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National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern North America | 
| Creators: Jon L. Dunn, Jonathan Alderfer
Publisher: National Geographic
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $11.79
You Save: $8.16 (41%)
New (45) Used (9) from $11.79
Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 132334
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 432
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.4 x 1
ISBN: 1426203306
Dewey Decimal Number: 598.0974
EAN: 9781426203305
ASIN: 1426203306
Publication Date: October 21, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 4 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: B20090107232017T
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Product Description
New enthusiasts are flocking in record numbers to the fascinating pastime of birding. National Geographic has been meeting their need for clear and accurate information for 25 years with our million-selling Field Guide to the Birds of North America. Now, to better serve the expanding market, we’ve customized our field-guide format to offer unique coverage for birders east or west of the Rocky Mountains. These new volumes deliver in-depth information on every bird officially recorded in the specified area, with illustrated accounts of the different plumages and life stages, along with hundreds of color-coded range maps.
Unique features set these guides apart from the competition and promise to win a new generation of readers: A full-color visual index, printed on the inside covers, makes the content accessible visually —a real boon to beginning and intermediate birders. Annotated artwork highlights birds’ key physical features, making identification easier. Thumb-tabs help readers find information fast. Durable covers stand up to outdoor use, with integrated quick-reference flaps that double as place-markers.Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern North America details 619 species and contains 560 new range maps, plus illustrated accounts for 85 casual and accidental birds and an appendix listing 70 rarities.
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| Customer Reviews:
 a great guide to birds of the east December 29, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
i have been a birdwatcher for a few years and for the most part stuck to using sibley. what drew me to the national geographic was that it was revised and edited every few years, this guide is no exception with new maps and drawings it makes it a great guide.it also has sections on sorting out tricky identification problems in similar looking birds so this guide works well for any level of birdwatcher. what is new from the other guides is in the front flaps it has all the bird families. this guide is also packed with rarities from other continents mexico and the west. this is the guide every birdwatcher should own.
 A great regional version - neck & neck with Sibley's regionals December 7, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
The NG has reached another level of quality with its latest October 2008 Eastern Regional edition for intermediate and veteran birders. Many of the changes have been carried over from the recent & excellent NG all North American 5th edition. Eastern's notable features & my comments are:
1.Quick find(bird names) and visual(pictorial) index inside each placeholder cover.Gets you into the correct book section quickly, and helps ID the correct bird and/or group instead of fumbling blindly through the pages as before(Kaufman does this ok as well).The 6 thumb tabs are of limited usefulness now compared to the new color indexes. I found recently field-observed Kinglets in the book with no trouble-in the Passerines back flap drawing which directs you to page 300. How would you ever find them before? In this case I didn't even know it was a Kinglet, and I expect this a challenge in general for many birders.This feature alone will help even newcomers to locate many birds with ease, even tho this guide might be considered advanced.How did we ever find the Woodpeckers(or anything) without thumbing before this improvement? The new front cover index gets you to the Woodies on page 244 immediately.Without this feature one had to remember that Woodpeckers were right after Kingfishers somewhere in the middle of the book.How much of this Taxonomy do you need to recall? If Sibley had these Bird Finding Features,he would clearly be the front runner in the Bird Field Guide race.
2.Field marks with notes are at the point of the arrow(like Sibley). No more referring back to the specie description to interpret the field mark arrows.This speeds up the identification process and improves on the classical(arrows only) Peterson concept, which is also in use by Kaufman. Arrow+attached notes=big improvement,and the new Eastern NG has it!
3.Maps are improved to a point but don't often show a full North American view,a problem for us birders in the Midwest who are adjacent to the Western bird populations.Eastern bird ranges do often extend all over the nation and it would help to see this view too. NG rarity,using various dotted lines, which often needs intrepretation back in the Map Key,is not noted on the maps as nicely or as often as in the Sibley guides.Sibley's consistent use of a gray green motiff cleanly indicates where you might see the bird beyond its general ranges(Kaufman does this well with color too).For a Red Bellied Woodpecker in MN,the NG map shows they are irrupting/settling into North Western MN, yet supposedly aren't here in North Central MN where I live. But Sibley DOES have the bird here in my gray green region-and yes they are here & do appear at my suet feeders.Likewise for Loons,which have sightings on larger MN lakes, but only the Common Loon is noted as being resident in the NG maps.Sibley shows all 4 species present, as our MN field records verify,with the 3 uncommon ones in gray green. Similar map omissions were noticed in the new NG editions.Of the 313 MN bird species considered regular, 51(15%) are NOT indicated as even being in MN on the NG maps-they aren't marked as a regular,rarity or a migrant in any season. You therefore wouldn't know to look for those 51 in MN using the NG Guide-they are absent from MN according to the maps. Sibley notes all 313 as in MN or migrating through,well in line with our actual field records.Note that NG Migration is also indicated with dotted lines(or a directional arrow), while the much clearer Sibley displays a yellow color across the appropriate map section.Kaufman also uses full color mapping for the migrations.
