Bird Watching Books: A Valuable Resource for Bird Watchers

The most important companion of a bird watcher is not his binoculars. Indeed, a bird watching book can be infinitely more useful than a pair of binoculars. If you find the right bird watching book before you begin to get into bird watching, you will find that it definitely pays off in the end. The ideal book will teach you not only how to recognize local species of birds, but also how to identify basic traits of all birds. You won’t just look at a bird and find the matching picture in the book. You can also pay attention to crucial details about its plumage, habits, and location that will give you hints towards its species.

Within the kingdom of birds, there are many different sub-categorizations that birds can be placed in to. These are based on their feeding habits, their mating habits, their preferred habitat and climate, their behavior in groups, and many other things. If you find a good bird watching book, it should include a list of all bird species with pictures, categorized by all of these things. When you are trying to determine the species of a bird based on hundreds of example pictures, it is very easy to mistake one bird for another. If you know the more detailed things to look for, you will be able to narrow it down and make a more accurate estimation of what kind of bird you are looking at.

For the book itself, you will want to find something that is lightweight, durable, and easy to carry with you. You will be bringing this book on (hopefully) quite a few bird watching expeditions, so you don’t want to be carrying a huge tome along with you. There are many books with full color pictures along with small text and small pages, which combine to make a tiny book that will fit in your pocket. When you encounter a bird or a cluster of birds, you will be able to quickly whip it out and determine what you are looking at.

Your book choice will also depend on your location. You may not be interested in a book that focuses on tropical birds, unless you live in a tropical region. By buying a book that focuses more on your region, you will be able to cut back on the length, and therefore cut back on the size and weight. Just shop around for a while, and get recommendations from other local bird enthusiasts.