The Sibley Guide to Bird Life & Behavior Author: Visit Amazon's David Allen Sibley Page | Language: English | ISBN:
B002J8YKSE | Format: PDF
The Sibley Guide to Bird Life & Behavior Description
- Hardcover
- Publisher: Bantam (Bdd)/Random House; 1St Edition edition (2002)
- ISBN-10: 0679451234
- ISBN-13: 978-0679451235
- ASIN: B002J8YKSE
- Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.2 x 1.7 inches
- Shipping Weight: 3.3 pounds
If you are like me, you love The Sibley Guide to Birds and treasure it as a guide to identifying birds.
If you are also like me, you often observe bird behavior that fascinates or surprises you. Little birds survive outdoors in very cold winter weather. Some ocean flyers are able to glide for vast distances without moving their wings. Why do birds lay external eggs rather than carry internal ones like mammals? How devoted are birds in pairs to one another? What habitats are most likely to shelter each bird type? What is the migration range and timing of that bird you're watching? What must we do to conserve a particular species?
The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior is designed to be a companion to The Sibley Guide to Birds, and extend your understanding of bird behaviors and the reasons behind them beyond the mere identification of species. With the two books, you have the birthday cake and the icing, too!
I was especially pleased to see that the writing was simple, straight-forward, and interesting. An 11-page glossary helps with the relatively few technical terms, many of which are carefully illustrated somewhere in the book.
From pages 15 through 120, the book focuses on general essays about all North American birds on subjects like feathers, flight characteristics, feet, bills, digestion, bones, organs, metabolism, respiration, cooling, heating, intelligence, origins as a reptile, and evolution into their current forms.
From pages 121 to near the end, the subject matter switches to one of 80 North American (U.S. and Canada) based families. The average length of a section is about six pages. So it's a reference guide rather than a definitive resource. If you love cardinals, for example, you will probably prefer a more specialized book in that direction.
I bought THE SIBLEY GUIDE TO BIRD LIFE AND BEHAVIOR for myself for Christmas. I wanted Sibley's Guide because I am an avid birdwatcher, interested in books, articles, films, etc. about birds. I had read glowing reviews about this book (here and elsewhere) and thought it must be the best bird book ever. Also, several reviewers noted that like JJ Audubon, Mr. Sibley was a gifted artist who depicted birds rather beautifully.
Sibley's Guide is a beautiful book bird watchers will want to add to their collection (hardcover, please). Those who already know the difference between Bewick's Wren and a Carolina Wren may appreciate Sibley's Guide more than those who can't tell a White Throated Sparrow from a pigeon. However, sooner or later every bird enthusiast needs to understand the ecology of birds, and this is the strength of the Sibley Guide.
I've been a bird lover since I was a child, and lucky enough to have parents and grandparents who were bird fanciers (my dad was an ecologist, my grandmother raised tamed birds). As a result, I know a great deal about birds and their environments. Sibley's book appeals to me because its central message is that all living things are connected and that the environment matters. One should never take the continuing presence of birds in the back yard as a given as their habitats are threatened.
The Sibley Guide is not as well suited for fieldwork as the Smithsonian's Handbook, BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA (regional versions), or THE AUDUBON BACK YARD BIRDWATCHER. For example, on p. 440, the Sibley guide has an illustration titled "Troglodytid diversity" which shows the very small Winter Wren and the very large Cactus Wren.
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