A Comprehensive Guide to Identifying and Enjoying the Birds of North America - The Stokes Field Guide

Manfred61: Exellent field guide speedy delivery

Canada on Dec 08, 2021

Gord WilsonGord Wilson: One of the best bird books I've ever used. It weighs a bit but it is very hard to find a better book ror species information.,n

Canada on Apr 01, 2021

MK: Extremely good field guide, perhaps a bit hefty for your backpack. Helpful variety of photos for many birds at various stages, thoughtful effort to broaden examples for breeds plus great quality paper, clear identifications etc. No guide can have every possible bird for any location but this is pretty close.

Canada on Aug 02, 2020

Michael D Heard: Great pictures and easy to follow

United Kingdom on Jan 12, 2019

Michael: This is an excellent reference book for the North American birds. Each bird has good coloured pictures of it and has a good description of the plumage during various seasons of the year as well as flight, habitat and voice.
The book has nearly 800 pages and is fairly heavy so i don't think it would be practical to take on a field trip.
It also comes with a cd containing more than 600 bird sounds

United Kingdom on Oct 03, 2013

D. Blankenship: I collect bird books with particular emphasis on field guides and have been doing so since the late 1950s. I have also been birding since even before the "book thing," as my wife calls it. Truth be told, I get almost as much satisfaction over my bird book collecting as I do over the actually birding...not as much mind you, but pretty close! I share this with you because like a couple of other reviewers here, it takes quite a bit to truly impress me at this point in my life. I have to tell you that the "wow factor," for me, is off the charts with this current offering from the Stokes. Now don't get me wrong. I dearly love every one of my field guides, even the old musty ones dating back to the turn of the century which were void of any illustrations and consisted of only rambling post-Victorian text. But for sheer usability this new Stokes ranks right up at the top. But read on.....

Now before I go on, the old question of "if you had only one field guide, and only one, which one would you choose - which one is the best?" Oh my! This argument has been going on since as long as I can remember. I have birded with a lot of people from literally all over the world, and when asked...

United States on Jun 17, 2012

Ethan A. Winning: December 30, 2011: I still have 17 bird guides from Sibley to Nat'l Geographic, and the only one I've been using for 10 months is this one. Yes, I still have a problem that the Western Region is still given "short shrift" - even in their Western Region book - but compared to the other 16, this is by far the best guide with the best/most photographs, and I've now come to understand much more about birding behavior so I can find birds on my own.

HOWEVER, my kids gave me a Kindle Fire for my birthday last week, and I found an APP, iBird Pro 2 on Amazon that is, unbelievably, EVEN BETTER THAN this Stokes and it's portable! This does not take away from the work that went into this remarkable Field Guide. But at 3 pounds, "field guide" is really a misnomer. Stokes is really a reference book, and excellent reference book.

March 23, 2011: After using the book for a month, there are a couple of disturbing "findings." It may be my imagination, but I think that the Stokes pay more attention to the Eastern North American birds than those west of the Rockies (note: I didn't say "Mississippi"). Two birds which I recently photographed are not represented correctly in this book. The...

United States on Feb 04, 2011