8 December 2025

On Saturday 6 December Ted Floyd was in town for an outing in Frick Park that included a reunion with all the folks he birded with “back in the day.” His sister, Cathy Qureshi, took this photo from the perfect spot. (I was there but my photo was so lousy that I deleted it.)

After the outing we adjourned to the Environmental Center for donuts, coffee and an opportunity for a book signing of the National Geographic Field Guide to Birds of the United State and Canada, Second Edition that come in EAST, WEST and all regions. EAST is, of course, my favorite. See WEST and all regions at the end.

There are many Pittsburgh connections to this Second Edition. The author is Ted Floyd who grew up in Pittsburgh, the project manager is Pittsburgher Adrienne Izaquirre, and there are loads of advisors. See the Acknowledgments page 435.

My EAST and WEST editions were already signed by Adrienne and Frank (one of the advisors) Izaguirre and their daughter Maya who was present at many Zoom meetings. Thank you, Adrienne!

Why two volumes? They are easier to carry.

Do EAST and WEST books make a hard line at the Rocky Mountain border? No. Birds can end up traveling to the other side of any boundary. One of the best pages to illustrate this is page 402 of cardinalids. Black-headed grosbeak is not on the EAST map but he does show up in the East occasionally, so he’s on the page.

My favorite thing about the EAST edition are Ted’s mini-essays that provide more background, tips, or fun facts. “Field ID of Empidonax flycatchers” on page 256 describes the ID steps for yellow-bellied, acadian, alder, willow, and least flycatchers. I sometimes forget these steps during fall migration when the birds aren’t singing (song is the easiest way to ID them).

Ted points out that after you narrow the visual ID (pictures) to a group of similar birds, look at where the bird is and what it is doing. Open or leafy? Sitting or flitting? This is just one of 5 paragraphs of tips on empids.

Start by asking, Is the bird even an empid? The similar wood-pewees are a bit longer and especially longer-winged; they sit motionless on dead snags, whereas empids typically forage from leafier microhabitats. The drab tail-wagging Eastern Phoebe (p.262) lacks the empids’ wing bars and eye rings and usually occurs in more open habitats.

— National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of the United States and Canada, second edition, page 256.

[There are no mini-essays in the WEST edition because there are so many species, including Hawaii.]

Some reviewers panned the books for being taxonomically out of date before they went to print (taxonomy is 2023; publication is 2025) but I differ with that opinion. I know that book production is a long process and these were 3 books in production simultaneously. Page layout is tricky (which species should be on the page? which illustrations to use? Does it look ugly when you lay it out?) Ultimately you have to pick the point where you cannot make major changes such as reshuffling or rewriting for new taxonomy. And nowadays every bird book is taxonomically out of date before it’s printed. These books came out just before eBird’s big taxonomy change in October 2025 which, by the way, is ongoing through October 2026.

In fact my only gripe is that the print is small and thin so I must read it in good light. Or maybe it’s my eyes.

For a thorough review of the EAST and WEST editions see Donna Lynn Schulman’s book review at 10,000 Birds. She discusses the EAST and WEST editions , but not the All Regions book.

A selection of online places to purchase these books:

• EAST (prothonotary warbler on the cover): Penguin Random House or Amazon (has discounts).
• WEST (California quail on the cover): Penguin Random House or Amazon (has discounts)
• All regions in one book (bald eagle on the cover): Google-search link