[Birdtalk] New National Geo

[Dave Hanscom]

> The fifth edition of the National Geographic Field Guide to Birds of North
> American is now available.  While the cover closely resembles the fourth
> edition, there are changes.  The changes between the third and fourth
> editions were minimal, but this new edition appears to have more revisions.
> 
> Features include: updated maps, coverage of every species ever recorded in
> North America (967 species), thumbtabs for quickly locating seven of the
> major families (i.e., hawks, finches, sandpipers, flycatchers, sparrows,
> warblers, gulls), and 14 pages showing accidentals (71 species).
> 
> Ned Bixler, a newcomer to Utah and a long-time birder from the mid-west,
> made an interesting observation.  Ned said that he noticed western birders
> tend to carry Sibley while eastern birders leaned more to the National
> Geographic.  Any comments about this would be interesting.

I just came back from the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival (more on that 
in a later email) and would make the same observation.  Much to my 
surprise, almost nobody was carrying Sibley, which I thought was the 
"bible" these days.  Most all had Nat Geo, including the trip leaders who 
came from all around the country.  The Fifth Edition was on sale there at 
a nice discount, so I decided to purchase one to replace my Second 
Edition.  It's really very nice.

One problem with Sibley for a lot of people is that they need to have two 
volumes (sometimes to cover the same area - like Texas).  In fact, I 
decided to take my old Nat Geo, rather than Sibley West for that reason. 
(I don't have Sibley East yet.)  There were apparently quite a few errors 
in big Sibley that were corrected in the Eastern and Western editions.  
The general feeling seems to be that the single volume is too big to carry 
around anyway.

Dave Hanscom