The New Stokes Field Guide to Birds: Eastern Region / Western Region

In my review of The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America, I stated that “I would highly recommend it, though not as a field guide.” I went on to clarify that I thought it was an exceptional reference, but too big to use in the field. I imagine similar comments were made about The Sibley Guide when it was first published. But now, like Sibley, the Stokes have released smaller, regional editions of their field guide: The New Stokes Field Guide to Birds: Eastern Region and Western Region.

These two new guides take the area covered by the “big” Stokes and divide it in half – at approximately 101° longitude (basically, take the Saskatchewan/Manitoba border and extend it north and south). Essentially, with some exceptions listed below, these regional guides are exactly the same as their predecessor, but with only the birds found in their area. They are the same size as the original, just thinner. All of the photographs, maps, and text are the same.

For the remainder of this review I’ll be focusing on how these regional field guides differ from the North American one. So if you’d like to know more about the overall concept and quality of these guides, please see my review of the original.

Here are the changes that I’ve noticed:

• The Red-tailed Hawk account in the Eastern guide does not include the western varieties (so just the first two pages of the original four-page account). The Western guide includes the full thing. This is the only species account change that I’ve found.
• Taxonomy has been updated, with the latest common and scientific names used. However, the family sequence changes are not incorporated, so falcons are still with the hawks and longspurs with sparrows.
• Some rarities are not included (i.e. Northern Lapwing, Crimson-collared Grosbeak, and Aztec Thrush)
• The group intro pages are gone. This is no loss, as they were largely empty anyway.
• Does not include the CD that came with the big one.

But again, perhaps the main difference is size. The regionals will be much easier to use as actual field guides. They still might not fit into all pockets, but that also applies to others like the National Geographic.

I would have liked for the species accounts to have been tailored more for each region, such as removing the non-“Red” Fox Sparrows from the Eastern guide. I have to assume one of the reasons this wasn’t done was to keep production costs down. One could also take issue with which vagrants have been excluded. Pink-footed and Barnacle Goose, for example, are now found annually in the Northeast, but not in this Eastern guide. But neither issue will really interfere with using these as field guides.

Recommendation

The New Stokes Field Guide to Birds: Eastern Region and Western Region are very nice photographic field guides. If you like the big Stokes guide, but wish you could take it birding with you, then you’ll be happy with the appropriate regional one. Conversely, if you have the big one but have no desire to use it as a primary field guide, then the lack of new material make the regionals unnecessary for you.

And what if you don’t have the big one? Get it! It is the best general photographic reference for North American birds, and one of the books I’d recommend to all NA birders. And then if you find you’d like to use it in the field, get your regional one as well.