David Sibley has to have a thick skin, there was plenty of criticism following the initial release of his bird guide. Roger Tory Peterson (Peterson's Field Guide) was a hard act to follow, his bird ID paintings are excellent. However Sibley's is still standing as the go-to bird ID guide for North America. The amount of work put into the bird paintings is difficult to comprehend. The range maps are definitely too small in the bird guide, same as in the tree guide as Bob mentioned. -Andrew
Paul Jost wrote: > at least their bird guide is better than most others, showing > differences with age and season, and sometimes regional differences... > > PJ > > On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 4:21 PM, <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > ENTS, > > I just got The Sibley Guide to Trees that everybody has been > raving about. My initial impression is that parts of it are good > and parts are definitely not. Here is my first grading pass. > > Species Coverage: Okay for my purposes. Others Ents like Steve > Galehouse are much better judges of coverage. I give an A-. > > Leaf Drawings: So far, I think pretty good. I give an A-. > > Flowers and Fruits: Okay. I give a B. > > Trunk and Bark: Not so good. I give a C+ > > Tree Profiles: Not good. Erratic coverage. I give a D+ > > Range Maps: Thumbnail presentations: I give a C- > > Dimension Data: I didn't expect the tree dimension information to > be good. Apparently Sibley didn't have a clue as to which sources > of information are reliable and which ones aren't. I think he > pulled most of his numbers from the National Register of Big Trees > plus miscellaneous sources. He obviously didn't do much serious > research, so on tree dimensions he earns an F. > > Organization and Layout: Attractive. I give a B+ > > Well that's it for now. I don't minimize the mountain of work > required to produce such an identification guide. Has the guide > raised any bars? No, not from what I'm looking at. > > Bob > -- > Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org > Send email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]> > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en > To unsubscribe send email to > [email protected] > <mailto:entstrees%[email protected]> > > > -- > Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org > Send email to [email protected] > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en > To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] -- Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org Send email to [email protected] Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en To unsubscribe send email to [email protected]
