Birding Guides – Birdwatching Guides

Tufted Puffin Across the Pond

How truly extraordinary and thrilling it must have been for the first “twitcher” who sighted the Tufted Puffin so entirely out of its range.   Yes, so far out of its range that it was not even in their bird guides!

Typically seen in the Pacific Northwest, what was the Tufted Puffin doing across the Atlantic Ocean in Great Britain and Scotland? Flying and eating and sleeping and wondering what happened to its GPS system perhaps.

Thanks to Ilene Samowitz of SeattleAudubon.org

Tufted Puffin-Fratercula cirrhata Tweeters and Twitchers alike marveled at the sight.  But even as word spread around the world and birders converged from everywhere to see this fascinating and OUT-of-Place bird, people were talking about which bird guide to look in to confirm the identification of the Tufted Puffin. But this puffin is quite distinctive with its golden blond tufts of feathers on its head and its black belly. Most puffins have white bellies. And even so are not often seen in these locales. An interesting historical note is the naming of this charming little chubby looking bird by a German ornithologist around 1769. Peter Simon Pallas apparently named the Tufted Puffin “Tufted Little Brother”. Fratercula =Little brother and cirrhata = tufted. They eat mostly small fish. Their normal region is Alaska and the Aleutian Islands and the Pacific Northwest.  So seeing them in England was quite a treat, a “lifer” for many delighted birders for sure.

Public Domain Illustration Tufted Puffin

I love the detail in this illustration of this charming little bird of the Pacific Northwest. I have seen the little puffins that frequent the coast of Maine and truly fell in love with them. What I found most interesting was the online exchange of which bird guides people should use to find good photos for field identification of these rare birds in England.  The exchange of information was at Twitter speed and that only made the excitement even more intense. No matter whether you are a birder in the Midwest or in the Everglades or just in your backyard, it is thrilling to share in such a discovery. And the most frequent  bird guide mentioned was the Guide to Birds of the Pacific Northwest Coast. That made so much sense! So I looked it up online to find the Bird Guide and I agreed this is a great guide for finding and identifying the Tufted Puffin. But how many British birders carry such a far ranging bird guide with them into the field?

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Birding Guides of British Isles

Following the notion of sharing bird field guides from other parts of the world, let me begin with the British Isles. There are many many birders in Great Britain, Ireland and Scotland and some books focus exclusively upon specific areas of these beautiful landscapes. Other guidebooks include birds of Europe.

I enjoyed browsing several bird guides and saw splendid photographs of birds I have never seen. That is one of the fun parts of preparing to write for this blog and looking for books at Amazon. There are so many that allow you to “Look Inside”.

An exceptional and authoritative guide for birds is the Collins Field Guide.

Collins Bird Guide

This is considered to be the ultimate reference for birders in the UK and Europe. The publisher description says the Collins Bird Guide “provides all the information needed to identify any species at any time of the year, covering size, habitat, range, identification and voice.”  Maps and identification guides and answers to commonly asked birdwatching questions make this an exceptional bird guide. This is the second edition.

It seems to cost more than your average field guide but it has a lot more to offer in terms of content too. I checked into the publisher site  and noticed the pre-publication price is a LOT more reasonable. $17.50- 25.00 and free shipping in the UK.  It is sold only by Amazon.co.uk where you can make a pre-publication order today.  Note if you go to Amazon.com you will find a used first edition copy being promoted for an outlandish price.

The Collins Bird Guide is due to be released in September, 2009.