a bird in so many more ways. For instance, if you don’t know the name of a bird you want to look up, you don’t have to go looking through the accounts as you do in a printed guide. Just input some characteristics in the search function, and the guide will narrow down the possibilities for you.

There are now several digital field guides available to birders, mostly for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch devices. This is a brief comparison of those for North America.

Audubon Birds — A Field Guide to North American Birds

$4.99

Website

The Good

• Find birds with eBird (similar functionality to the BirdsEye app)
• Good selection of very nice photographs
• Great selection of sounds (essentially the same sounds as Sibley)
• Most migrants have a second map showing winter range

The Bad

• The interface is very slow compared to the other apps here
• Can’t browse species taxonomically
• Journal and list functions are confusing and not very useful

Audubon is the only one of these apps to exclusively use photos for illustrations. They’re nice and work pretty well. But I don’t particularly like the interface (the design and, especially, slow response). The biggest plus this app offers is the hook into eBird for finding birds, which is especially useful if you don’t have the BirdsEye app. (I think BirdsEye does this slightly better than the Audubon app, but is more expensive and obviously doesn’t also come with a field guide!) Overall, the Audubon app is an acceptable field app, especially for those who prefer photos to drawings.

iBird Pro Guide to Birds

$19.99

Website

The Good

• Includes both art and photographs
• Number of species included (926), and includes Hawaiian birds
• Includes a lot of interesting facts and natural history information
• Powerful search engine / filtering capabilities

The Bad

• Number of illustrations is very limited, with many only having one (females and immatures are often neglected). The photos, however, help make up for this
• Price
• Lack of sighting system/lists
• Quality of some illustrations is poor

iBird has been greatly improved since I first reviewed it, with added sounds along with new and improved illustrations. This is perhaps the best app for newer birders. However, the lack of variety in illustrations and relatively poor treatment of difficult-to-identify species means that it will be less useful to more advanced birders.

Note: there is now an iBird Ultimate version, which includes even more features.

Try out iBird for free with iBird Lite Guide to Birds, which includes 60 sample species.

Full Review of iBird Explorer app (Note: I need to update this review to include the latest app improvements)

National Geographic Birds: Field Guide to North America

$9.99

Website

The Good

• Number of species included (995, the most of any app)
• Great sound interface, including similar sounding species
• Includes more information – similar species, winter ranges, natural history, etc – than the field guide
• Extras such as quizzes and videos

The Bad

• The images are relatively small on the screen. You can zoom in, but since the size of the area dedicated to the image doesn’t change, it doesn’t help much. And the image quality doesn’t quite hold up when zoomed in. With the latest update, when you zoom in far enough it will show the image full-screen. And the image quality looks much better. It’s still an awkward operation, but at least you can do it now.
• List functionality has potential, but not really useful yet

The latest print edition of National Geographic Birds is a great field guide, but I was surprised to find that this app not only does justice to it (with the exception of the small images), but actually improves upon it in surprising ways. For instance, it not only gives a list of similar species, but also specific tips on how to differentiate them. And it does this for every bird, as far as I can tell. This, combined with a good selection of sounds (and a great interface for playing them), makes this app a useful one in the field.

Try out this NatGeo app for free with Birds Lite by National Geographic, which includes 70 sample species.

Peterson Birds of North America

$14.99

Website

The Good

• Great list feature that allows you to import/export lists
• Incorporates information from seven other books in the Peterson Field Guide series (including, for example, the entire text from Molt in North American Birds)
• Works and looks great on an iPad

The Bad

• Sounds – the worst selection (only one per species) and interface for playing them
• Interface doesn’t work as well on an iPhone

This app does a good job of presenting the Peterson field guide, as well as many other sources from the Peterson guide series, in a digital format. It makes a very good reference app on the iPad. And for the price (currently $4.99, though sometimes on sale for even cheaper), it’s a great deal. However, due to the limited sounds and the iPhone interface, I don’t think it works well as a field app.

There is also a Peterson Birds Pocket Edition app. For only $0.99, you get ALL the species of the full app, including all the field guide illustrations, sounds, maps, and species account text. But you lose some cool features, like the additional Peterson guide content and the list capabilities. This version is an incredible bargain.

Full Review of Peterson Birds of North America app

The Sibley eGuide to the Birds of North America

$19.99

Website

The Good

• The best illustrations of any North American field guide (in my opinion), and includes the greatest number of illustrations per species
• Only app that allows you to compare portraits, sounds, and range maps of any two species on the same screen
• Great selection of sounds (essentially the same as Audubon), and a good interface for playing them

The Bad

• Price
• Filtering capabilities are relatively limited
• Lack of extras like natural history information, social media sharing, etc

I love always having my Sibley guide with me via this app. The print edition is still my favorite field guide, and this app is likewise the one I turn to first, even though it doesn’t have some of the information and features found in other apps. Basically, what you get is the contents of the print guide plus sounds, filtering, and list features. But the main content – the illustrations and sounds – are the best.

Try this app out for free with The Sibley eGuide to the Birds of North America LITE, which includes 30 sample species.

Full Review of The Sibley eGuide app

So which one of these bird apps belongs on your device? It depends on how it will be used. For use in the field viewing images and playing sounds, I prefer the Sibley app. But Audubon and NatGeo also work in that regard, and each bring different feature sets that other apps don’t have. iBird is a little different, in that it may be the best app for beginners (easy to use, great filtering), but experienced birders will be frustrated by the lack of variation depicted. As a reference (especially on an iPad), NatGeo, iBird, and Peterson are great because of the extra information they include. Peterson, especially, contains a LOT of reference material, looks great on the iPad, and is an exceptional value.

For a more detailed comparison of features, here are a couple more resources. Robert Mortensen, of the Birding Is Fun! blog, has a useful Feature comparison table. Also, the folks at iBird have compiled an extensive comparison. (Keep in mind that one of the competing companies produced this table, and there are a few oversights/mistakes as of this writing. However, overall it appears very fair and objective to me.)

Finally, I wanted to mention that all of these apps, except iBird, feature some sort of listing capabilities. You could keep a life list or record sightings on them, but honestly, I don’t see why you would want to. None of them work very well for that. However, Peterson and NatGeo offer some additional listing capabilities that could prove very useful. In Peterson, you can create, import, and export various lists. You can think of them as analogous to playlists for mp3’s. NatGeo is more limited right now, as you’re limited to creating lists or using a few pre-packaged ones.

More Bird Apps

• Bird Listing Apps for iPhone – a similar comparison I’ve done for listing apps available for the iPhone
• BirdsEye – a bird-finding app utilizing eBird
• birdJam HeadsUp Warblers and HeadsUp Sparrows – warbler and sparrow-specific apps