This week’s book giveaway is twice the fun! We’ll be selecting two winners from those of you who have liked our newest Facebook page—Princeton Birds and Natural History.
The first winner will receive a great poster, along with an author-signed copy of The Crossley ID Guide by Richard Crossley. 
The second winner will receive a different poster, featuring some more of the beautiful birds found in this book.
The Crossley ID Guide: Eastern Birds
by Richard Crossley
This stunningly illustrated book from acclaimed birder and photographer Richard Crossley revolutionizes field guide design by providing the first real-life approach to identification. Whether you are a beginner, expert, or anywhere in between, The Crossley ID Guide will vastly improve your ability to identify birds.
Unlike other guides, which provide isolated individual photographs or illustrations, this is the first book to feature large, lifelike scenes for each species. These scenes—640 in all—are composed from more than 10,000 of the author’s images showing birds in a wide range of views—near and far, from different angles, in various plumages and behaviors, including flight, and in the habitat in which they live. These beautiful compositions show how a bird’s appearance changes with distance, and give equal emphasis to characteristics experts use to identify birds: size, structure and shape, behavior, probability, and color. This is the first book to convey all of these features visually—in a single image—and to reinforce them with accurate, concise text. Each scene provides a wealth of detailed visual information that invites and rewards careful study, but the most important identification features can be grasped instantly by anyone.
By making identification easier, more accurate, and more fun than ever before, The Crossley ID Guide will completely redefine how its users look at birds. Essential for all birders, it also promises to make new birders of many people who have despaired of using traditional guides.
“[Richard Crossley] tries to squeeze in as much reality as he can onto every printed page…. Why put such images in an identification guide? Crossley calls it reality birding. He believes that you can become a better birder by studying the distant birds and comparing them to the larger close-up images. By noticing the similarities between the different images, you will learn to focus on the features that remain constant for a particular species. The rationale is compelling, and I think Crossley’s approach might actually work…. And, in case you were wondering, I love [this book].”—Michael Szpir, American Scientist
“What’s so different about the Crossley ID Guide? Everything. Crossley has designed his guide to reflect the way we see and identify birds. We identify birds by their size, shape, structure, behavior, habitat, and field marks. We [see] birds at close range, at middle and long distances, on the ground, in flight, in trees, and on the water…. If you want to be a better birder you will find the new Crossley ID Guide to be [a] major innovation and a valuable tool.”—Wayne Mones, Audubon.org
The two lucky winners will be selected next Monday, October 31st. Be sure to like the Princeton Birds and Natural History page on Facebook if you haven’t already to be entered to win!
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