[texbirds] The Sibley's Guide to Birds, Second Edition
- From: MBB22222@xxxxxxx
- To: texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 22:58:28 -0400 (EDT)
First a few words to stress out that I did and will recommend Sibleyâs
guide to anybody who is looking for one. I always did and still am thinking
that this is one of the best illustrated bird guides ever published. I place
photographic guides in complete different category.
What disappointed me in the second edition is that the author did not
correct some wrongly illustrated traits in tern species; just carry them all
from the first edition and that can lead to mistakes with IDs especially by
these who do not deal with terns too often or just started to learn about
them. On the other hand he is not alone as other authors have wrong
illustrations as well in their illustrated guides. Sometimes I am worrying if
some of
those mistakes were just done by copying traits from other already
published books. Notes about the bird behavior are very sparse and seems
that
only these that can help with species ID are included. What I can say for
sure is that I learned long time ago to be very careful with using word
âneverâ
and in fact I am trying to eliminate this one from vocabulary when
talking or writing about behavior. Because I never witnessed particular
behavior
in a specific species or even others wrote that birds from a particular
species âneverâ do something it is not necessary a true. Perhaps to phrase
it
that behavior was never documented before will be a better choice of
words. Or even better that I am not aware if it was documented.
Of course even this book is too small to have an example of every plumage
variation during different time of the year or these that are age related.
Some colors seem to look wild but this can be a problem with the printer.
And the range maps ⦠According to them, I should be already running along
Texas shore looking for some pelagic species deep inside inland counties.
Even that these areas are shown in green (rare), description of the green
range says: âmaybe a single or up to a few records per yearâ ⦠With time
I
spend looking for terns I should already seen a few Bridled Terns whose
range in this guide is quite extended into the mainland, much deeper than for
example one of the Gull-billed Tern. Well good luck to these who will try
to find one (BRTE) inland, or even along the shore; they will need it (the
luck), plenty of it. But there is always a better chance that one can find
GBTE away from the shore.
I cannot say much about other bird species illustrations or their range
maps. So far I only checked in detail tern section. Many other birds I
wouldn't even know if they are wrongly illustrated or not. BTW I never use
only
one source (book) if a need to ID arrives.
Again all who have interest in birds should buy this book. It is one of
the best bird guides available anyway. And dirt cheap (about $25) - for some
other books I had to pay 10 times more.
Mark B Bartosik
Houston, Texas
http://www.pbase.com/mbb/from_the_field
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