The Shorebird Guide

An all-new holistic approach to identifying shorebirds, sometimes known as “peeps”…

Join the experts in birding by impression, a revolutionary approach to bird identification. Experienced birders use the most easily observed characteristics — size, structure, behavior, and general color patterns — to identify birds even before looking carefully at plumage details.

Now birders at all levels can learn how to identify shorebirds quickly and simply.

This guide includes more than 870 stunning color photographs, starting with a general impression of the species and progressing to more detailed images of the bird throughout its life cycle.

Quiz questions in the captions will engage and challenge all birders and help them benefit from this simplified, commonsense approach to identification.

This guide emphasizes identification by impression (also known as GISS, or General Impression of Size and Shape). The photos aren’t like those in most field guides, as they are not all uniformly sized super close-up shots of one single bird. They are sized to better emphasize certain characteristics, and often show multiple birds of different species so as to give a better comparison of size, shape, and plumage.