Reddit reviews The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America: Second Edition (Sibley Guides)
We found 6 Reddit comments about The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America: Second Edition (Sibley Guides). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
The Sibley Guide to Birds has quickly become the new standard of excellence in bird identification guides, covering more than 810 North American birds in amazing detail. Now comes a new portable guide from David Sibley that every birder will want to carry
Asking about ID guides on an ID subreddit seems valid to me!
I'm personally a big fan of the Sibley guides. I think the illustrations provide a lot of detail and clarity and really highlight field marks well. For your area, the Eastern guide is probably what you want, though if you travel frequently or just want a more complete book, there's also a version that covers all of North America.
I also want to mention Merlin, which is a free app from Cornell. It's comprehensive, really good at helping ID unknown birds, provides lists of birds most likely for your location and the time of year, and includes songs as well. It's fantastic and the sort of thing you'd normally expect to pay a good bit of money for.
It is a cedar waxwing. And here is a link to a good bird feild guide fo your future shots.
Sibley's is probably the most popular ID guide, and it's the one I use. A popular alternative is the National Geographic guide.
Here is a fairly comprehensive review of 100+ brands of binoculars across many price ranges. It is a few years old now, but I haven't come across any better guides since then.
There are more things that you can buy later, but those two things are enough to get started. The main thing I would recommend would be to find a local group (e.g. Audubon club or other naturalist/birdwatching group) to go on birdwatching trips with. She will learn far more from experienced birders than from a book, especially at the beginning.
Any new world sparrow (House Sparrow are old world sparrow, introduced in the 1800s)! Most common backyard ones are White-Throated, White-Crowned, Eastern Towhee, and Dark-Eyed Junco. I'd recommend investing in an ID guide, as those little brown birds are one of the best ways to get your life species count up quick. Sibley's Field Guide to Eastern Birds is what I use, and what I recommend at my birding tours that I lead.
A little broader focused than GTA specifically, but The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America is a really good starter field guide (Peterson and National Geograpic are two others).
And, if your mom is a reader I'd also suggest Kyo Maclear's Birds Art Life which is the story about a Toronto author discovering birds in the area while she deals with her dying father.
https://www.amazon.com/Sibley-Field-Guide-Eastern-America/dp/0307957918
This one is basically the bible if you fall into its range