"Kenn Kaufman
What’s not to like about a field guide that is the first in the world to use digitally enhanced photos of birds, is color tabbed to match a list of birds on the front page, has a more detailed “quick index” of bird groups on the last page and uses colored bars on the top of the page, that is now flexibound? Add to these user friendly items the use of field mark pointers with the illustrations (reinforced by italicizing distinguishing marks in the text), range maps that use shades of blue (winter), red (summer) and gray (migration) to illustrate if a bird is common or rare (the paler the shading the more uncommon or rare a bird is in that area), a quick key to the map colors on page four, which follows a pictorial table of contents to help beginners learn bird groups (buntings and sparrows, for example). Because Kaufman organized the birds by grouping similar looking birds together (his ‘hot and cold tern’ and ‘miscellaneous micro-birds’ pages are sure to give experienced birders a jolt), rather than using the strict taxonomic order that official checklists follow, he includes a checklist decoder. Birds of North America includes a good introduction to bird watching, and has a few teaching sections that go into detail about a specific group of birds (ducks, geese and swans; gulls; birds of prey; shorebirds; tyrant flycatchers; introduction to songbirds; warblers; blackbirds and tanagers; and sparrows). This revised version has added more information for beginning bird watchers, has updated names, and is LESS expensive than the original version! Again, what's not to like?
The relatively compact size, 4.5 x 7.5 inches, (at 15.9 ounces it’s a tad bit heavier than the Golden Guide but basically the same size) makes it handy to carry in the field. Flexibound, 392 pages, more than 2,000 digitized photos; April 2005."
