The Complete Backyard Birdwatcher's Home Companion

backyard birding / birding books / birdwatching books

By: Donald S. Heintzelman

What readers say about The Complete Backyard Birdwatcher 's Home Companion

A complete and useful reference,
"This book is exactly what its cover promises: a "single-source reference for all your needs." I've seen many recent publications that discuss some, but not nearly all, of the backyard birdwatching topics that Mr. Heintzelman presents in up-to-date detail. He not only informs but also inspires the reader to use the suggestions he offers for landscaping, nest boxes, feeders, water and shelter, and controlling pests and predators. Two other especially good chapters include tips on identifying birds and an easy-to-grasp introduction to birds' natural history. An especially valuable feature concludes the book. Usually an appendix isn't much more than an afterthought, but that's not the case here. Six important appendices list information for contacting bird-oriented internet sites, organizations, government programs, and companies that sell equipment, plus suggestions for further reading. I've had the book for only a week, and I'm already using those lists. Overall, this is a very attractive and useful resource for the backyard birdwatcher."
-anonymous

The Complete Backyard Birdwatcher's Home Companion,
'We have a shelf of bird books but none, so far, as complete and helpful as this one. The author is well known and highly respected in his field. The book is beautifully printed and organized, meticulously researched with valuable help and information for every level of bird enthusiast from beginner to expert. The Internet links are up-to-date and make available valuable additional information. I recommend this book without reservation to everyone who is interested in birds, wants to learn more about them, set up or enhance a habitat, photograph or simply enjoy these wonderful and fascinating creatures. This book also makes an excellent gift."
-J. Leahy

The Indeed Complete Birdwatcher's Guide,
"Donald S. Heintzelman's new book "The Complete Backyard Birdwatcher's Home Companion" is an informative guide for anyone, especially beginners and intermediate level birdwatchers, interested in learning about the birds that we see around us on our journey through life. The book is amazing, because it is indeed complete. It covers not only a concise history about birds and how they evolved with their different features. It also deals with all the "how to's" of birdwatching and identification and shows how we can responsibly attract birds to our own backyards. The book gives innumerable tips on feeding, housing and birdwatching equipment and generously shares resources. Truly this book is a treasure for the beginning and intermediate level backyard birder."
-Christina van Gelder

1 commentRead more

About Birds: A Guide for Children

bird watching books / birding books

By: Cathryn Sill

What readers say on About Birds: A Guide for Children
My son reads it every night!,
"I looked around a lot for a bird book for my son/his dad who love to watch the birds together. I purchased this after reading another review so I felt that I should give my own. Considering how difficult this book was to find, it was definetly worth the wait. My son is 21 months and just loves reading the "Birdee Book". The pictures are beautiful and the written text is short and sweet which is perfect for young children. I also feel that it is doing a great job of teaching him the difference between birds in the sense that there are ducks, geese, birds, etc.. and prior to this book all of them were just "Birds". I would recommend this for any child above 18 months."
-J. Hughes

A great first book about birds,
"This is such a pretty simple book. The pictures are lovely and the writing is perfect for the youngest children. This book is best for kids between 3 and 6 years old."
-Mamajosh

delightful book,
"I bought this book for my granddaughters. They have loved it from the 2 yr. old to the 8 year old. I enjoyed it,too. The sounds brought memories of birds I'm familiar with."
-Karen L. Christenson

Excellent!!!!,
"Fantastic book for toddlers to introduce birds. We have several of the Audubon plush birds that play the real bird calls, and our daughter loves to read this book with "her" birds. The whole series of books is excellent; highly recommend amphibians, reptiles, mammals, etc."
-Mark Moran

Lovely!,
"We recently bought this book for our 15-month old nature fanatic, and he loves the illustrations as much as we do! It is so delightful to finally find a series that has artful, accurate illustrations accompanied by text that is simple enough to hold our little one's interest. I plan to buy more books from this series and certainly recommend this book to anyone that loves birds, art, and/or nature.
Follow-on review: Our son is now 24-months old and still loves this book. It really is a treasure - you won't be [disappointed]!"
-sunny swimmer "sunny swimmer"

1 commentRead more

Birding for Beginners: A Comprehensive Introduction to Birdwatching

bird watching books / birding books

By: Sheila Buff

What readers say about Birding for Beginners: A Comprehensive Introduction to Birdwatching

Excellent introduction to birding!,
"I am a neophyte birder and this book was perfect as a beginning guide in identifying and recognizing common birds in the western region. The other bird guides I have purchased (National Geographic and Audubon) were exceptional, but for a novice, they presented too much information and too many birds. This book struck a nice, comfortable compromise. The photos of each bird are excellent and provide you a good look at the features and characteristics of each. They also tell you succinctly where the habitat would be and where you would most likely see each bird."

"The best feature was that each bird was divided by color. So if you see a Wilson's warbler in your backyard but don't know for certain if your call is correct, you can quickly thumb to the "yellow" section of the book and see all the yellow birds. Thus you can quickly confirm your identification."

