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Review of the Kaufman field guide



I purchased a copy of the Kaufman Focus Guide -- Birds of North America
from amazon.com, as no book store of 5 or so I checked in Raleigh has
carried it (yet). This is surprising, and I assume they will before
long.

Do we need TWO more bird field guides to North American birds?  (Kaufman
and Sibley).  Well, not really.  What we need, perhaps, are more
specialty guides a la Harrison's 2 seabird guides, the several shorebird
guides, Grant's gull book, etc.

The Kaufman guide is very similar to the Robbins' et al. Golden Guide
and the National Geographic (hereafter, "Geo") guides. That, is there
are postage stamp range maps on the left, along with text, facing the
color illustrations on the right. Kaufman's guide is 384 pages, whereas
Geo is 480.  Most birders I know use Geo almost exclusively, at least in
the field. Peterson is used by beginners and mid-level birders. The
photo guides -- Master, Stokes, etc., are often useful as back-ups, but
not taken into the field.

The Kaufman guide differs from Geo., Peterson, and Golden in using
photographs on the pages facing the maps and text. The photos are
arranged exactly like paintings -- 6-12 per page, of 4 species on
average. Each species averages 2 photos, with some having one and some
having 4-5. I LIKE this. I LIKE seeing what a bird REALLY looks like,
not what an artist portrays. If the artist is excellent, which I suspect
the Sibley guide will be, then I have no problem. But some artists paint
tails too long or short, bodies too fat, can't seen to get the right
jizz, etc. Of course, with photos one runs the risk of birds at an
angle, making the tail look short, birds in the shade making them appear
too dark, etc.

Fortunately, Kaufman has gone through a very large array of photos to
choose from, so it is hard to quibble with them. I really like the
sparrows, especially the hard to paint Botteri's, Bachman,, Cassin's, as
seen on page 340 (two photos of each), as well as Henslow's, Baird's,
LeConte's, etc. (Some artists have trouble painting sparrows properly).

My major complaint is lack of overall completeness. A few rarities are
omitted, such as Black-tailed Godwit; Fea's, Bermuda, and Herald
petrels, etc. Because it is not as thick a book as Geo, the text is
somewhat shorter, but Kaufman knows his birds and field marks as well as
anyone in N.A., so there is really nothing to quibble about here. The
catch is that there is really little NEW information that we don't
already have at our hands in Geo. Kaufman targets the book not at the
experts but at the general birder, but certainly the book is very handy
for the experts. Many folks will be bothered by the arrangement of the
groups, with waterfowl first, then alcids, loons, etc.

What is the bottom line? I would rank it below Geo in terms of
completeness and amount of text (all storm-petrels on one page! Yuck!).
It is CLEARLY better than all other guides out there. But -- I think the
photos are great, and the experts and beginners alike will want to get
this book. Thus, it is the right-hand pages (photos) that will be of
most interest (at least to me), as the range maps and text are basically
what I already have in Geo., though Kaufman does have additional marks
and pointers. (By the way, it DOES have photos and text on the new
splits -- such as Gunnison Sage-Grouse!).

At a price of $20 for the paperback, I think it is a good price for such
an array of photos (more than 2000 according to the book cover), along
with text (and range maps) that approach the quality,though not quite
quantity, of the Geo guide.

--
Harry LeGrand
NC Natural Heritage Program
1615 MSC
Raleigh, NC 27699-1615
(919) 715-8687 (work)
FAX: 919-715-3085
e-mail: harry.legrand@ncmail.net