The 8 Best Bird Guides (2023 reviews)

Are you planning to buy bird guides, and are you confused about the options ? Your search ends here.

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Our Top Picks:

Best Overall: Buy: Jonathan Alderfer Bird Guide READ REVIEW

Best For photographers: Buy: Roger Tory Peterson Bird Guide READ REVIEW

Best For enthusiastic amateur birdwatcher: Buy: National Audubon Society Bird Guide READ REVIEW

Best little Field Guide: Buy: UDVARDY Bird Guide READ REVIEW

Best Eastern US Bird Guide: Buy: David Allen Sibley Bird Guide READ REVIEW

Best For An EX boy Scout: Buy: Matt Kracht Bird Guide READ REVIEW

Best New style: Buy: Richard Crossley Bird Guide READ REVIEW

Best For North America: Buy: Jon L Dunn Bird Guide READ REVIEW

Best Overall: Jonathan Alderfer Bird Guide

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The jonathan alderfer bird guide should be able to handle its purpose and duties with ease. The National Geographic guide has full-colour, accurate and detailed artist renderings of the birds, mostly with some element of their likely habitiat. It is easy to navigate and distinguish between species and even juveniles to adults. The thumb tabs and the visual index makes it easy to find what page you are looking for. The Thumb tabs mark the larger families to help readers orient themselves in the book block.

If you're new to birding, the visual index inside the front and back covers is indispensable, and the Quick-Find Index flap built into the front cover is super handy. There are range maps on the same page as each species, and the maps are easy to read. It would make a great gift for anyone interested in birds. This is an excellent book for all levels of birding or birdwatching.

• Definitely small enough to take with you on trips
• Excellent field guide, highly recommend for both backyard birding or birding trips
• Small and lightweight so you can carry along on your adventure

Best For photographers: Roger Tory Peterson Bird Guide

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The roger tory peterson bird guide is capable of outshining several other guide featured in this list in overall features for the price point. The new edition of Peterson's Field Guide to Birds of Eastern and Central Nortg America is excellent and in keeping with a long tradition of satisfying both beginning and veteran birders. It is a gift for someone new to birding and probably the easiest and most. It will make you a better birder.

The Crossley guide includes photos of birds as they appear at far distance, a feature that sometimes helps with that bird at the limit of view. The illustrations are clear, and show different aspects, ie, immature birds, winter/summer foliage, male and female species. It is more of a laminated soft cover. This one helps you identify the bird by asking a few questions and then presents a series of likely birds for you to consider. It is a great book to identify and learn about different types.

• Classic most basic and useful of bird guides
• Very informative and easy to follow
• Easy to view categories of birds

Best For enthusiastic amateur birdwatcher: National Audubon Society Bird Guide

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The national audubon society bird guide's high-end materials makes sure that it ages well with use. This field guide contains most of the wild birds found in the eastern United States. It fits in a large pocket while the thick but flexible plastic cover protects it. It is perfect for the enthusiastic amateur birdwatcher. Bird species are grouped by type and color, so it is easy to locate and identify a particular bird.

The Audubon Society produces high quality guides, books, and other items. It is great for looking up birds in your area. The color plates are beautiful and descriptions are great. It's really good for studying birds when sitting indoors, but the big Sibley guide is the best for identification. It is certainly priced right.

• Audubon's field guide to eastern birds
• One of the new comers and featured product

Best little Field Guide: UDVARDY Bird Guide

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The udvardy bird guide should be able to handle its purpose and duties with ease. As a desk reference, it is a wonderful addition to any bird lover's library, but for use as a field guide, you might want to purchase two copies. It measures 4" x 7-1/2" x 1-1/2" thick, just the right size to fit into your pocket or day-pack if you're inclined to take it on a walk. Because they are painted the attention to detail is AWESOME and really helps with the harder to identify birds.

Each of the many birds included has a range map and very brief description of color, voice, habitat, and nesting behavior. There is a pre-photo index of silhouettes, and thumbprint-sized silhouettes are also featured on the center edge of the photo pages for quick-flipping reference. The cover is also of durable material to weather the dirt, grass, the weather, or whatever you put it through. It fits nicely in a field bag. Most of the color plates show adult males, but some distinctive females and juveniles are also shown, along with seasonal changes in plumage.

• You will be able to enjoy the bird world and teach kids about nature
• Excellent descriptions of birds, and habitat
• Great book for enthusiasts and beginners
• Easy to use but primarily for quick reference which is fine

Best Eastern US Bird Guide: David Allen Sibley Bird Guide

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Not everyone likes to purchase guide for their daily usage, but the david allen sibley bird guide would be an anomoly. This guide book is perfect for anyone who wants to learn more about birds of the North East. It has all updated range maps, beautifully drawn plates of birds showing all significant plumages, male, female, juvenile and adults, morphology, birds in flight and more. It has a lot of different angles on birds and flight views which are cool. The descriptions and identifiers for distinguishing similar species are pretty good.

This is a very good illustrated guide to birds. It can be used by experienced birders. This book is easy to use and has a wealth of information. It is a good one for a learner.

• Great book, very informative with vivid pictures
• Expanded descriptions and updates are very well done and useful
• Perfect birding book for backyard birder
• A must have for birders east of the rockies

Best For An EX boy Scout: Matt Kracht Bird Guide

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The matt kracht bird guide is suitable and reliable and fits well with your daily usage. If you are a bird watcher up for clever humor (and a few swear words) then this book is for you. It gets repetitious with the continued use of swear words in the names and descriptions of the birds in an attempt to elicit humor. Given this, it will make a great gift for a wide range of “just the right people. It also makes for a terrific coffee table book and conversation piece.

This is a natural impulse buy for anyone looking to purchase a modestly priced gift for a birder-friend. There's a copious amount of content and each page is a separate entry on a different birb, so it can be consumed as fast or as slow as desired.

• Funny and entertaining book about bird identification
• Best guide to birds and bird watching ever
• Pairs well with the foul language coffee mug

Best New style: Richard Crossley Bird Guide

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The richard crossley bird guide should be able to handle its purpose and duties with ease. This excellent ID guide is not only a great help in making proper identification of birds, it's a great way to spend a rainy morning doing some "Armchair" birding. It gives a realistic view of birds in typical habitat as well as different distances. Seeing pictures and poses that you will actually see of these birds adds a new dimension to the bird guide book. It is used to compile this book to show vibrant colors and nearly all the plumage variations (gender, age, season, race) one would expect to see in the field.

This guide is a great tool to have in the field and really does make identification easier. It is easy to carry in the field other than in a back pack but its ease of use and many pictures of the birds allow easier identification. Those bases are also well covered and are designed to work in a small format. This book helps you see more clearly, especially as the photos are placed in a typical setting for each species.

• Additional notes that are useful are key comments on the bird's behavior and habitat
• New and hot release

Best For North America: Jon L Dunn Bird Guide

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Best part: jon l dunn bird guide costs comparatively low and it is available to ship in 24 hours. It is easy to find a bird if you know what you are looking for. This is a perfect book for anyone who loves to watch birds or even just enjoy them in your backyard. This book is easy to use, has wonderful and useful drawings, good descriptions, and covers western Mexico including Baja California. It’s not super in depth about each bird but has a lot of bird species and basic info on descriptions. The cover and pages of the book have a nice feel and quality to them.

The construction quality of the book is outstanding. It is great to start out learning and identifying. These maps are a hot mess at best, and that's a big part of what makes a field guide useful.

• Perfect gift for the western united states birder
• Combines all the best features (and then some) from all the best field guides
• Organized by color and shape makes for easy look-ups
• Paper and covers of high quality