The Complete Birder: A Guide to Better Birding

by Jack Connor

Discusses how to improve birding skills, with advice on choosing binoculars, learning birdsongs, reporting rarities, and making seasonal adjustments in approaches to birding

Genres: Birds, Nonfiction

First published January 1, 1988

Reviews

[Ingrid · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really excellent resource for birders at a beginner or intermediate level. This book covers the basics of migration, weather, and geography, and also includes chapters on how to approach some of the trickier groups: warblers, raptors, shorebirds, terns, and gulls. The tone is conversational, and Connor includes a number of funny and interesting stories of his own birding misadventures. Some of the information on things like optics and reporting rare birds is outdated (this book was published in the 1980s), but I would still recommend it for anyone looking to improve their birding.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent read for birders of all levels. Published in 1988, the sections on optics and recording and reporting birds are outdated, but tips for identifying the most challenging species of birds (shorebirds, gulls, hawks, warblers..) are timelessly helpful. Connor's lighthearted approach to the challenges of birding makes this book a complete pleasure to read.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really well written, contains a lot of 'meta' stuff about birding that I think gets overlooked sometimes. There's great information about binoculars & scopes, including technical aspects that most people don't know about. How to bird several difficult groups of birds is covered as well. If you're a beginner or more advanced this is a great book to round out your knowledge.

Fun story: In 1993 I wrote to him regarding some behavior I had witnessed with seagulls, after reading an article from him. He wrote back, and I thought it was the coolest thing....in 1995 in my 8th grade English class we had to write to someone we admired and ask for an autograph. I wrote to Jack and he sent back a signed hardcover copy of Season at the Point. I was the only person to get a reply. I looked him up a few years back and wrote to him via email and got a reply, I attached pics of the old letters, and he got a kick out of them. If you're reading this Jack: Did you ever see another Raven in New Jersey?

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I will need to read this again when I'm a better birder! It was interesting, but the chapters that were the most helpful for me were the first couple on optics and birding by ear. I apparently need new binoculars. The remaining chapters were mostly on improving your skills in identifying the toughies--gulls, hawks, warblers, shorebirds etc. I'm still so bad at those, the detailed descriptions of field markings and how to distinguish them went mostly over my head.

[Matt Gnagey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entertaining stories mixed with many useful and practical tips. This is both enjoyable to read straight through as well as a useful manual to frequently revisit.