4.Bird drawings are stunning but often seem too bright compared to the real thing.Yet Sibley's drawings are sometimes too pastel for my liking. Kaufman has great photos, digitally enhanced, and they are adequate. But the NG and Kaufman don't have enough of the different seasonal plumages noted. Sibley shows several views and even lists probable dates(monthly ranges)of the feathering evolution with each drawing.Sibley also paints every bird perched AND in flight with upper and lower feather views.
5.Portability of all the guides could be improved.NG is larger than either Kaufman or Sibley, and heavier too.Size and weight need to be reduced where possible. Why not an abridged mini version for quick field identification purposes(forget much of the voice,range and nesting comments) that fits in any sized pocket? 4"x7" or 3"x6" sounds about right. Guess I'll take both the NG Eastern AND the Sibley Eastern guides to the field, if only they would fit in my jacket somewhere with the binoculars,water and lunch.
Better quality, new features, and new drawings make this the best guide yet October 23, 2008
17 out of 17 found this review helpful
The National Geographic fieldguide to the Birds of North America was the standard-bearer for fieldguides from the mid-eighties, when it replaced the Eastern and Western Peterson guides as the favorite among critical birders, until the release of David Sibley's guide in 2000. The Sibley guide brought many new innovations but was too large for field use and, absent any habitat setting, the drawings were not lively. Seeing little need for wholesale changes to keep pace with Sibley, recent editions of the National Geographic continental guide have offered just a few innovations. Likewise, the printing quality of the National Geographic continental guides was compromised in the 4th and 5th editions, with some drawings appearing duller than in earlier editions and a blue bleed on the wingbars for several species. In 2003 the Sibley guide was published in portable editions for Eastern and Western North America. Somehow Sibley was able to keep most of the flight drawings that continue to be absent from recent National Geographic and Peterson editions. Though it has been a hard choice, for the past few years, the Sibley portable editions have been the guides I pack for trips.
Now, National Geographic has decided to publish its guide in Eastern and Western editions. At first I thought National Geographic would simply separate the same content from the North America guide with no other changes and likely the same quality problems found in the recent editions. Happily I have found the opposite to be true. There are several significant changes in the regional guides and numerous new drawings. The drawings are less crowded and better organized on the page, there are pointers with text highlighting key field marks, and narratives and extra drawings for difficult identification problems have been added. Best of all, the printing quality is better than the 4th and 5th editions of the continental guide. Here are the highlights:
* Key drawings of each species are now annotated with pointers and text to highlight essential markers, much like the Peterson and Sibley guides. A quick comparison suggests the ones in this guide are better than the Sibley highlights.
* New drawings for Cackling Goose, Great Cormorants, Hook-billed Kite, Jaeger heads, winter adult Black Guillemot, Ferruginous Pigmy-owls, American Three-toed Woodpeckers, Ravens in flight, pelodorna subspecies of Cave Swallow, amnicola subspecies of Yellow Warbler, Wilson's Warblers, Rufous-crowned Sparrow, Savannah Sparrows, "Oregon" Dark-eyed Juncos, cucullatus subspecies of Hooded Oriole, and Gray-crowned Rosy-finches.
* Identification tip sections for difficult identifications including: loons in flight, white egrets, buteos in flight, western hummingbirds, flycatchers, catharus thrushes, blackpoll/bay-breasted/pin warblers, oporonis warblers, meadowlarks and others. Some of these tip sections have new drawings for particular tricky species and groups. For example, there are headshots separating subspecies of Common Eider, topography that is unique to a gull, non-flight Jaegers, and flight silhouettes for parrots and parakeets.
* Expanded text for some species. A few words here and there but also some new sentences where appropriate.
* Increased size on some older drawings allows greater detail for several species, notably Red-shouldered Hawk
* Better range maps. Range maps for some Psittacidae. Range maps that include Mexico and the Caribbean, showing winter range for some species.
* Placeholder flaps - an innovation kept from the 5th continental edition
* Section tabs - an innovation kept from the 5th continental edition
* Better organization on individual pages. The goatsucker page is a good example of the better organization of the regional guide compared to the continental one. The tail and flight drawings are now symmetrical and easy to compare to each other on the page.
There are still a few problems. The new drawing for Hook-billed Kite is awful. The head is not proportioned correctly, though it does correct the error of too many tail bands from the continental editions. The American Kestrel and Merlin drawings have been shrunk. Still no flight drawings and silhouettes for many birds.
On the whole, I am very pleased with this guide and plan on using it in the field and as a reference. It will likely replace my Sibley regional guidebook if I only pack one book. Great job National Geographic!
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