Hawks from Every Angle: How to Identify Raptors In Flight

About the Book

Identifying hawks in flight is a tricky business. Across North America, tens of thousands of people gather every spring and fall at more than one thousand known hawk migration sites - from New Jersey's Cape May to California's Golden Gate. Yet, as many discover, a standard field guide, with its emphasis on plumage, is often of little help in identifying those raptors soaring, gliding, or flapping far, far away. "Hawks from Every Angle" takes hawk identification to new heights. It offers a fresh approach that literally looks at the birds from every angle, compares and contrasts deceptively similar species, and provides the pictures (and words) needed for identification in the field. Jerry Liguori pinpoints innovative, field-tested identification traits for each species from the various angles that they are seen. Featuring 339 striking color photos on 68 color plates and 32 black & white photos, "Hawks from Every Angle" is unique in presenting a host of meticulously crafted pictures for each of the 19 species it covers in detail - the species most common to migration sites throughout the United States and Canada. All aspects of raptor identification are discussed, including plumage, shape, and flight style traits. For all birders who follow hawk migration and have found themselves wondering if the raptor in the sky matches the one in the guide, "Hawks from Every Angle" - distilling an expert's years of experience for the first time into a comprehensive array of truly useful photos and other pointers for each species - is quite simply a must. The key features include: the essential new approach to identifying hawks in flight; innovative, accurate, and field-tested identification traits for each species 339 color photos on 68 color plates, 32 black and white photos; compares and contrasts species easily confused with one another, and provides the pictures (and words) needed for identification in the field; covers in detail 19 species common to migration sites throughout the North America; discusses light conditions, how molt can alter the shape of a bird, aberrant plumages, and migration seasons and sites; and user-friendly format.

About the Author :
Jerry Liguori, a raptor conservation biologist, has studied hawk identification throughout North America since 1984. He has published many articles on raptors and has consulted on numerous field guides and raptor-related projects.

Review :
Hawks from Every Angle is a major advance in our knowledge of identifying raptors in flight and as such needs to be in the library (and field pack) of every serious raptor biologist, hawk watcher, and birder going afield in North America. ald S. Heintzelman,"International Hawkwatcher Perhaps no one knows the intricacies of raptor identification better than Jerry Liguori... There is no doubt that this book will advance the identification of raptors, and that every hawkwatcher will want to own this great new book. -- Dan R. Kunkle Wildlife Activist This book does a splendid job of educating its readers as to the specific characteristics the experts use to make their identifications... [T]he book's strength is its numerous crisp diagnostic photographs that, if diligently studied, should make readers competent to correctly identify virtually any hawk species. This book is a fine example of the sophistication of field identification in the study of birds. Choice