A Field Guide to the Birds: A Completely New Guide to All the Birds of Eastern and Central North America (Peterson Field Guide Series)

Roger Tory Peterson

ISBN 10: 0395911761 / ISBN 13: 9780395911761

Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1998

About this Item

First Edition, 26th Printing. Not price-clipped. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1998. Octavo. Paperback. Book is very good with shelf/edgewear.100% positive feedback. 30 day money back guarantee. NEXT DAY SHIPPING! Excellent customer service. Please email with any questions. All books packed carefully and ship with free delivery confirmation/tracking. All books come with free bookmarks. Ships from Sag Harbor, New York.

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Field Guide to the Birds: A Completely New Guide to All the Birds of Eastern and Central North America (Peterson Field Guide Series)
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication Date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0395911761
• ISBN 13: 9780395911761
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

The updated volume of the bestselling Peterson Field Guide Series features the unique Peterson Identification System covering all birds of eastern and central North America, shown in full color and described in detail. Summer and winter ranges, breeding grounds, and other special range data are shown on 390 complete, easy-to-read range maps.

Review

Roger Tory Peterson, one of America's pre-eminent artist-naturalists and arguably the inventor of the field guide, made people love birds like no one since John James Audubon. A Field Guide to the Birds, first published in 1934, remains his most famous and wonderful work. The manual stood instantly apart from the dichotomous keys zoologists used to identify species, since Peterson grouped paintings of related species together and used arrows to, as he explained, "pinpoint the key field marks." This way, watchers could spot birds from a distance and avoid, as he archly put it, "the bird-in-hand characters that the early collectors relied on." Birders could use the guide where they needed it most--outdoors--on living birds flitting quickly by. In addition to detailed illustrations, Peterson offers charming (and useful) descriptions of each avian citizen's appearance, behavior, voice, and range. There is also priceless anecdotal information, based on decades of field experience, as in this description of the common house sparrow (Passer domesticus): "Familiar to everyone. Sooty city birds often bear little resemblance to clean country males with the black throat, white cheeks, chestnut nape." His transliterations of song are just as quietly marvelous. For instance, Pluvialis squatarola, or the black-bellied plover, makes things clear with "a plaintive slurred whistle, tlee-oo-eee or whee-er-ee (middle note lower)."

Peterson's original handbook covered birds of Eastern North America, and has since been followed by guides to Western birds, animal tracks, butterflies, and many other natural wonders. He and his team updated "The Birders' Bible" as new species were discovered and classifications modified. Generations of enthusiastic watchers owe Peterson a debt of gratitude for making ornithology accessible. But equally important, he showed scientists that finding beauty in living animals, and not just cataloging the measurements of dead ones, was crucial. Roger Tory Peterson died in 1996. He will be remembered as a passionate naturalist, a keen observer of living things, and a gifted artist and teacher. --Therese Littleton