The Crossley ID Guides Series

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

The Crossley Id Guide Raptors

by Richard Crossley, Jerry Liguori, and Brian Sullivan

Published 24 March 2012

Part of the revolutionary Crossley ID Guide series, this is the first raptor guide with lifelike scenes composed from multiple photographs--scenes that allow you to identify raptors just as the experts do. Experienced birders use the most easily observed and consistent characteristics--size, shape, behavior, probability, and general color patterns. The book's 101 scenes--including thirty-five double-page layouts--provide a complete picture of how these features are all related. Even the effects of lighting and other real-world conditions are illustrated and explained. Detailed and succinct accounts from two of North America's foremost raptor experts, Jerry Liguori and Brian Sullivan, stress the key identification features. This complete picture allows everyone from beginner to expert to understand and enjoy what he or she sees in the field. The mystique of bird identification is eliminated, allowing even novice birders to identify raptors quickly and simply.

Comprehensive and authoritative, the book covers all thirty-four of North America's diurnal raptor species (all species except owls). Each species is featured in stunning color plates that show males and females, in a full spectrum of ages and color variants, depicted near and far, in flight and at rest, and from multiple angles, all caught in their typical habitats. There are also comparative, multispecies scenes and mystery photographs that allow readers to test their identification skills, along with answers and full explanations in the back of the book. In addition, the book features an introduction, and thirty-four color maps accompany the plates.

Whether you are a novice or an expert, this one-of-a-kind guide will show you an entirely new way to look at these spectacular birds.

The most complete guide to North American raptors, written by some of the foremost experts
The first raptor guide using Richard Crossley's acclaimed, innovative composite images that show birds as they actually appear in the field
101 stunning color plates--including thirty-five double-page layouts--composed from thousands of photographs
Comparative, multispecies plates and photos of mystery species that allow readers to test their growing identification skills
Complete with introduction, 34 color maps, and detailed species accounts