Date: 10/7/26 9:49 am From: Harry LeGrand (via carolinabirds Mailing List) <carolinabirds...> Subject: The best field guide ever for North America is coming in early 2027
Folks,
When I have been scrolling through Facebook recently, I have seen a number of ads for a new Princeton Field Guide titled -- "*The Bird Guide: North America*".
I didn't think much about this upcoming book, as we have plenty of North American bird field guides already, as we know. But, I decided to take a closer look, called up that title on both the Amazon and Princeton books website; lo and behold, both websites DO have the much needed "Look inside" feature that allows a potential buyer much valuable intel about what the species accounts, illustrations, and range maps look like. Wow! if you scroll toward the bottom, you get to some selected species accounts, including several pages just for immature jaegers, gulls, etc. In comparison, the best current guide, in my opinion -- the National Geographic guide -- still has a bunch of less-than-stellar illustrations and (though complete including accidentals) is 574 pages. This book is also supposedly complete and has 624 pages. The NatGeo guide says it has about 3,000 bird illustrations; the Princeton guide says it has about 7,000 illustrations. Some folks prefer the Sibley field guide, which is also fine -- I have both Nat Geo and Sibley; it is a much larger size with larger paintings, but the text is rather sparse as compared with NatGeo and the Princeton guides.
Also, the four authors of the Princeton guide are well-known authors in their own right, and the two illustrators are clearly exceptional. The retail price is $35 for the 6" x 9" book. (The NatGeo that I just measured is 5.5 x 8"), and Sibley is about 6.25 x 9.5"). Folks who have the also excellent Princeton Field Guide to the *Birds of Europe* (like I do) will note the similarity in format and thoroughness of that book with the upcoming North America book. In fact, bird book reviewers have said the most recent Europe guide by Princeton is the best single bird field guide ever produced, with the combination of many excellent paintings, thorough text, and precise-enough range maps. I would think that this North America field guide will get the same amount of praise.
The only drawback I see is the small print/font (to be able to fit so much text into small places!), which may require me and others to use a magnifying glass, which I do have and use often. I never take bird field guides in the field; they stay in the car or at home, and thus for my taste, I'd rather the book be Sibley-sized and thus have a bit larger font size that we older folks can read without bifocals or magnifying glasses!!
As the flier says, it can be pre-ordered now. And, as expected, Amazon and other websites have a lower price. The expected publication date is March 9, 2027.
Harry LeGrand Raleigh
PS -- I suppose we'd all prefer a less abundant bird on the cover than the American Robin!
