Nat. Geo. Field Guide - 6th edition

Late last year the 6th edition of the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America was released. I primarily used the 5th edition as my field guide + the Sibley Guide App before I got the 6th edition for Christmas. It was welcome Christmas gift because my old book looked like one of those duct tape wallets - only slightly larger.

Although I've had limited 'field experience' with the new book I have spent some time going through the book at home.

Some of the small things I loved about the previous edition that I was happy to see in the new edition are the Quick Find Index and the Tabs for the major family groups.

One huge improvement over the previous editions is the use of field-mark labels on the actual plates. After spending 4 months using the Birds of Europe field guide I found the field-mark labels extremely useful and wondered why they didn't exist in the North American field guides. It can be annoying going through the text to find the important details when trying to clinch an ID in the field before the bird flees.

The other big improvement that I've noticed is the sketches of sparrows. I don't know what went wrong with the previous editions in terms of sparrows but, in my opinion, they simply did not look like the sparrows I was seeing in the field. I remember seeing my first Clay-coloured Sparrow and when comparing it to the field guide I couldn't see the resemblance - I had to trust the identification made by others in my group!

Another large source of praise for this edition is the use of subspecies maps. For me I haven't found much use for them yet - partly because I haven't been in North America for a while - and partly because I'm still trying to figure out the species let alone the subspecies. But I can definitely see the value in the maps when trying to figure out what subspecies is expected in your region. I remember when I was a new birder I couldn't quite figure out which Song Sparrow ssp. I should focus on. And there's definitely a limit to how well you can describe the regions occupied by each subspecies when using only words.

Some questionable things I've noticed include the fact that Fieldfare appears on the map for Eastern Newfoundland. As far as I know there's only 9 records for the island so I don't know why it's included. Townsend's Warbler has over 10 records for the island and they don't even show Eastern North America (let alone Newfoundland) in the map for that species! And even Redwing has more records for the island and that isn't shown for the island! It's not a big deal but definitely an inconsistency.
And another questionable thing I've noticed in this edition and previous editions (and the Sibley guide for that matter) is the range map for Common Eider - why does it always show them as being inland for the island? I've yet to see a Common Eider on freshwater, I know that some of them breed on freshwater (especially further North) but I didn't think it was that common for the island?


Another small thing I've noticed is that the page numbers are at the bottom of the pages. I don't know how others use their books but for me it is easier to read page numbers if they're at the top of the pages!

Another thing to note is that the book is very up to date. The word Dendroica is no where to be found. And it even includes Greenland and Iceland in the maps when appropriate!

Overall I think this is definitely a big improvement over previous editions and the fact that you can purchase it for less than $20 is pretty awesome :)
I'll definitely be dragging it around with me when I'm back in Canada.

That's my brief opinion (with an emphasis on Newfoundland)!

Singapore - day 1

23 hours of flight time, 4 plane meals and 1 minute of sleep and you could also be in SE Asia looking at some new birds.

Without even birding I had seen a handful of new species around the University campus. In fact I had only ever seen one of the species before and that was a Barn Swallow. I didn't think it was a Barn Swallow at first because it was in the non-breeding plumage so it didn't have the long tail feathers.

Another unusual observation was a White-throated Kingfisher hanging out in a field. No where close to any water. Really unusual...

To be honest, I couldn't identify any of the birds I saw this morning without the help of my guide. I didn't take any field notes or photos so it was all based on memory. I'm thinking that I'll be relying a lot on my camera these next four months to help identify the birds I see. The other option is to observe the bird noting details of its plumage and behaviour. A hard core birder might suggest the notebook approach but I think it's easier to take a photo... I'll probably be using both methods.

In the evening I went for a short walk around campus garnering some long stares from the locals at the white guy with the weird scope/camera and binoculars.

1 of 4 White-throated Kingfishers within 50 meters of each other:

Pink-necked Green-Pigeon:

As a side-note, all my recent photos have been (and future photos will be) digiscoped (i.e. camera looking through the scope) unless I say otherwise.



Check out Jeremy Hatt's neat poem about the Bell's Vireo at Point Pelee last May:
Cerulean Sky

Newfoundland Summary

I'm sitting in the Toronto airport waiting on a plane towards Korea and then Singapore. I don't think I'm going to be doing as much birding in Singapore as I did in Denmark but who knows! I really have no idea what to expect in terms of pretty much anything. And then I'll be back in Waterloo where life will hopefully return to normal and I can know what to expect.



It's been a busy visit to Newfoundland. I saw plenty of birds, including some new for my NL list and I also met plenty of birders in Newfoundland including two new young birders (ages 20 and 15) which is always nice! There's a good chance that I'll be birding with them when I'm full of wrinkles and the Internet has become redundant... I plan on living for a long time.

The highlights for me were the two CBC's I took part in (St. John's & Ferryland) + finding a Sora at a pond in town which was the first winter record for at least 5 years.

I joined Ian Jones, Mark Maftei and Mira for the Ferryland CBC. We were assigned the Renews area which includes a seawatch in the morning. Ian is a professor at MUN and has done a lot of work with seabirds and Mark is one of his students. So essentially I was seabirding with two very experienced seabirders to say the least. They helped me out a lot with distinguishing Alcid species in flight from 15+ km offshore (something that I can't seem to find much study material about)! It's amazing that it's possible to see those birds let alone identify them. Admittedly many of the large alcid species did go unidentified but we did find a Thick-billed Murre and a Razorbill.

It was also a good morning for Dovekies. We saw hundreds, well we estimated 300. They were literally zipping by wherever you looked. Amazing birds really ... I don't think I could ever get sick of them. Little fluff-balls flying about darting this way and that. We had a handful of Dovekies fly overland throughout the day including a very close fly-by just after our seawatch. Amazing!
Another highlight from the seawatch was a fly-by Red-necked Grebe - my second for NL.

From there the day really died down. We found the Black-bellied Plover that has been over-wintering in Renews harbour for the past several years and also found 3 White-throated Sparrows ... and that's all for the highlights really. We should have kept up the seawatch for the remainder of the day.

I only added 4 new birds for my year list in this visit to NL (Thayer's Gull, Purple Sandpiper, Dovekie and Pine Grosbeak) bringing me to a respectable 447 species for the year! My life list stands at 465 so there are only 18 species I have seen in previous years that I haven't seen this year. Not really sure what they are except for Pink-footed Goose, some shorebird species, White-winged Crossbill and Ivory Gull!


A summary of the year will come eventually, maybe.