Book Review: The Crossley ID Guide to Eastern Birds

First of all, let me say that I am not one to use field guides very often. Overall, I am pretty good with my identification skills. Sometimes, I try and to use field guides to identify birds that I really don't know, but I always end up confirming photos with an expert. Anyways, one of my favorite ID books is The Crossley ID Guide to Eastern Birds. This book basically hits every eastern species and their third cousins. What I'm trying to say is there are a lot of birds in this book. Everything from the common birds like Northern Cardinal to rarities like Curlew Sandpiper. Not only does it have the species, it hits most of them in essentially every plumage from any angle you would need to identify a species. Another, less appreciated aspect of this book is the fact that every photo in here was taken by Richard Crossley himself. You have to see it to really appreciate how many photos there are and how much work was put into this. The price that ranges between fifteen and thirty five dollars, is well worth it in my opinion, as you're getting much more than a field guide. You're getting a library of information and photos. On my downtime, I like to use this book to study the many different plumages of different species. I would recommend this book to any birder, whether you're a novice or an expert.

Happy birding!

- Mike

Book Cover

Sample: Painted Bunting, pg 492.

Photos of book taken by me solely for the purpose of review.