Richard Crossley Knihy

"Perfect for beginning and intermediate birders, this book challenges traditional field guide design by providing a real-life approach to bird ID, focusing on all aspect of how a species appears, its habitat and behavior."--Amazon.com

When many birders go out looking at shorebirds, they see a distant mud flat full of grayish brown birds in various shapes and sizes and have no idea where to begin the identification process. When advanced birders look at that same flock of shorebirds, they can identify the vast majority of birds with a quick binocular scan. Experts use the simplest, most easily observed characteristics--size, structure, behavior, and general color patterns--almost subconsciously, and can identify most birds even before looking carefully at plumage details. Now birders of all levels can learn how to identify these wildly popular birds quickly and with much less effort. This guide provides more than 870 stunning color photographs, sequenced to give a general impression of a species first and progressing to a more detailed image of the bird throughout its life cycle. Captions list characteristics in order of importance, reflecting the thought process that experts use to identify birds.

Presents a celebration of the beauty of birds and the British and Irish countryside. Following The Crossley ID Guides' award-winning design, this book looks at all regularly occurring species in Britain and Ireland, and shows readers how to identify birds in their natural habitats using size, structure, shape, probability, and behavior.

Helps you improve your ability to identify birds. This book features 640 scenes for various species that are composed from more than 10,000 of the author's images showing birds in a wide range of views - near and far, from different angles, in various plumages and behaviors, including flight, and in the habitat in which they live.

"Covers all thirty-four of North America's diurnal raptors"--Cover flap.