"This book would have limited, or no value to an experienced birder, but for the beginning birder, this is a fine introduction to the hobby of birding."
-Candace Scott

Great for Complete Beginners!,
"Of which I definitely am in the birding arena. Shelia Buff claims to be an advanced beginner herself, and therefore knows what it's like to be starting out at square one. Have only read a few pages, but really enjoy the simple language and her approach to the subject, and therefore want to read and learn more about the creatures flying naturally about in the friendly skies. Which says a lot coming from someone who can get easily overwhelmed by all of the details of a new hobby. If you have the slightest interest in birds, get this book, I can tell it's going to lay a good foundation of knowledge for me."
-Minty Russell "Starlet"

Not "just for the birds"!,
"This bird book is for you! I saw it at a friend's home and knew it was the beginner's book for me. The illustrations are colorful and the information on the many birds is well organized. I found it not to be overwhelming, but easy to use. This is the book to inspire you to start birding--alone or with a friend or child, at your window or outdoors. With this book as a reference you can satisfy your curiosity and develop your skills at identification."
-anonymous

1 commentRead more

Bushnell Falcon 10x50 Wide Angle Binoculars (Black)

bird watching binoculars / birding binoculars / bushnell

What they say about the Bushnell Falcon 10x50 Wide Angle Binoculars (Black)

Excellent inexpensive binocular,
"These binoculars perform very well during daytime and are good for the occasional birdwatcher or for viewing any outdoor event. The light weight and the insta-focus make them very easy to use. I bought them for stargazing (very tight budget!) and I am very satisfied with them giving what I paid. I have been able to locate and clearly see many Messier objects (ie. M22, M13, M11, M3, M5 and the great Andromeda Galaxy M31, and many star clusters such as M39 and the coathanger) and double stars with the Falcons, and they give a nice view of the summer milky way although the view is not very bright since the Falcons are not multicoated, but for [money] you really can't ask much. Overall, excellent value. Buy the Falcons and Terence Dickinsons Nightwatch (Turn Left at Orion is another good one) and you can get into backyard astronomy ..."
-Emilio J. Del Toro

Bargain Binocs Get the Job Done,
"I bought a pair of these on sale (from my "gold box" -- 10x50 is supposed to be the ideal for stargazing. I figured that this might come at the price of some chromatic distortion (tolerable) or difficulty focusing (intolerable). Last night was a "clear" night here in the South Bay. I live about a mile inland, on the coastal edge of Los Angeles' vast light pollution. No marine layer, and I quickly pulled the full moon into focus, then adjusted the other eye-piece. They work for me, but if my eyes get much worse ... I'll have to pass them on to somebody younger.
Enough of the moon, already. I wanna see something I don't see on a regular basis. A quick scan of Orion showed some nebulosity visible, even above city lights. They feel steady. I'm looking forward to more star time.

I didn't notice any chromatic aberation. I have only three minor complaints:

1. No tripod socket for making sure that kids can see what you want them too see. No socket was promised ... so this is not a really fair complaint.
2. Lens caps are cheap and tend to fall off. Watch out for them. It wouldn't have cost that much more to manufacture better lens caps--Bushnell ought to fix this one.
3. I would have designed the adjustable lens with a broader range of diopters for those of us who don't quite see as well as we used to.

All in all, a great pear of binocs for searching the night sky."
-Loma Linda

Cheaply constructed to barely do the job,
"These binoculars cost a hair over twenty five bucks on amazon right now - you're not going to beat that deal in terms of value for money anywhere. They have decent optics.

However, don't think you're getting high-quality construction for that money. These literally disintegrated on me on a recent international trip where they were subjected to neglible abuse (they were mostly carried around in a small backpack on long hikes and sometimes tightly packed in my suitcase). The shaft that couples the two eyepieces to the focusing mechanism is held together with flimsy plastic on both ends, and one of the ends simply snapped off, leaving me with an unusable set of binoculars.

The warranty on these is laughable (you have to pay to ship these - at a cost that's well over half the cost of buying a new pair - to Bushnell where they determine whether it's a manufacturer defect and, if so, send you a repaired item in a few weeks), so my options were to buy a new pair or to try to repair these on my own. I opted for the latter.

In so doing, I took a look inside. It looks like Bushnell cut every corner possible when throwing these together. Most metal edges have been poorly milled, resulting in uneven surfaces. A white adhesive substance has unevenly and sloppily been applied inside to hold the optics assembly together. Not encouraging.

That said, I'd buy these again. Even if I burn through one of these every year due to the shoddy construction, I'd have to go a decade of doing so before I'd have spent enough to equal the cost of a well constructed pair of binoculars that gave me 10x50 magnification."
-Mustafa Jamil

Well Worth the cost,
"I am a rookie bird-watcher and I would recommend this pair of binoculars for bird-watching/binocular astronomy. It can be used to track birds in flight with comparitive ease, and this is a big plus. The insta-focus is a nice concept, especially in winter when the standard knob that binoculars usually have, is a nuisance. The weight, too, is quite manageable.

I found this adequate for most birding, except for things like identifing small birds in dim light. For this, a 7x binoculars is what is usually recommended. But, this binoculars is a happy middle-path if you are also considering some binocular astronomy, since the aperture size is good.

However, there was a great deal of misting over of the lens, in damp conditions (in my case, on the Applachian trail in Tennessee). This might be a detriment in wet weather birding (waders?). Also, the shoulder strap is quite thin.
Overall, a good buy considering the low cost."
-Satyadev Nandakumar

No commentsRead more