FreeLists / tn-bird / [TN-Bird] Result of Bird Guide Survey

[EGLEAVES@xxxxxxx]

Fellow TN-BIRDers:
 
Here are the results of the latest field  guide survey, supplanting and 
making totally obsolete the survey that I did  several years ago, which you 
have 
all forgotten about anyway.
 
The question, as you may remember, was:  What are your three favorite field 
guides to the birds (in preferential  order)?
 
I received responses from approximately  25 TN-BIRDers, all of whom were kind 
enough to rank their favorites and, at  times, to add their comments 
(TN-BIRDers DO have their opinions, in case you  haven't noticed).  I gave 
three 
points to each first choice, two to each  second choice, and one point for each 
third choice.
 
Here are the results:
 
1.  Sibley Field Guide to Birds  of Eastern North America (41 points)
 
2.  National Geographic Field  Guide to the Birds of North America (35)
 
3.  Peterson's Field Guide to  Birds of Eastern and Central North America (27)
 
4.  Sibley Guide to Birds  (16)
 
5.  Kaufman's Birds of North  America (9)
 
6.  Golden Guide to Field  Identification of North American Birds (7)
 
7.  American Bird Conservancy,  All the Birds of North America (4)
 
8.  Stokes Field Guide to the  Birds, Eastern Region (3)
 
The Sibley Guide to Birds was  something of an add-on, since it is not, 
strictly speaking, a field guide, but  several of you felt that you could not 
go 
into the field without  it.
 
I failed to include the Audubon Guide in  my query, but only one of you 
mentioned it and then not very  favorably.  At any rate, I should have included 
it.
 
My subsequent survey of "other books that  you consider indispensable" was 
something of a bust, probably because  you had said all that you wanted to in 
the first survey--but also because the  choices were all over the map, 
literally, from the birds of Shady Valley to the  bird of the Philippines, from 
guides 
to bird nests to guides to shorebirds of  the Pacific Northwest.
 
But Wallace Coffey of Bristol submitted a  list of 25 works that he would not 
want to be without and Mary Zimmerman of  Nashville sent a lovely essay on 
her use of field guides over the years.   If there is interest in seeing either 
of them, I will ask for the authors'  permissions to post them on the list.
 
Thanks to all who participated in this  unscientific but sincere survey.
 
Ed Gleaves
Nashville,  TN


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