The Bird Guide: North America

The Bird Guide is a landmark field guide to the birds of North America, combining unmatched illustration, field expertise, and modern data to redefine how birds are identified and understood

Published in association with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Representing a new era in bird identification, The Bird Guide illustrates North America's spectacular avifauna in unparalleled depth, precision, and beauty. The written accounts provide an unprecedented view of birds, bringing together decades of field expertise with insights drawn from billions of bird observations, photos, sounds, and videos contributed by birders to the Cornell Lab's eBird project and Macaulay Library. Designed to work with the digital tools that have introduced millions of people to birding, this guide delivers an experience no screen can replicate: side-by-side comparisons of similar species, quick access to key field marks, and detailed facing-page accounts that train the eye and sharpen field identification skills.




Covers 818 regularly occurring species and 158 rare visitors across the United States and Canada
Features more than 7,000 illustrations covering plumage, age, sex, and subspecies and hundreds of vignettes showing birds in habitat
Intuitively designed ID plates and facing-page text allow side-by-side comparison of similar species and provide deep ID context that is impossible to achieve on mobile screens
Comprehensive "Sounds" sections offer expert guidance for interpreting vocalizations and separating confusing species
Complements the strengths of the Merlin Bird ID app, bridging page and smartphone in a field-ready system for sound ID
eBird integration includes global nomenclature, including subspecies, across the guide and Merlin, ensuring ease of identification and data sharing
Distribution maps powered by eBird data transform millions of observations into new insights about bird distribution and abundance

The Bird Guide brings together a world-class team that fuses decades of unsurpassed field expertise with incomparable artistry. Brian L. Sullivan and Christopher Wood are leaders of eBird. Tour leading and teaching have made Michael O'Brien a legendary birder, and North America's premier bird sound expert. Prolific author and international tour leader Steve N. G. Howell's uncompromising field expertise has shaped modern bird identification. Paired with the artistic mastery of Ian Lewington and Lorenzo Starnini, two of the world's finest bird illustrators, The Bird Guide is the most comprehensive, beautifully illustrated, and technologically integrated field guide to North American birds ever produced.