The New Stokes Field Guide to Birds: Western Region

by Donald Stokes, Lillian Q. Stokes

Overview

The culmination of many years of research, observation, and study, the The New Stokes Field Guide to Birds: Western Region is factually, visually, and organizationally superior to any other photographic field guide available.

This easy-to-use guide features 636 North American bird species and more than 2,000 stunning color photographs. And yet it's portable enough to fit in your pocket! The guide includes:

The newest scientific and common names and phylogenetic order special help for identifying birds in flight through important clues of behavior, plumage, and shape detailed descriptions of songs and calls important behavioral information and key habitat preferences The newest range maps, detailing species' winter, summer, year-round ranges, and migration routes.

Whether you are a novice or experienced birder, this new Stokes guide will take your birding to the next level.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316213929
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	03/26/2013
Pages:	574
Sales rank:	288,502
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Donald and Lillian Stokes are widely recognized as America's foremost authorities on birds and nature. Their books include the bestselling Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America, the Stokes Field Guide to Birds, the Stokes Beginner's Guide to Birds, the Stokes Nature Guides, and the Stokes Backyard Nature Books. They live in New Hampshire and Florida.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America:

"This is unequivocally the most spectacular compendium of North American bird identification photographs ever assembled between two covers. ...this monumental volume offers birders the most up-to-date information on field identification of North American birds currently available. ...[it] significantly resets the bar for North America field guides."—Massachusetts Audubon Society

"This is by far the most comprehensive North American field guide I have in my possession. There are so many nice modern features that make this field guide extremely useful and user-friendly. I could go on and on. "—Idaho Birding Blog

"[I]f one is going to own a photographic field guide for the birds of North America, the Stokes now have the most complete book on the market...you can't go wrong with this guide."—10,000 Birds Blog

"This is a glorious book put together with loving attention to detail...a superb, good-value field guide."—BBC Wildlife

"The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America is an easy-to-use, superbly designed field guide that is detailed enough to be useful for birders of all experience levels. Highly recommended."—About.com Birding Guide

From the Publisher

"The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America is an easy-to-use, superbly designed field guide that is detailed enough to be useful for birders of all experience levels. Highly recommended."

About.com Birding Guide

"This is a glorious book put together with loving attention to detail...a superb, good-value field guide."

BBC Wildlife

"[I]f one is going to own a photographic field guide for the birds of North America, the Stokes now have the most complete book on the market...you can't go wrong with this guide."

000 Birds Blog 10

"This is by far the most comprehensive North American field guide I have in my possession. There are so many nice modern features that make this field guide extremely useful and user-friendly. I could go on and on. "

Idaho Birding Blog

Praise for The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America:

"This is unequivocally the most spectacular compendium of North American bird identification photographs ever assembled between two covers. ...this monumental volume offers birders the most up-to-date information on field identification of North American birds currently available. ...[it] significantly resets the bar for North America field guides."

Massachusetts Audubon Society

Birders young and old will be lining up for these updated Stokes field guides. Much of the data is directly taken from the earlier 1996 editions and even from the broad-spectrum Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America, but the many new photos and inclusions will entice birders into opting for these new works. Larger in format, with far more images, the updates are less chatty in tone than their predecessors. The tiny range maps include not only the year-round, summer, and winter ranges, but migration routes as well, which will help a birder confused at spotting a yellow-bellied sapsucker passing through Nebraska, or a blue-winged warbler temporarily in Tampa. And, birds being birds, they may be found adventuring, wandering, or blown off course almost anywhere. The guides follow an arbitrary line bisecting North America east of the Rockies, and birds residing near this demarcation blithely flit east and west over it to settle happily in straddling habitats. So, while some species adhere nicely to the Eastern or Western regions assigned in the titles, a whole flock of others appears in both volumes and rightly so. Even more space is taken up with a sharp increase in the number of color photos. The western sandpiper (yes, it's in both volumes) jumps from three shots to seven, and the eastern screech-owl (also in both) rises from one to five. The new shots include such views as the bird in flight, juvenile plumage, seasonal/sex variations, and color morphs. Some, such as the anis (smooth-billed and groove-billed), are given individual instead of paired entries, while others like the rose-breasted becard have been eliminated. VERDICT You may already have the classic Roger Tory Peterson guides in your collection or David Allen Sibley's remarkable National Audubon Society: The Sibley Guide to the Birds, but you should make room for one or both of these hefty editions. (Think of patrons planning vacations on opposite coasts.) Their plethora of clear color photos, terse but informative texts, and tidy (if tiny) range maps will make them coveted by the birder brigade.—Patricia Manning, formerly with Eastchester P.L., NY

Library Journal