Sibley Guide to Birds

This is the field guide with the most attention to detail per species, with over 33 illustrations for the Red-tailed Hawk, and a total of 6,600 watercolors covering 810 species in North America. From the publisher, ""From David Sibley, renowned artist and birder comes this field identification guide to North American birds containing his superbly lucid and comprehensive text and more than 6,500 of his paintings: beautiful, richly detailed, and brilliantly reproduced in full color. Sibley depicts and annotates 810 species and 350 regional populations, showing their stages, forms, shapes, colors, and markings. He describes each species’ calls and provides a full-color range map showing each species’ migration routes as well as its summer, winter, and breeding locations."" Some find it a little large for carrying in the field, and keep this in the car as a reference. The new Pajaro Grande field pack was designed to fit “Sibley” and other field essentials. With the attention to visual detail, there is not a lot of information on the birds or birding, but Sibley’s two subsequent books, Bird Life and Behavior and Birding Basics, address those topics.

Flexicover, 544 pages, 9.7 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches, 2.6 pounds, 2000."