I’m pretty bad when it comes to shorebirds. I can hold my own with birds of the forest and field as well as ducks, but if you take me to the shore, I start scratching my heard and looking through the field guide… often. On the upside, when I spend time with shorebirds, I learn a lot and sometimes come up with a life bird.
We have a ton of field guides at home. Honestly, it’s almost embarrassing. Some are ancient, others new. Some have photos, some illustrations and others both! We have guides that are specific to warblers, shorebirds and birds of prey. We also have guides that cover non-avian topics: wildflowers, weather, trees, snakes, insects, dragonflies, rocks and shells. With all these books on hand, I should be able to identify pretty much anything!
With such a huge selection of guides, it’s funny that the one I always bring with me is an older copy of Peterson’s Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern North America. The cover is taped, and the side sports a rather gross stain from decades of thumbing through the book. Apparently my digits are oily. I swear I wash them regularly, Mom! Those oils must magically attract the dirt later. Honest.
I modified this book by marking the fore edge of the book with permanent markers for faster access, grouping gulls, raptors, sparrows and so on by color. Peterson’s guide isn’t perfect, but it is well laid out, and I can find things faster with it than with any other book. Peterson spent a lot of time thinking about how to group things and how to quickly compare and ID birds.
Sibley’s guide is fine and usually gets tossed into the car for birding trips, though I think the original one is ridiculously large for the field. By the time I have binocs, camera gear and a tripod, hauling along a big, fat Sibley guide is out of the question. It wouldn’t fit in any remotely normal-sized pocket. It’s as if it were designed by André the Giant. My daughter carries one of his smaller guides, and my son usually has yet another option so we can compare books if we get stuck. My wife used to bring an Audubon guide with photos, but with three field guides on hand now that the kids bring theirs as well, she has replaced hers with a notebook and keeps our daily list.
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