Birds for Real

Rating:
Summary: A useful reference in its own right
Review: This idiosyncratic little book was produced in reaction to the exceedingly imperfect first revision of the Golden Guide, which disregarded willfully much of the abundant new information that had come available since the guide's first publication in 1966. Stallcup et al. do a good job of pointing out the Golden Guide's numerous and manifest shortcomings, but far more importantly, they provide many little tricks and marks that are still not common knowledge.
Is the book worth buying now that the Golden Guide is so clearly a piece of the past? Probably so, if for nothing more than the Willet and Sprague's Pipit entries. But what I'd really like to see is a new "Birds for Real" that takes on the Sibley guides--even the best (and David Sibley's books a r e the best, by far) should be fodder for discussion of the sort so well provided by Rich Stallcup.