The most recommended birdwatching books

Clare is another consummate wordsmith – he even managed to write an engaging book about spending months on container ships – but with Orison he manages to weave a fascinating story using beautiful prose and superb writing to bring intelligent discussions and good research to life while introducing us to key conservation personalities he meets during his journeys.
Clare sets out to search for the highly endangered and secretive slender-billed curlew in a range of wetlands in a troubled Eastern Europe and discovers inspiring if sometimes eccentric movers and shakers devoted to saving our wild places.
And how about this for a profound final sentence in a book: ‘Too much certainty is a miserable thing, while the unknowable has a pristine beauty and a wonder with no end.’

Yolen and Stemple are a mother-daughter dream team duo and creators of many bird books including Yolen’s classic, Owl Moon. This birdy-lullaby has a soothing read-aloud rhythm as a mother tucks her tired nestling-child in bed. She recounts the places where various birds nest, from pigeons on ledges and catbirds in hedges, to owls in oak tree boles and hawks on telephone poles bound by the reassuring refrain, "You nest here with me.” Sweet’s blue-green color palette offers a calming and soporific counterpart and a nod to night-time. Learn more about the featured birds, their diet and nesting habits, and this birding family in the book’s back pages.

This book teaches me about all of the different types of eggs in the world. Some eggs are big, and some are small. They are all really beautiful and interesting.

Did you know some are even shaped like tubes?

I learned a lot about eggs from this book, and the pictures are really cool! I like to look at them and learn.

This book taught me how to hear birds. 

We all see birds to some degree. But most people completely miss their sounds. That’s where this book comes in, as a guide to the vocalization of all the western birds (there is an eastern version, too) with transliterations, spectrograms, and curated online recordings. 

Here’s what I recommend you do to instantly enrich your life: sit outside, wait until a bird sings or calls, then look it up in this book. Read the description, look at the spectrogram, and play the recording if needed. Now you know a bird by ear. Now, whenever it calls, you will know what bird is present, just by the subtle patterns or qualities of tone that most people ignore. 

This is the true story of Phoebe Snetsinger and her bizarre and often dangerous quest to see more birds on the planet than any other human. Her quest to hold the world record for most bird species seen is a great story in itself but it is the way the author delves into Snetsinger’s character and her relationships with her family and others that are equally as fascinating. I love learning about what drives people to have absolute obsessions in life that they place above all else – relationships, health, safety, etc. I have been to many of the locations in the book and seen many of the bird species mentioned as well. The author captures all of this in a fast-paced book that will be loved by birders everywhere and anyone who wants a compelling read about obsession!

Before Roger Tory Peterson, there was Louis. Before Louis, there was John James Audubon – another amazing wildlife artist. But what makes this picture book biography different is that the author Jacqueline Davies shows how John J. solved a century’s old mystery – Where do birds go in winter?

Intensely curious, John J. decided to tie a tiny piece of wire around a bird’s leg. You’ll have to read the book to find out what happened next, but I think you’ll agree that John’s simple experiment was one of the biggest innovations in ornithology. Beautifully written and illustrated, this book is one to add to your life list.  

I’ve often whined about epic friend groups being featured in tons of films and not enough in books—but Strange Birds is the delightful exception that gets every detail of the cinematic friend group perfectly right. There’s mysterious invitations hidden in a library, scary treks through the woods, artistic activism in the face of wrong, and a wickedly cool group initiation featuring some mighty powerful crystals. If nothing else, the group’s shenanigans will make you want to go out and spend all your money on hoards of plastic flamingos. (Just trust me on this.)

A Parrot Without a Name is the tale of a quest as primitive and compelling as any grail search from medieval legend. It’s the story of John O’Neill and Theodore Parker, two of the 20th century’s most accomplished birders and ornithologists, and their pursuit of the least known and most elusive birds in the whole of South America. Parker, whose death in a small plane crash in the Ecuadorian mountains cut off one of the most famous and unique escapades in birding – he ended up knowing and recording the calls of more than 4000 bird species – shows up as a colorful character with all the quirks of other great scientific iconoclasts such as Alan Turing and Robert Oppenheimer. 

Oh, how I wish I had this book when I was a child! Each brightly illustrated page is rich with close-up photos of various birds to look for, field guides, and tips to follow. It’s jam-packed with every activity bird-loving littles could hope for—games, crafts, a birding log for sightings, sticker badges, and a real magnifying glass! Bird Watch is an excellent book for school field trips, family nature adventures, and the perfect gift for young explorers.

This book taught me how to watch birds. 

Many bird books aim to teach about birds and how they live, conveying factual information while ignoring (or lamenting) our human interactions with them. There are also books about birding, telling picaresque stories of extreme birdwatching adventures, or delving into technical minutiae aimed at maximizing one’s skill at bird identification. This book doesn’t fall into either of those categories; instead, it focuses on the rich and positive rewards of paying attention to birds. 

What was that sound? Why did those birds all fly up into the tree? What will I discover if I simply sit still in the woods, patiently watching and listening? When I started asking—and being able to answer—these questions, my whole world changed.