You’ve never seen a waterfowl guide like this before…
because there’s never been a waterfowl guide like this before.
The focus of this book is waterfowl identification (ID), conservation, and appreciation. As with other Crossley ID Guides, its goal is to create a more comprehensive mental image and understanding of waterfowl and a celebration of the wetlands, grasslands, bottomlands, and tundra they inhabit. Birds, like people, have personality. This book shows their lifestyle, where and how they live, how they move and why they do what they do. These are all important and interesting things to know for ID and, ultimately conservation. Hopefully this book will create a more inquiring and understanding waterfowl constituency, one able to ask better questions, interpret more of what we see, and defend the resource. In terms of understanding, we can shift from the oversimplification of a white background and a few helpful arrows pointing at ‘field marks’ to a more realistic approach of a ‘duck’s world.’ It is the discovery, working out the answer and not the answer itself, that is the real fun!
Each image among the many plates has a specific purpose. Many illustrate the identification of a certain age or sex. Others provide close-up or distant views. A number of plates compare multiple species, while others were assembled to accentuate beauty. Until recently, identification in North America was largely based on color. This guide places an emphasis on size, shape, and behavior. By focusing on behavior and habitat, along with overall patterns of color, one is allowed a faster and more accurate identification.
The color plates have been created to represent the way each waterfowl species appears in the field, or – put another way – as the layout might have appeared in an ideal piece of artwork! The images were chosen because they clearly portray each species’ shape, plumage, and behavior. These images were “shaped,” often after a considerable period of trial and error, to create an overall scene that is as lifelike as a printed image will allow. Over 5,000 images were used in the making of the approximately 300 pages of plates. Each plate contains a massive amount of identification information within a relatively small area, all to help you better your skills while out in the field.
Like what you see?
Order Your Copy of the Crossley ID Guide – Waterfowl