"Many of the more recent field guides to birds are illustrated with high-quality photographs. The present offerings, produced by well-respected authors/photographers Sterry and Small, are additional fine examples. . . . They are . . . beautiful, exceptionally well-produced volumes that will be found in most libraries with comprehensive ornithological holdings and on the shelves of many birders."
In the latest bird field guides to hit the market, British author-naturalist Sterry (HarperCollins Complete North American Wildlife) and Birding magazine photo editor Small offer birders excellent state-of-the art digital photos and comprehensive, up-to-date data on North American birds. Species information includes common and scientific names, field marks, plumage variation, size, vocalization, range maps provided by Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, and habitat. Conservation status and observation tips for each species are also included. However, some specialized terms are not defined in the short glossary. Publishing as two regional editions rather than as a single volume results in a more portable guide, but birders may still need to carry both, depending on location or travel plans. Comparable guides include Ted Floyd's Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America and Edward Brinkley's National Wildlife Federation (NWF) Field Guide to Birds of North America. All three titles are excellent. However, the Sterry-Small guide's larger photos aid identification and highlight variable plumage. Corner insets identify groups of birds for easier browsing. VERDICT Birders will love the portability, excellent photography, habitat, and conservation information. Libraries in some locations may need to purchase both volumes to cover all birds occurring in their area.—Sally Bickley, Del Mar Coll. Lib., Corpus Christi, TX
"Fabulous photographic field guides. . . . Birds of Eastern North America: A Photographic Guide , and its companion piece Birds of Western North America , are a tremendous addition to any library of bird identification literature. . . . Even those accustomed to an artist's illustration rather than photography to highlight identification features will find themselves reaching for these volumes time after time to confirm a field sighting of a bird in its natural habitat."
"These indispensable guides will quickly become the preferred photographic guides for new and experienced birders alike. The clear layout will help novices easily identify the birds they see, while the superb photographs will help seasoned birders confirm identifications."
Adventure Sports Outdoors
"Informative and accessible text, up-to-date maps, and stunning color photographs. Images have been carefully selected to convey both the sheer beauty and the key identification features of each bird, and many of the photos are larger than those found in most other guides."
Birds of Western North America and the Birds of Eastern North America are quite simply the most lavishly illustrated photographic guides to date of North American avifauna. Because of that fact, perhaps amateur and advanced birders will not object to procuring both books together when exploring such birding hot spots as the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas and elsewhere.
Pennsylvania Birds - Gene Wilhelm
Exceptionally well done. Double-page layouts of text and maps on the left and digitally enhanced photos of the matching birds on the right make these guides easy to use in the field.
Bird Watcher's Digest - John Riutta
The large, well-composed and well-edited photographs, combined with good text and range maps, may very well place these as the top photographic guides for North America.
Discovery - Nathan Hentze
With the proliferation of options, choosing a good field guide is increasingly a question of personal preference. Most of my casual birder friends prefer photographic guides; most keen birders seem to prefer traditional guides with paintings. I would recommend this book for novice birders and for those wanting to supplement a more traditional guide.
Canadian Field-Naturalist - Mark Gawn
[T]hese [two] books do have truly wonderful photographs and written descriptions that are useful in identifying and differentiating species. The guides could be especially useful to the casual birder. If you consider the cost of the paperback edition, they are an attractive, affordable addition to one's library.
Western North American Naturalist - Clayton M. White
Sterry and Small have created the best photograph based field guides I have seen for North American birds.
Quarterly Review of Biology - Michael J. Andersen
These guides are certainly worthy as a secondary field guide and photographic reference. No question, they are certainly the best photographic guides currently available.
South Dakota Bird Notes - Alan Knue
The most impressive feature of this field guide is the photography. Each species account contains one to several photographs: most are large and sharp and clearly illustrate useful details for identification. . . . It would make a nice addition to any collection of bird guides, if nothing else for the beautiful photographs.
Iowa Bird Life - Amber N. Wiewel
With these volumes, we've at last found photographic guides that are as easy to identify birds from as I.D. books that feature paintings. . . . [These] photographic guides aren't pocket size, but they're small enough that we'll carry them in the car and, with binoculars, in a pack on a serious birding outing. We expect to spend some enjoyable winter evenings browsing through them, enjoying the superb photos, and readable text, looking up old friends and preparing to meet new ones.
