Better Birding

George L. Armistead is events coordinator at the American Birding Association and a research associate in the Ornithology Department at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University. He has led birding tours on all seven continents. Brian L. Sullivan is eBird program codirector and photographic editor for Birds of North America Online at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. He is the author of numerous papers on bird identification and the coauthor of The Crossley ID Guide: Raptors and Offshore Sea Life ID Guide: West Coast (both Princeton).

Acknowledgments 8 Introduction 10 Wide-Angle Birding: Be the Bird, See the Bird 11 Becoming a "Good Birder": Understanding the Basics 12 Birding Mentors 26 Why Birding Is Cool 26 Waterbirds Loons 29 Swans 45 Mallard and Monochromatic "Mallards" 57 White Herons 69 Coastal Birds Eiders 83 Brachyramphus Murrelets 93 Pacific Cormorants 103 Seabirds Sulids: Northern Gannet and Boobies 115 Tropical Terns 129 Atlantic Gadflies 137 Large Shorebirds Curlews 149 Godwits 161 Skulkers Marsh Sparrows 175 Small Wrens (Troglodytes and Cistothorus) 187 Birds of Forest and Edge Accipiters 199 American Rosefinches 211 Aerial Insectivores Swifts 221 Night Birds Screech-Owls: An "Otus" and the Megascops 231 Nighthawks 241 Open-Country Birds Yellow-bellied Kingbirds 253 Black Corvids: Crows and Ravens 265 Pipits 281 Longspurs 293 Cowbirds 303 Index 312