Field Guides: A Woodsman's best friend...?

When I leave for an outing, some things I simply cannot leave behind. Pencils, field notebook, binoculars, camera bag, and maybe hiking boots and a daypack with lunch and some water if it's going to be a trek. Of all things, my Peterson Field Guide has got to be at the top of the list. Sometimes even when you have the correct I.D. of a bird, it can be helpful to have a field guide with you so you can compare the bird with similar species. This is one thing that the creators of Peterson Field Guides are great at, pointing out the key identification features of a species. Of all pocket guides, Peterson is by far my favorite.

Latest version of Peterson's Birds of Eastern and Central North America

A plate of warblers from the guide, arrows pointing out key field marks.

I have recently been using Field Guide applications with my iPod touch, which I find extremely useful. It is great to have so many different guides in your pocket, and they are all packed with information. I usually use iBird Pro: Interactive Field Guide to the Birds of North America byMitch Waite Group, or Audubon Birds: A Field Guide to North American Birds by Green Mountain Digital. I really enjoy these apps because they have GREAT photography, usually of each species and different sex and age plumages as well as breeding and nonbreeding plumages, which I find more helpful in identification than illustrations. Another great feature that both apps have is the vocals of species. I preffer Audubon's sound library with birds from different populations, which have different accents, because a golden-crowned kinglet from New York sounds significantly different than a golden-crowned kinglet from California. Another reason I spend more time on Audubon's app is because they have incorporated eBird into thier app. EBird is a website where anyone can join, and submit thier sightings as often as they would like. EBird then makes county, state, country, ABA and non ABA lists with your findings and much more. You can also explore other user's bird sightings and data, and see where the sightings were on maps, and it's free to join! So if you like birding, and make species lists, head over to eBird where your findings will contribute to ornithological knowledge!
 http://ebird.org/content/ebird/
With the technology of eBird, I can open my Audubon app and as long as I have wifi tap on find birds with eBird, select a location, then I can choose to search for birds nearby, locate a bird, find notable and rare birds, or find a hotspot with observations surrounding my desired location. Which I think is really cool.

Another book I accumulated was when my girlfriend and I were Christmas shopping in Greensburg and ran into a Barne's and Noble. As soon as I spotted it, I knew that it would be added to my shelf. Bird: The Definitive Visual Guide from the Audubon Society is PACKED with hundreds of species from around the globe. I only cost me around 30 bucks I believe, and has some really great information. 512 pages of range maps, awesome photography, and some info on many common species around the world, this was a good buy. Not all common species that I encounter are in this book because it covers so much area, but I think it's great to come home and read some text about some of the birds that I have shot that day.

A couple pages ducks in North America from "Bird"