The Sibley Birder's Life List and Field Diary (Sibley Birds) Flexibound – March 14, 2017

Love the book. Super easy to use and well built. Cover came scuffed though.

Upon reading the Amazon reviews prior to purchasing this book, I’ve noticed a lot of post saying part of the pages were printed upside down. I thought this was a very artistic way to liven up a bird watcher’s life. This is the reason why I bought this book. Now receiving the book I have thoroughly look through each page and the book is properly printed with no pages upside down. I am a little disappointed, however, I am still very pleased with the product. Highly recommend, and if you can get a misprinted book, you are lucky one.

Love my Sibley Life List book. There are 3 sections.....first a section with species and a place to write when and where you saw it with a space for notes and observations . Next is the checklist section where you just check off what species you've seen. There are 6 columns for check marks which had me wondering why at first. Then I thought of some reasons why you might want multiple columns. If you're doing a big year, you could use one column for that. Even if you're not doing a big year, you could separate out your sightings by year. For now, I'm just using one column. The last section is a numbered blank list where you write in the species you've seen. If you're worried about repeating a species, look back to your checklist to see if you've recorded it. This has prevented me from writing duplicates more than once.The index is arranged a little differently than field guides. Instead of looking up American Crow under C for crow, it's under A for American Crow. All birds are listed by their proper names, so you will need to know this while using the index. My only complaint is that the print in the index is a light gray and a little hard for me to read.

I'm reviewing as a beginner birder. I have Sibley's first edition for western birds. THIS IS NOT A FIELD GUIDE; it is a keep-in-your-car-or-at-home companion to your field notebook/pad. Record in your field notebook/pad then transcript into this diary.This diary is split into three sections: The first section is a species listing and entry for your first sighting, with fields for date, location, and empty space for notes. The species are listed in an order similar to Sibley's field guides. The next section is a checklist in the same species order as the first section. Each species has a row of seven boxes for you to check off for your multiple sightings. The last section is the life list. Each of page contains 64 rows for a total of 1024 entries.How can diary be improved? Well the ability to cross reference between three sections. The index is alphabetized by species name and it lists two page numbers, one for the species listing and the other for checklist. To entry a new species, it is faster to check the index then flip through the pages for first two sections. What I find tedious is having to refer back to the index after filling out species listing. It takes times make an entry, so by the time you are done writing down the date, times, and additional notes you forget the page number for checklist. Back to index again to find checklist page. Here is my suggestion: each species in both section should reference each other since the page numbers are fixed. The species listing section should have a field with the page number for the checklist and each species in the checklist should have the page numbers next to boxes for species listing. No back and forth to index!The last part of a new species entry is the life list. You list a new species in the order you see them. An improvement would be a field in the species listing where you can write the page number of that species in the life list. It would nice to have, but in the mean time I have been writing in the notes space what page to find the species in the life list. There is enough space in each species' row to entry the page numbers for species listing and checklist, but it would be nice to have pre-printed fields.Overall, I am satisfied with purchasing. It does a good job of keeping track of species. The improvements I have suggested are to make it easier to enter new species and avoid making duplicate entries for an existing ones.

Simply super and a lot of effort by Sibley to make things easier for novice and advanced birders like me. I record both the sighting and check off the ticks on the taxonomic list. Checking the list helps me learn my bird taxonomy better because I'm constantly referring to it. I had no problem with it not including the birds of Hawaii until I discovered I was going to Hawaii. Oh well, I still wouldn't trade it. A key part of this is the alphabetical index in the back giving reference to both sighting page and checklist page. Thank you Mr. Sibley!

My husband and I recently starting birding after a lecture at a local college. It is informative, colorful, and helpful.

So I have been birding since I was a kid. I followed my father's habit of writing my life listers directly in my bird identifying book. I am on my third book, which means I have to go back and copy from one to the next. My father finally bought a life list and copied everything to it. I have looked for a life list the last few years and was happy when Sibley released this one. It looks well made and well organized, though I wish there were instructions on how to use some of the sections effectively. Now I have to actually put it to use! A daunting task I have been putting off, but it should be fun to go down memory lane as I go through my list..

I am an amateur bird watcher, and I have become more interested since being housebound during this COVID pandemic. I have a really fun time watching the different birds from my windows and looking up what species they are to pass the time. This list is a really fun way to document all of the different birds you encounter. There is a list of the different types of birds and it gives you spots to notate the date, location, and notes about where you saw the bird. There are blanks for you to fill in, too, if there's a bird not listed in the book. There's also a checklist in the back and a very helpful index to quickly find the bird you're looking up.