If you are like me, you love The Sibley Guide to Birds and treasure it as a guide to identifying birds. If you are also like me, you often observe bird behavior that fascinates or surprises you. Little birds survive outdoors in very cold winter weather. Some ocean flyers are able to glide for vast distances without moving their wings. Why do birds lay external eggs rather than carry internal ones like mammals? How devoted are birds in pairs to one another? What habitats are most likely to shelter each bird type? What is the migration range and timing of that bird you're watching? What must we do to conserve a particular species?
The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior is designed to be a companion to The Sibley Guide to Birds, and extend your understanding of bird behaviors and the reasons behind them beyond the mere identification of species. With the two books, you have the birthday cake and the icing, too!
I was especially pleased to see that the writing was simple, straight-forward, and interesting. An 11-page glossary helps with the relatively few technical terms, many of which are carefully illustrated somewhere in the book.
From pages 15 through 120, the book focuses on general essays about all North American birds on subjects like feathers, flight characteristics, feet, bills, digestion, bones, organs, metabolism, respiration, cooling, heating, intelligence, origins as a reptile, and evolution into their current forms.
From pages 121 to near the end, the subject matter switches to one of 80 North American (U.S. and Canada) based families. The average length of a section is about six pages. So it's a reference guide rather than a definitive resource. If you love cardinals, for example, you will probably prefer a more specialized book in that direction. If you would like to learn about the basic behaviors of all the birds you normally see in North America, then this is the book for you.
For each family, you get most or all of the following, depending on the characteristics of the family: the scientific name, taxonomy, variations, molting, plumage, territoriality, food and foraging, breeding (including eggs, nests, and displays), movements, conservation issues, and information about accidental species. Each section is a signed essay, so you can see who the experts are who did that section. References are usually not included in the book, but are available on the book's Web site.
You probably don't want a list of all 80 families covered, so I'll just name a representative few (Loons, Albatrosses, Storm-Petrels, Pelicans, New World Vultures, Falcons & Caracaras, Limpkin, Stilts and Avocets, Gulls and Terns, Cuckoos, Swifts, Kingfishers, Larks, Kinglets, Mockingbirds and Thrashers, Bananaquit; New World Sparrows; and Orioles).
The high point of the book, however, are the 795 water colors painted by the eminently talented David Allen Sibley. Most of these paintings highlight key bird behaviors or characteristics. Although most of the illustrations are quite small, you can easily discern the point that is being made from the superb use of angle, color, and composition. Without these wonderful water colors, this book would be less than half as interesting and helpful. To look only at the illustrations would bring joy to anyone. The only thing that's missing is a CD of bird song to accompany the pages.
I seriously doubt if many people are going to carry this guide off on bird watching trips. My suggestion is that you read up on what you plan to see before you go, or just curl up with this book and some hot apple cider on cold winter nights to anticipate the bird watching that you will begin doing again in the spring. You should also use some of that time to organize and participate in local efforts to help conserve species which are being threatened.
To know more about birds is to appreciate them and God's creation even more!
