Sparrow ID?

[Buddy]

Found at Binbrook Conservation Area.  Also can you please recommend a good bird ID book.  Thank you.

[Paul O'Toole]

A white crowned or white throated, not positive on which. I am not very good at sparrows.

[Rotarran]

Definitely White-crowned Sparrow. I can't recommend a book as I usually use the Internet to help ID birds. Websites I frequent often are allaboutbirds.net and whatbird.com

[Kris Ito]

I always think of White-crowned Sparrows as looking like little referees with those crisp black and white stripes. You may also notice that the top of the head looks a bit flatter than other sparrows or sometimes you'll see a distinct sloping forehead. At this time of year you may also see a lot of juveniles with brown and buff crowns instead of black & white.

My favourite field guide has always been the National Geographic Guide to Birds of North America, however it has not been updated in several years. The big excitement this year was the new Sibley's Guide to Birds 2nd Edition. It's a great book to have on hand (and some now consider it to be the best) but a bit too large to carry in the field. I also know a lot of birders who are loyal to the Peterson guides but I've never personally had one. I like to use birding apps while I'm out and about which have the added bonus of providing songs and calls. My favorites are iBird Canada and Audubon. When I'm at home, I will often refer to the Cornell Bird Guide here: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/search.aspx

Good luck and welcome to the forums!

-kris  

[JW Mills]

Most people seem to recommend Sibley's, National Geographic or Peterson but there are other guides. I would suggest going to your local library and checking them out to see which one (or ones) you prefer.
As Kris posted there are also several apps available.

[nkwali]

There's also the Merlin app. It's a great tool to help you narrow down what you might have seen as it asks you a series of questions and then provides you with options that would be found in your area having the characteristics you select.

[Walter Fisher]

If I can just add to Kris Ito's mention of the Sibley's Guide to Birds, make sure you buy the second edition, second printing (July 2014)...the first printing of the second edition was very poorly done with very fine hard-to-read print and bird illustrations being very dark in colour.

Walter

[Brian Bailey]

Sibleys is my go-to guide, but I'm not sure it's the best choice if you are just beginning. For that I would still recommend Peterson's. I'm not sure if I have seen the most recent edition, but I will assume it is similar to the other editions from the past 30 years or so. Peterson tends to have more similar species illustrated together on the same page, with arrows pointing out key field marks. While some of the illustrations may appear to lack detail, they are excellent at capturing the postures and proportions. The plumages are also the variations most commonly seen in the east.

There are many good field guides available these days. I haven't looked at most of them. The only one I wouldn't recommend is the ROM guide. It has some blatant errors, and is an embarrassment to the ROM.

For apps (in Android at least), I have Audubon, iBird, and Sibleys. I find Sibleys by far the most useful. It's a lot more expensive than the others, but worth it. The Audubon app goes on sale regularly. All of the apps have a good library of bird songs and calls.


BB

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