The Derrick - Bob and Linda Steiner
I highly recommend these books as field guides for intermediate birders . . . and as home study guides for beginners and armchair naturalists. Of course every avid birders will want these guides as well.
Wildlife Activist - Dan Kunkle
Compact and modestly priced, Birds of Eastern North America is a beautiful field guide (in fact, one of the best I've seen) and the top-notch photos are accompanied by oodles of informative facts and figures about the species illustrated.
The Travel Editor - Ron Tott
Sterry and Small have produced what I believe is the finest photographic field guide of eastern birds. . . . The photographs in this guide are crisp, informative and, in many cases, stunning.
Portland Press Herald - Herb Wilson
Deserve a perch in your birding library. Birds of Western North America and its companion guide Birds of Eastern North America are photographic field guides, with clear, well-defined full-color photos for ease of identification.
Grand Junctions Sentinel - David Buchanan
The Sterry and Small field guide is good in that the photographs, which are outstanding, are quite large for a book small enough to fit into a big pocket. Colored bars with family names across the top of each page make it quick and easy to locate the warblers, wrens, etc. Range maps include all of North America, not just the eastern region. Status, habitat and observation tips are given for each species.
Knoxville News Sentinel - Marcia Davis
The Sterry/Small guides are an innovative, useful addition to the arsenal of tools available to help us improve our birding skills. These outstanding guides deserve a place in your pocket, bookshelf, nightstand and bathroom.
Audubon Magazine - Wayne Mones
I never used to be very keen on photographic field guides for birds until I perused these two volumes. . . . An excellent volume set for the North American birder, complete with lavish photos larger than those seen in other field guides, useful, up-to-date range maps and an easy-to-use format.
Montreal Gazette - David Bird
A fine pair of guides for North America. . . . Small's photos are big, bright, and tack-sharp. . . . Sterry's generous accounts supplement the accompanying photographs well. . . worthwhile acquisitions for field guide consumers and completists alike.
10,000 Birds - Mike Bergin
A lot of clever thought went into the design of this new birding guide, and you'll find it easy to use plus especially helpful and simply jam-packed with lots of useful information.
Southern Maryland Newspapers - James Drake
The Sterry-Small guides will no doubt set new benchmarks for photo quality and precise reproduction. Inset photos cover seasonal and gender variations in plumage, picture birds in flight or show groups of birds for easier identification. Sterry's well-organized descriptions offer bird-spotting tips and information on habitat, feeding styles and conservation status. Range maps compile the latest data from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology.
New Jersey Newsroom - Valerie Sudol
[Birds of Eastern North America ] uses 1,118 exceptional color photographs to set it apart from the many other field guides in book stores. And somehow the designer managed to increase the image size so that every species is clearly and vibrantly depicted. Many of the smaller species appear at almost life size. This guide should appeal to beginning and experienced birders alike.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Scott Shalaway
I was immediately captivated by the stunning photographs. . . . This one's a keeper.
Down East.com - George Smith
Paul Sterry and Brian Small have created books with large, superior photos placed on pages designed to be lively and interesting. The text accompanying each species is three or four times as long as what you find in most ID books. It's pertinent and sharply written.
Minneapolis Star-Tribune - Jim Williams
The guides are, in a word, gorgeous—the photos are crisp (the latest digital technology captures rich detail) and the page layout is superb.
Pittsburgh Bird Watching Examiner - Fannie Peczenik
Stunning. This was the first word that came to mind upon cracking open these new guides. . . . The photography alone is worth owning both Eastern and Western editions. Even so, the accompanying text is fantastic too.
Birdfreak.com - Eddie Callaway
Outstanding. . . . The photos are of such superb detail you expect them to fly off the pages.
Roanoke Times - Bill Cochran
The photos in these books are large, crisp and clear. . . . They are durable field guides that easily slip into a backpack or even a large pocket in an overcoat, but their pictures are good enough to be a coffee table book. . . . Of all the various field guides I have ever seen, these . . . are by far the best.
ESPNOutdoors.com - James Swan
Birds of Eastern North America: A Photographic Guide and Birds of Western North America: A Photographic Guide should be a welcome addition to the libraries of serious birders as well as those who enjoy birdwatching only from their own backyard feeders. . . . I recommend both books.
Manchester Bird Watching Examiner - Brad Sylvester
Flat-out gorgeous. We see the birds standing, swimming and in flight. There's the usual field buide-style information—maps of their range, what they sound like, etc.—but this book seems to make things uniquely clear.
