Bird Watching Field Guides - Everything you need only

What is a Field Guide?

A field guide is a book, normally illustrated with drawings or photographs, which provides descriptions of birds that assists you in their identification. The descriptions use several factors to help you determine the exact bird that you are looking at (described further below). As soon as you see a bird that you do not recognise you will need to have access a good field guide. There are many to choose from. They come in various shapes, sizes, weight and cost.

Location

Field Guides are normally written to cover specific geographical areas. The ones that I am recommending (on the right) cover Britain or Britain and Europe (which also cover birds that regularly visit Britain). If you travel to other parts of the world you will need to buy a field guide for the area you are visiting, if you want to identify the birds there.

Distribution

Good field guides show a map where the birds are normally distributed and are usually seen. They are often colour coded to show places where individual species of birds are:

i) resident throughout the year in Britain.

ii) where they can only be seen in summer (and normally come here to breed).

iii) winter visitors (but do not breed here) and

iv) passage migrants (visiting usually in spring and summer on there way to breeding grounds or wintering grounds).

These coloured maps can really help you to pin down what you are observing, according to where you are and the time of year.

Topography

This is the areas of a bird which can be use to help identify them. Good field guides explain these areas of a bird, describing their shape and what they are called. For example the head. bill, wing, tail. Size and shape are also important contributors to successful bird identification. Colour variation and distinctive marks also help to narrow down the list for the one that you re looking at.

Description

A full description of all the birds that can normally be seen in Britain is contained in the field guides that I have recommended. They all have good photos or illustrations to help identification and descriptions of the birds. They describe habitat (where they live), movements and migration, song, food, breeding and populations. They also show the male, female on juvenile of each bird and often the difference between their summer and winter plumage. All of this information is designed to help you, by the process of elimination, to determine the exact bird that you are watching.

My Favourite Field Guides

I started off with the RSPB Book of British Birds and still use it regularly but I do supplement it with The Birds of Europe and Collins Bird Guide both of which are excellent. All available from Amazon (see right).

More field guides and heavier, fabulously illustrated, 'coffee table' bird identification guides are available in my Online Store.

For Gadget Enthusiasts

My favourite piece of kit, however, is my CD-ROM of RSPB Birds of Britain & Ireland which works on my PC and my PDA and includes my favourite RSPB Book of British Birds field guide and my favourite Where to Watch Birds in Britain site guide. It is fully interactive, has descriptions, illustrations, photos and even sounds of each bird. It has an interrogation section where you input things about the birds that you see and it produces a shortlist of what they may be. You can also record your sightings whilst in the field and then upload them onto your PC. For a computer using birdwatcher it is a 'must have' that will compete with your ipod! You can get it from the this link RSPB Shop.

Suggest a Guide

If you use a guide that you particularly rate and it is not listed on my pages or in my Store then please email me the details so that I can add it.