Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Birding advice

Im into birding at an amateur level and have enjoyed it for sometime. I have a non-tech savy friend who would like to get into it and has asked for a book and or field guide recommendation. In use a couple apps on my phone and while I hate to say it...I’m not sure what to recommend.

Any ideas would be great...he’s in Michigan’s upper peninsula if it matters.

I use the Merlin app from Cornell University on my phone and iPad. The pictures are better than in the field guides I have. I still keep the life list up in my old Peterson's Guide.

Not a Birder in the usual sense, just someone who enjoys watching them. My yard has multiple food sources, natural and cultivated, plus I run one or more feeders all year. The WMA I hunt is a good place to see stuff as well while waiting for volunteers for my personal food bank. Also, the nearby Virginia State Arboretum draws a nice variety, and seems pretty popular with bird photographers with their big honkin' lenses.

I'm just a casual birder, but I like the Sibley Guide a bit better than the Petersen. The Kaufman guide is reputed to be the most user-friendly for someone new to the pastime (it uses photo's rather than drawings). I'd use an app as a backup to a good guide, but not rely solely on an app.

Have to check those out. Multiple sources are always good.

Just thumbed through my copy of the Audubon guide and the pics are better than I remembered. Still, the Merlin app is handy, always on me, and has a what-is-it feature a newbie might like.

We have a number of birding books in the house, but tend to regard Sibley's as the ultimate source, partly because of more views of color variations, but other details as well.

Another vote for Sibley's and we have several others that are not as good. It was recommended by the members of our birding club in Florida and it is the one that we usually take along.

Thumbs up for Sibley's.

There is also an app that can identify birds by their calls. It can be fun and is good when you can hear a bird and not see it.

Sibley's for in the house.

The old Golden "Birds of North America" for in the field.

I like Sibley, it seems decisive and broad, but a bit hard to navigate and grasp, given changes in classification, names, and organization over the last 50 years I have been a birdwatcher.

Agreed. The Golden illustrations are designed to focus on the features of each bird

Which is what I still do much of the time. Still have the Golden guide that was the required textbook for my freshman course in field ornithology at the University of Montana in 1978. Of course, it is horribly out of date in some ways, since it still lists "rufous-sided towhee" and "oldsquaw," instead of their modern names. But is is much more compact than Sibley's, and if I have look something up, still know about which page contains that info!

It does matter - there's no sense wading through dozens of pages of birds that don't live there to find one that does. My go-to is Stan Tekiela's Birds of Minnesota. It's simple and quick. I have other resources, but they are rarely necessary. He does many (most?) other states as well.


Birds of Michigan

Lead #6's early season, copper plated #5's late.

This

I also have a Montana bird guide--along with books for various places around the world from southern Africa to the British isles--but don't see any reason to recommend a strictly local bird book to somebody who might get into birding enough to travel beyond state lines.

I also like birding books that reveal a little more than than simple identification--but whatever.

Gents...thanks so much for the information. Not only did I buy my friend a guide...I picked up a couple for my wife and I. Seems I’ve been missing a lot in my casual birding!


Thanks again truly for the sound advice

I also learned on the Golden guide, and I find it faster and easier to use than Sibley. And I still like the older names, btw.

lead# 71/2, then #6’s

Drop 7 1/2s and use 7 for hunting, if you can find it. I don't really care about trap shooting needs.