Philadelphia Inquirer - Sandy Bauers
This pair of photographic guides provides superb quality photographic images which are well up to the best of modern standards. If your American photo-guides are a few years old, now is the time to update them. The text is surprisingly detailed and concisely covers all plumages, as well as 'Status and Habitat,' 'Voice,' and 'Observation tips,' and the distribution maps are detailed and clear. These are now the best photographic guides for North America and exceptional value-for-money too.
Birding World - Steve Gantlett
These guides will be most useful for intermediate level birders.
Birdbooker Report - Ian Paulsen
The large, excellent photos, combined with the overall design, make this probably the most attractive general field guide I've seen. . . . This is the first field guide that I would recommend to bird photography aficionados solely on the merit of the pictures, irrespective of its value as a field guide. Finally, the exceptional, large photographs make these an attractive primary field guide option for new and burgeoning birders.
Birder's Library - Grant McCreary
Whether you are a birding fanatic or someone who enjoys looking in their backyard to see what shows up, there is a new bird guide that will fill your need. . . . With great photos of more than 500 species, this is a wonderful photographic guide making identification of birds that much easier. Both the Eastern and Western versions are great gift ideas.
New York Post - Ken Moran
Brian Small and co-author Paul Sterry have taken the photo-based field guide to a new level. Their new books are beautifully designed and well written. Photos are tack-sharp, and tightly cropped, giving close-up views of each bird.
Birder's World - Matt Mendenhall
The ultimate handbook to accompany you in the field or while bird watching at home. . . . [A]n excellent visual reference for the identification of birds.
Washington Post - Joel Lerner
Birds of Western North America and the Birds of Eastern North America are quite simply the most lavishly illustrated photographic guides to date of North American avifauna. Because of that fact, perhaps amateur and advanced birders will not object to procuring both books together when exploring such birding hot spots as the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas and elsewhere.
Exceptionally well done. Double-page layouts of text and maps on the left and digitally enhanced photos of the matching birds on the right make these guides easy to use in the field.
Bird Watcher's Digest Staff
The large, well-composed and well-edited photographs, combined with good text and range maps, may very well place these as the top photographic guides for North America.
With the proliferation of options, choosing a good field guide is increasingly a question of personal preference. Most of my casual birder friends prefer photographic guides; most keen birders seem to prefer traditional guides with paintings. I would recommend this book for novice birders and for those wanting to supplement a more traditional guide.
Canadian Field-Naturalist
[T]hese [two] books do have truly wonderful photographs and written descriptions that are useful in identifying and differentiating species. The guides could be especially useful to the casual birder. If you consider the cost of the paperback edition, they are an attractive, affordable addition to one's library.
Western North American Naturalist
Sterry and Small have created the best photograph based field guides I have seen for North American birds.
Quarterly Review of Biology
These guides are certainly worthy as a secondary field guide and photographic reference. No question, they are certainly the best photographic guides currently available.
The most impressive feature of this field guide is the photography. Each species account contains one to several photographs: most are large and sharp and clearly illustrate useful details for identification. . . . It would make a nice addition to any collection of bird guides, if nothing else for the beautiful photographs.
With these volumes, we've at last found photographic guides that are as easy to identify birds from as I.D. books that feature paintings. . . . [These] photographic guides aren't pocket size, but they're small enough that we'll carry them in the car and, with binoculars, in a pack on a serious birding outing. We expect to spend some enjoyable winter evenings browsing through them, enjoying the superb photos, and readable text, looking up old friends and preparing to meet new ones.
I highly recommend these books as field guides for intermediate birders . . . and as home study guides for beginners and armchair naturalists. Of course every avid birders will want these guides as well.
Compact and modestly priced, Birds of Eastern North America is a beautiful field guide (in fact, one of the best I've seen) and the top-notch photos are accompanied by oodles of informative facts and figures about the species illustrated.
Sterry and Small have produced what I believe is the finest photographic field guide of eastern birds. . . . The photographs in this guide are crisp, informative and, in many cases, stunning.
Deserve a perch in your birding library. Birds of Western North America and its companion guide Birds of Eastern North America are photographic field guides, with clear, well-defined full-color photos for ease of identification.
