Customer Reviews:
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 A useful guide. December 26, 2005
5 out of 14 found this review helpful
Having read other books on the same subject, I hastily read through this book. Had I not read other books on this subject the text might have been more useful that it was. I did enjoy reading another author's ideas on hawk watching. This text references other books that I have read that are also very informative about hawk watching.
A useful supplement November 15, 2005
One of the continent's most expert hawkwatchers, Jerry Liguori here presents a set of very helpful notes intended to make the identification of distant raptors easier. The many carefully chosen photographs show the birds at literally "every angle," showing the reader birds head-on, wing-on, and in retreat, just as they often appear to the observer. Many of the images are carefully manipulated to elide obvious differences of size and color, making it possible to concentrate on more subtle distinctions of shape and habit in otherwise similar species; one could watch hawks for decades without witnessing the extremely informative juxtapositions effected here by the printer, and hawkwatchers new and experienced will find much to profit by in the book's plates.
The text, while it contains many nuggets of little-known information, is another matter. It reads very much like hastily scribbled notes, and the often meandering stream of the author's consciousness would have benefited from a careful editor's guidance (and a proofreader would have been helpful, too). Most experienced birders will be able to strain through the information to find what is valuable to them, but neophytes are likely to find navigating these waters occasionally troublesome, a difficulty not much eased by the glossary, which, for example, uses the word "base" in at least four different senses.
All in all, though, this is a book highly recommended to the hawkwatcher with some experience--or the hawkwatcher with a patient mentor or friend to help understand it.
 Pretty good November 7, 2005
43 out of 43 found this review helpful
As the title indicates, this book focuses primarily on flight identification, and does a good job of showing and comparing raptors from multiple angles. So if you're looking to identify which hawk is perched in a tree in your yard, look elsewhere. But if you're interested in hawkwatching or honing your ability to identify distant raptors, this is a worthy pickup.
This book nicely fills a gap between the Wheeler Guides (which have very close detailed photogaphs) and Hawks in Flight (which has mostly illustrations focusing on shape). This book has photographs, but the emphasis is on shape and structure more than plumage. It's got some really helpful pages where they put similar birds together and the same size flying overhead, then all flying to the right, then all flying at you, then flying away so you can directly compare subtle differences. It's got some nice photoshopped stuff where they inserted another bird into a photo for comparison (e.g. a nice one of a Peregrine and a Gyr both flying together). There are also "pitfall" images where they show similar birds you could confuse given certain looks at them.
I haven't read all the text yet, but the stuff I've read seems spot-on. It's got some fun hawkwatch numbers, like record days and seasons and a map of hawkwatch sites. (Although some of the dots on the map seem to be off). Overall if you're interested in hawks enough to still be reading this review, you'll probably find this book to be cool.
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