The Crossley Id Guide - (Crossley Id Guides) by Richard Crossley (Paperback)

About the Book

"640 ... scenes created from 10,000 of the author's photographs ... lifelike in-focus scenes show birds in their habitats, from near and far, and in all plumages and behaviors"--P. [4] of cover.

Book Synopsis

The acclaimed book that has revolutionized birding and field guides
"[The Crossley ID Guide] has turned the traditional field guide on its ear."--Wall Street Journal
"Deserves to be your essential resource for definitive species identification."--Richmond Times-Dispatch
"The perfect book for beginning birders, and even experts will marvel at its thoroughness."--Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"A different kind of ID book, a book much more useful and helpful."--Minneapolis Star Tribune

This stunningly illustrated book from acclaimed birder and photographer Richard Crossley revolutionizes field guide design by providing the first real-life approach to identification. Whether you are a beginner, expert, or anywhere in between, The Crossley ID Guide will vastly improve your ability to identify birds.

Unlike other guides, which provide isolated individual photographs or illustrations, this is the first book to feature large, lifelike scenes for each species. These scenes--640 in all--are composed from more than 10,000 of the author's images showing birds in a wide range of views--near and far, from different angles, in various plumages and behaviors, including flight, and in the habitat in which they live. These beautiful compositions show how a bird's appearance changes with distance, and give equal emphasis to characteristics experts use to identify birds: size, structure and shape, behavior, probability, and color. This is the first book to convey all of these features visually--in a single image--and to reinforce them with accurate, concise text. Each scene provides a wealth of detailed visual information that invites and rewards careful study, but the most important identification features can be grasped instantly by anyone.

By making identification easier, more accurate, and more fun than ever before, The Crossley ID Guide will completely redefine how its users look at birds. Essential for all birders, it also promises to make new birders of many people who have despaired of using traditional guides.

• Revolutionary. This book changes field guide design to make you a better birder
• A picture says a thousand words. The most comprehensive guide: 640 stunning scenes created from 10,000 of the author's photographs
• Reality birding. Lifelike in-focus scenes show birds in their habitats, from near and far, and in all plumages and behaviors
• Teaching and reference. The first book to accurately portray all the key identification characteristics: size, shape, behavior, probability, and color
• Practice makes perfect. An interactive learning experience to sharpen and test field identification skills
• Bird like the experts. The first book to simplify birding and help you understand how to bird like the best
• An interactive website--www.crossleybirds.com--includes expanded captions for the plates and species updates

From the Back Cover

"The Crossley ID Guide is an interesting, multi-dimensional, unique take on a bird guide that delivers to a high standard for a specific target audience."--Alan Tilmouth

"The Crossley ID Guide, published by Princeton University Press, is an awesome, major achievement, a stunning contribution to ornithological field identification."--John Thaxton

Review Quotes

"[The Crossley ID Guide] is, bar none, the closest anyone has gotten to actually showing what the birds look like in life short of a video recording, and there's no better way to train yourself to be a better birder than by seeing birds in life."-- "Drinking Bird"

"[The Crossley ID Guide] has turned the traditional field guide on its ear. Anyone who has birded regularly in Cape May, N.J., has seen Richard Crossley and his giant zoom lens stalking at dawn, dusk and in between. He has, a la Kenn Kaufman, digitally lifted the birds out of those photos and then dropped them--perched, walking, flying, diving, swimming--into a habitat that is one big photographic background, thus creating a picture window onto each species. Simultaneously we see the species up close, far away, in flight, at a feeder, in flocks, sitting, singing. Scale is up for grabs, with some of the birds so small and hidden that you don't see them until a second or third look. But the effect is engaging, exciting and akin to the real experience of birding, where so much happens on the wing, at difficult distance and in odd light."---Laura Jacobs, Wall Street Journal

"[Crossley] tries to squeeze in as much reality as he can onto every printed page. . . . Why put such images in an identification guide? Crossley calls it reality birding. He believes that you can become a better birder by studying the distant birds and comparing them to the larger close-up images. By noticing the similarities between the different images, you will learn to focus on the features that remain constant for a particular species. The rationale is compelling, and I think Crossley's approach might actually work. . . . I love [this book]."---Michael Szpir, American Scientist