The Sterry and Small field guide is good in that the photographs, which are outstanding, are quite large for a book small enough to fit into a big pocket. Colored bars with family names across the top of each page make it quick and easy to locate the warblers, wrens, etc. Range maps include all of North America, not just the eastern region. Status, habitat and observation tips are given for each species.
The Sterry/Small guides are an innovative, useful addition to the arsenal of tools available to help us improve our birding skills. These outstanding guides deserve a place in your pocket, bookshelf, nightstand and bathroom.
I never used to be very keen on photographic field guides for birds until I perused these two volumes. . . . An excellent volume set for the North American birder, complete with lavish photos larger than those seen in other field guides, useful, up-to-date range maps and an easy-to-use format.
A lot of clever thought went into the design of this new birding guide, and you'll find it easy to use plus especially helpful and simply jam-packed with lots of useful information.
Southern Maryland Newspapers
The Sterry-Small guides will no doubt set new benchmarks for photo quality and precise reproduction. Inset photos cover seasonal and gender variations in plumage, picture birds in flight or show groups of birds for easier identification. Sterry's well-organized descriptions offer bird-spotting tips and information on habitat, feeding styles and conservation status. Range maps compile the latest data from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology.
[Birds of Eastern North America ] uses 1,118 exceptional color photographs to set it apart from the many other field guides in book stores. And somehow the designer managed to increase the image size so that every species is clearly and vibrantly depicted. Many of the smaller species appear at almost life size. This guide should appeal to beginning and experienced birders alike.
I was immediately captivated by the stunning photographs. . . . This one's a keeper.
Paul Sterry and Brian Small have created books with large, superior photos placed on pages designed to be lively and interesting. The text accompanying each species is three or four times as long as what you find in most ID books. It's pertinent and sharply written.
The guides are, in a word, gorgeous—the photos are crisp (the latest digital technology captures rich detail) and the page layout is superb.
Pittsburgh Bird Watching Examiner
Stunning. This was the first word that came to mind upon cracking open these new guides. . . . The photography alone is worth owning both Eastern and Western editions. Even so, the accompanying text is fantastic too.
Outstanding. . . . The photos are of such superb detail you expect them to fly off the pages.
The photos in these books are large, crisp and clear. . . . They are durable field guides that easily slip into a backpack or even a large pocket in an overcoat, but their pictures are good enough to be a coffee table book. . . . Of all the various field guides I have ever seen, these . . . are by far the best.
Birds of Eastern North America: A Photographic Guide and Birds of Western North America: A Photographic Guide should be a welcome addition to the libraries of serious birders as well as those who enjoy birdwatching only from their own backyard feeders. . . . I recommend both books.
Manchester Bird Watching Examiner
Flat-out gorgeous. We see the birds standing, swimming and in flight. There's the usual field buide-style information—maps of their range, what they sound like, etc.—but this book seems to make things uniquely clear.
This pair of photographic guides provides superb quality photographic images which are well up to the best of modern standards. If your American photo-guides are a few years old, now is the time to update them. The text is surprisingly detailed and concisely covers all plumages, as well as 'Status and Habitat,' 'Voice,' and 'Observation tips,' and the distribution maps are detailed and clear. These are now the best photographic guides for North America and exceptional value-for-money too.
These guides will be most useful for intermediate level birders.
The large, excellent photos, combined with the overall design, make this probably the most attractive general field guide I've seen. . . . This is the first field guide that I would recommend to bird photography aficionados solely on the merit of the pictures, irrespective of its value as a field guide. Finally, the exceptional, large photographs make these an attractive primary field guide option for new and burgeoning birders.
Whether you are a birding fanatic or someone who enjoys looking in their backyard to see what shows up, there is a new bird guide that will fill your need. . . . With great photos of more than 500 species, this is a wonderful photographic guide making identification of birds that much easier. Both the Eastern and Western versions are great gift ideas.
Brian Small and co-author Paul Sterry have taken the photo-based field guide to a new level. Their new books are beautifully designed and well written. Photos are tack-sharp, and tightly cropped, giving close-up views of each bird.
The ultimate handbook to accompany you in the field or while bird watching at home. . . . [A]n excellent visual reference for the identification of birds.
A fine pair of guides for North America. . . . Small's photos are big, bright, and tack-sharp. . . . Sterry's generous accounts supplement the accompanying photographs well. . . worthwhile acquisitions for field guide consumers and completists alike.
