All the Backyard Birds - Covers My Backyard Just Fine

I tend to birdwatch only in the winter, when the leaves have gone and the little creatures are easy to spot on the bare branches. There's something wistful and wishful about watching them outside on a frigid but clear sunny day from the warmth of my couch. I wait for spring, turning over in my mind all the outdoor tasks that will keep me too busy for birdwatching once the season changes.

I'm a very casual birdwatcher. I'm happy seeing the same birds over and over again in my backyard. I don't make trips to far off places to witness birds of a rare feather. Still, I have a nagging pedantic streak which prompts me to want to identify, to name, to categorize, and recognize the next time. A bird by any other name...and yet still this strange satisfaction in matching the bird before me with some arbitrary taxonomic tag. So All the Backyard Birds is a very good resource for me. I like it because it's easy to navigate, not overwhelming me with too many species. More devoted birdwatchers might appreciate its slender spine and small page size. It could slip into a pocket without weighing one down on a hike.

There are very good colored pencil illustrations of the birds, with excellent detail. I find this more useful than some bird books with photographs. You take your chances with a photograph. A skilled and knowledgeable artist can put in all the really useful details and choose any angle that best shows the bird's appearance. Little gender symbols next to the illustrations identify the sex for sexually dimorphic species, and seasonal plumage variations are shown as well. For some species, the juvenile is shown. Others are shown in flight, or posed in characteristic positions.

There isn't a great deal of text to accompany the pictures, but what is provided is very useful and to the point. A few pages of general tips on birdwatching, how to look at the birds, and feeding are provided at the beginning of the book. Then avian behaviors are outlined next to each entry, such as where you're likely to spot the birds, how they move or fly, and sometimes what their song sounds like. Each entry includes a small map showing the range of each species, which are grouped into useful categories such as aerialists, ground-walkers, straight bills, etc. Between the illustrations and the text, I find excellent tips on how to distinguish species that closely resemble one another to the untrained eye. It's also been easy to find what I'm looking for.

Using this guide I've been able to identify the grey Tufted Titmouse as the only bird that regularly enjoys the sunflower heads I save from the summer garden for winter feeding. Also, I know why: not all birds have the right tool (read: beak) for the job (read: crushing the seed shell to get at the seed).

I happen to have the version of this book for the "East." The "east" in this case starting from a line way out there between the Dakotas and Texas, reaching to the eastern seaboard. Ranges into southern Canada sometimes appear, but not into Mexico or the Caribbean.

There's a sort of score card checklist at the very end of the book, where one can keep a record of which species one has seen, and when and where. There's even an address to mail a copy of your checklist to some university ornithology lab. This seems a little superfluous to me, but some may appreciate it.

All in all, I'm very pleased with this little guide. All the Backyard Birds might not do for a serious birdwatcher. But for the most casual type, like myself, it's perfect.