"Believe the hype! The plates are incredible. . . . [People] will absolutely love it, especially people new to birding, the main part of the book's target audience. . . . For me some of the plates were good enough to stick on the wall in a frame as a work of art. . . . I salute Richard Crossley's bravery. I think it's a brilliant, innovative idea and everyone should get a copy."-- "Urban Birder"

"Birders and casual backyard bird-watchers will find a new species of bird guide in The Crossley ID Guide: Eastern Birds."---Linda Scarth, Booklist

"First impression: Wow! I love it. . . . The number of images in different plumages and postures will help the intermediate level birder move to the next skill level. . . . It's a buy recommendation from me."-- "Birdzilla"

"Given that there are already a half-dozen excellent field guides to birds of the US, is this new book useful to me? I answer, enthusiastically, yes! . . . Another feature of this birding guide that Peterson and Pearson never dreamed of; it's interactive! I can try to soak in all the images on the printed page, but if I need more information, I can find it with a click on the website. The web version has labels, comments, and questions not included in the book."---Anne McCormack, Gardening with Binoculars

"I like that Crossley states in the introduction that this guide's aim is 'to both serve and expand the world of birding, make it more fashionable, current, and exciting.' Boy, did he knock that one out of the park. . . . It's stimulating and challenging all at once."-- "Flying Mullet"

"It is unlike any [guide] you have seen before. It contains not single images but, for each species, large life-like scenes containing multiple images, some close but many distant, from a variety of angles, in flight and showing typical habitat and behaviour. This montage approach enables all aspects of a bird's size, shape and structure, plumage and behaviour to be displayed to best effect. . . . This book has undoubtedly revolutionised photo guides, representing a huge advance over anything seen previously. . . . For anyone living in or visiting eastern North America this is a 'must buy.'"---Andy Stoddart, Birdwatch

"Like no other bird identification guide that has come before . . . an excellent reference book to look over before going into the field to refresh one's memory of what to look for. It also provides new angles and identification tips that could help remove the biases a bird-watcher tends to accumulate or even inherit from others. Finally, it might serve as the 'final say' on a mystery bird seen during a particular outing. . . . I heartily recommend this novel book."---David Bird, Montreal Gazette

"Richard Crossley has conceived and actually implemented a breakout idea for a general field guide to bird identification. . . . What (my old friend) Richard Crossley is doing with his idea of image, gestalt, wordlessness and recognition is mind-blowing. And it will revolutionize bird ID practice, discussions, and the scope of what each species is. Whether you have seen a bird and want to figure it out or you have been perusing his intuitive selection of what/how a bird looks and then you see it and know it too, I think you'll find Richard's guiding eye a game-changer for your birding endeavors."-- "Hawks Aloft"

"Richard Crossley's book is an incredible piece of work. There have been several field guides over the years that have claimed to present a new approach, but this one really does so. . . . There's such a lot of information in here that I'm sure one would go on learning from it for years."---Andy Musgrove, BUBO Listing

"While the plethora of pretty pictures ultimately will make The Crossley ID Guide a best seller, it's the author's candid and conversational writing that I find most appealing. . . . Purists prefer drawings, arguing that there are too many variables in a bird's plumage to depict them all in a set of photographs. But after a few hours with Crossley's guide, I disagree. I like the images. . . . The book strives to capture nearly every permutation, presenting shots of different poses, angles and plumage."---James McCarty, Cleveland Plain Dealer

About the Author

Richard Crossley is an internationally acclaimed birder and photographer and the award-winning author of The Crossley ID Guide series (Princeton/Crossley Books), which has been recognized for its pioneering approach to bird identification. He is also a coauthor of The Shorebird Guide and the cofounder of the Pledge to Fledge global birding initiative, and he is working on multiple birding projects involving mixed media and new technologies such as birdcams.