[.ca] The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Western North America (ISBN 0679451218)

Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Western NA:
Overall a very good book. Species maps are on the same pages as the species accounts so there is no extra flipping to find the map. However, I have noticed that many colors in this guide are very muted. I work at several bird-banding stations and have held live birds up to the color pictures and notice quite a difference. Sibley's colors are not nearly as vibrant as the reall thing, giving an inaccurate impression of some of the colors.

Exceptional:
The larger Sibley field guide caused quite a stir but it was also a bit of a bear, in terms of size. The smaller guides that focus on east and west, are much easier to carry. Everything about them is, really, as good as it gets: the paintings, the maps, the descriptions - a top quality product.

An excellent followup to the Sibley Guide to Birds:
My main problem with the original Sibley Guide to Birds has been its size. While it is an excellent and comprehensive reference, it is just too bulky to carry in the field. Sibley found the answer in coming out with separate guides for East and West. The new western guide, a wonderful addition to the Sibley family, contains updated nomenclature and range maps. Also, it contains only western birds and those eastern birds that have have shown up in the west as accidentals. It leaves out the eastern birds that have never been seen in the west before, thus saving time when using the book to ID a bird in the field. The biggest advantage is the smaller size which actually makes it feasible to carry in the field without nearly as much difficulty. Although there is a loss of detail compared to the original Sibley guide, this is a small price to pay for the portability of the smaller size. For the serious birder I would recommend getting both this book (for the field) and the originaly Sibley Guide to Birds (for a reference), but otherwise this book (or its eastern counterpart depending on where you live) is definitely the way to go for a comprehensive, portable field guide.

Finally a pocket sized Sibley:
This guide is well layed out,provides excellent pictures and text and is the perfect in the field answer to The Sibley Guide To Birds.

Favourite Bird Field Guide:
We have all the guide books here at the field station, and after looking through them all, Sibleys is definitely my favourite (and has been praised by everyone else too). I've gone and ordered both Western & Eastern books myself. Having read the comments from other reviewers, it's true that some of the drawings may seem slightly duller than the real bird or drawings/paintings in other guides, but this hasn't caused me any identification problems. What really hooked me on this guide was how it illustrates the bird not only perched, but also in flight (below and above views), and illustrates differences between sexes and between adults and juveniles. Also, for some species, characteristic flight patterns and other important diagnostic features are highlighted and/or illustrated. Finally, features are pointed out on the drawing with arrows so one knows what to look for specifically. Overall, an excellently organised guide book, standard "field guide" size, without the feeling of there being a loss of information. We have the big book here too (for all of NA) and it seems to contain the same information so bigger isn't neccessarily better! I recommend the two regional guides instead: less birds to decipher between and easier to carry with you in the field!