-Crossley Guide-
Real photos manage to be both comical and useful for training your birding eye.
The Crossley Guide by Richard Crossley
This book is a lot of fun. Each species gets its own page, where gobs of individuals are photo shopped into one collage that would be terrifying if it were a real scene. This book has improved my ability to ID birds from different vantage points. It provides frames of reference for size, and the real photos make it more realistic than Sibley’s guide. But it is heavy and doesn’t show up-close details as well as the Sibley Guide. For that reason, I usually leave Crossley in the car, and carry Sibley in my backpack.
Do you think this book is geared toward beginners, veteran birders, or anyone and everyone?
I don’t really know. To be honest, the book cracks me up! I have met a couple of people who have a fear of being attacked by swarms of birds. Every single page is like a scene out of an ornithophobic’s nightmares. That said, it seems like a really good way to improve one’s ability to recognize birds based on their profile.