Birding Guides – - Whose Top Ten?

I was starting to write about what bird guides I think are the best a short while ago.   I thought,  perhaps I should see what other people have written.  And the very first thing I discovered was such a surprise  – - I have not felt so ignorant in many years.

I knew this would be a case of opinions and without knowing what the methods of evaluating the bird guide books it would be hard to tell where other writers or birders might be coming from,  so to speak.

Then it finally hit me like a rock dropped from the top of a cliff. The TOP TEN BIRDING GUIDES will be DIFFERENT for each part of the WORLD. Not just regionally.

How myopic of me to just think about Peterson Field Guides or Sibley’s or the National Audubon Society‘s birding guides!

Of course the Top Ten Bird Guides or Bird Books will be unique to the region — wherever it is in the world.  So it was refreshing to browse through several categories listed on a major British site.  And then to find the Top Ten Bird Books for the UK listed right before my eyes!  I felt really churlish.

In a way, telling you about this is an admission of surprise when I realized how provincial my perspective had become. I was busy simplifying my life and recognize now that,  in so doing, I had marginalized the entire rest of the birding world. Good Grief.  I am so sorry. That was never my intention!

In truth, I see birding as a common bond across nationalities and really do communicate with birders from several different countries and across the USA.  Nonetheless, there was a gap in my link with reality compared with theirs.  A gap I never realized was there.  Wow.

We learn something everyday.  When we cease to learn, we cease to grow and our world truly becomes diminished. By sharing this, perhaps someone else can also grow today and our world will be enriched instead.

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Birding Guides -Birders and a long drive

Birders – Birding Guides and a Long Driving Trip

By Donna Bessken

Why am I a birder? What is so special about my birding guides? What actually happens on those long drives to meetings? A short true story may shed some light on those issues. Often I am surprised when driving along at 65 miles an hour and I see a red tail hawk overhead and someone says “Oh look at the buzzard.”

I almost never know whether to let them continue to call it a buzzard or pull out my birding guide and show them the difference between hawks and vultures. Read the rest of this entry »