Shorebirds of North America : The Photographic Guide

Rating:
Summary: missed opportunity
Review: I was waiting for this book to come out for a while and I got one of the first copies that came out. I am hugely disapointed. Ofcourse, the pictures are great and there are large paragraphs on physical description and plumage, but unbelievably, there are no range maps and the descriptions of habits, behavior and migration patterns are almost like footnotes after a page long dictionary like description of plumage. I compare this book to the similar princeton guide to north american sparrows, which has incredible descriptions of behavior and great rangemaps, and I call this book a massive disapointment. So if you want a page long summary of physical description, buy this book, otherwise save your money.

Rating:
Summary: Succeeds in its goal
Review: The first sentence of the introduction to this book says "This is a book about shorebird identification", and I believe it succeeds admirably in that goal. The two strongest points about the book are that it contains every species that has ever been recorded in North America (94 of them), and the 534 pictures are of very high quality. Distinctive species may have only a few pictures, while difficult or variable species have many more (up to a dozen or so). Although sometimes on the brief side, I did not find the sections on behavior and habitat to be lacking to the point of being drawbacks. And at a price of just over $20, this is a good value for a photographic guide.

A few points about range maps, which are not included in this guide:

1) The author points out that they are not included "in part so all the space can be used for photos and text but also because all current field guides have largely accurate range maps that can be used in conjunction with this book." I believe this is a fair trade-off. The book, at 350+ pages, is already a bit hefty for a field guide and range maps, although they would have been nice, would have made it larger and more expensive.

2) Nearly one-third of the birds covered by this book are so uncommon in North America that range maps don't really apply. Of the remaining two-thirds, many have North American range maps which in Sibley's are largely white except for the far north, and have varying numbers of little green dots elsewhere. Thus, many of the range maps, had they been included, would have conveyed minimal information.

3) Many shorebirds migrate very long distances and have a tendency to wander widely, thus making range maps less useful than they are for other species, like sparrows. When you think you may have a Little Stint in with that flock of Western Sandpipers you are observing, what you need are more pictures and identification pointers, not range maps.

So if you already have a general field guide like Sibley's and are looking for something extra to help you identify North American shorebirds, this book fills that bill nicely at a modest price.