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Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America | 
| Author: Ted Floyd
Publisher: Collins
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $15.22
You Save: $9.73 (39%)
New (30) Used (6) from $15.22
Avg. Customer Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 4416
Media: Paperback
Edition: Pap/DVD
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 528
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.2
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.4 x 1.4
ISBN: 0061120405
Dewey Decimal Number: 598.097
EAN: 9780061120404
ASIN: 0061120405
Publication Date: June 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: B20080725212931T
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
This new field guide provides a suite of modern tools to effectively aid in the identification of more than 750 species of birds across North America. It introduces a "whole bird" approach by concisely gathering a collection of information about birds into one portable and well-organized volume. - 2,000 stunning color photographs of birds in natural habitats show the most important field marks, regional population differences, life stages, and behaviors
- 700-plus detailed and up-to-date color range maps show summer, migration, winter, year-round, and rare but regular occurrences of every major species
- A DVD of birdsongs for 138 major species (587 vocalizations in all for 5 hours of play); each high-quality MP3 file is embedded with an image of the bird, perfect to view on home computers and portable MP3 players
- Concise descriptions of habits and ecology, age-related and seasonal differences, regional forms, vocalization, and informative captions pointing out the most important aspects of the bird
- 46 group essays with information outlining taxonomy, feeding, migration, habitats, behaviors, and conservation status
- A thorough and accessible introduction to birds and birding includes sections on parts of a bird, plumage and molt, food and feeding, migration, habitats, conservation, tips on bow to become a better birder, and more
- A detailed glossary of terms, species checklist, and quick index
The new Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America is perfectly designed to give birders the most powerful and user-friendly collection of information to carry into the field or wherever they enjoy learning about birds and nature. A Look (and Listen) Inside the Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America
Click on an image below to sample one of the 587 different downloadable bird songs included with the guide.  |  |  | | American Wigeon | Common Loon | Mallard |  |  |  | | Red-Winged Blackbird | Mourning Dove | Northern Cardinal |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...
 Stunning July 25, 2008
Wow, the "Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds" is breathtaking. The information, over 2,000 color photographs, range maps and the DVD of bird images and songs are both beautiful and informative. I highly recommend this book.
The Best Field Guide On Birds I Have Seen July 25, 2008
The Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America is by far the best field guide I have in my library. The pictures are crisp, clear and well done. The extensive collection of birds in this guide are vast. I couldn't ask for more from a guide. It displays range maps, data on each bird with good descriptions. Add measurements, such things as molting times, breeding and differences in sexes as well. There is also a wonderful bonus of a DVD with 587 downloadable bird songs to hear the melodies of the birds. These Mp3 songs can be quickly transferred to your Mp3 player and taken along with you on your outings. I especially liked the pictures that are included as album art for your player. I thought that was thoughtful and an extra bonus too! This is the only book I need, along with the bird songs on my player, a notebook, a camera and binoculars and I am good to go! There is a quick glossary of terms for newbies to ornithology and a convenient species checklist. I think this field guide by author Ted Floyd, who is also the editor of Birding Magazine, is a winner in every way!
beautifully visual and a worthwhile reference July 25, 2008
My daughter loves all animals and I'm always looking for field guides for her to study. I've been searching for a great bird reference book and I'm very pleased with this one. I love how visual the guide is - it is filled with wonderful photographs.
The information is good but not too overwhelming. This really is a good collection because the book is small enough that you could actually take it out on a bird watching adventure with you.
Well organized and beautifully done. The bonus disk of bird songs was especially fun for my daughter.
 Colorful and Informative But Not Kid Oriented July 24, 2008
This is a great full color book on birds for adults. Its got a nice water resistant cover and gives you just enough textbook information without overloading you with the minutia you'll never need to use. Each listing comes with at least one photo for you to see and help identify the species with, and when available they also included separate photos of both sexes of adults and the juvenile bird. Most of the photos are your standard bird sitting on twig, tree limb, ect.;but some are very interesting action shots just as the bird takes off.
My only concern is that the collection is organized not by region of the country, which I personally feel would be easier for amateurs and children to be able to correctly find and identify the birds they see outside, but by designation; Waterfowl,Upland Game Birds, Tubenoses, Woodpeckers, Tyrant-Flycatchers, ect. You have to have a basic knowledge of birds to be able to make an educated guess as to where to look for them. If you can't tell a finch from a warbler this may be hard to do.
I've had fun identifying the species in my backyard and now know that it's a mourning dove that's been serenading me on the porch. The DVD that's included at the back of the book was also helpful in distinguishing this since I could listen to the call to confirm my guess. I have the DVD currently playing in the background of my laptop and it's driving my cat crazy. She can't figure out where the birdy is!
Excellent field guide July 24, 2008
My wife is an avid bird watcher and she has a respectable collection of books about birds, including reference guides, field guides and encyclopedias. She has one other book published under the Smithsonian name that has proven to be an excellent reference on North American birds, so this volume seemed to be another good choice. This turns out to be the case.
This is not a comprehensive almanac with everything there is to know about every different species of bird you may see, but it is not intended to be such. This is a field guide and as such it has the most important things you need while birding in the field - full-color photographs, maps showing the ranges for the various species, and descriptions of physical traits that assist in identification.
The photographs are, in a word, excellent. They are close-up, detailed and clear. Male and female of the different species are differentiated when appropriate.
The write-up on each species is very clear and concise.
Included with this book is a DVD filled with recorded bird songs. These are not included as simple WAV files, though - these are MP3 files with embedded images. I sampled quite a few of these and found them to be of high quality and very accurate. There are 138 species that are sampled and these include the most common birds you are likely to encounter. This lends an interesting possibility - the bird songs can be loaded on an MP3 player which allows for additional identification in the field.
Exploring the DVD I found that each of the recorded species was given its own unique directory.
I found only one real flaw with this book - the typeface is very small and could be hard to read for some people. My wife needs reading glasses to read the text, which defeats the purpose of having a field guide as opposed to a reference. That said, the images are much more critical than the text for identification, and considering that this is not a full reference it needs to be kept small for use when on the road.
If you are an avid birder and want an excellent field guide, this is a superb choice. The high-quality images and included birdsongs DVD make this a great guide for the field. The text is small, but that is a trade-off. The size of this book is just right for anyone wanting to enjoy birding on the road.
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