Green Book Reviews

Apart from a patient and knowledgeable mentor, the field guide is a nature enthusiast’s most valuable tool. With the right guide, a seemingly featureless swath of unfamiliar habitat comes alive with species, seasonal cycles, and ecological insight. In ornithology, guides are particularly valuable due to the immense variability that birds display. Often, new guide layouts have been designed for birds, then later applied to other natural-history subjects. Accordingly, in a long tradition of bird guide icons such as Roger Tory Peterson and David Sibley, Richard Crossley has created an inventive bird identification method that will surely be widely emulated in other biological arenas. In The Crossley ID Guide: Eastern Birds, his identification scheme closely simulates the actual experience of observing a bird in the field. Even more importantly, he has revived the idea that a field guide should help a birder develop identification skills, rather than replace them. In this mix of ground-breaking ideas and traditional naturalist sensibility, Crossley’s ingenious book will gather many ardent supporters, even as other birders will surely critique such a departure from the familiar. Click through for our full review…