Hansen’s Field Guide to the Birds of the Sierra Nevada

Delight in the Sierra Nevada’s diverse avifauna with this long-awaited field guide

Identify and learn about over two hundred and fifty birds of the Sierra Nevada. From tiniest hummingbirds to condors with nine-foot wingspans; from lower-elevation wrens to the rasping nutcrackers of the High Sierra; from urban House Sparrows to wild water-loving American Dippers, Hansen’s Field Guide to the Birds of the Sierra Nevada showcases artist-naturalist Keith Hansen’s sixteen-year project to illustrate the birds of the Sierra Nevada. Paired with stunningly detailed portraits is text informed by decades of birding experience-prose that while firmly grounded in expertise will nonetheless delight readers with its whimsy, allusion, and affection. Take the Bufflehead: A diminutive and endearing diving duck, which moves with spirited abandon. Or the scrappy and antagonistic Merlin, holding dominion over winter skies, tormenting eagles, hawks, and vultures alike. The White-tailed Kite is angelic in poise, a streamlined bird of unblemished tailoring ; the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher sports a black eye-to-eye brow, imparting a Frida Kahlo-like stare. This book is the field guide companion to the Birds of the Sierra Nevada: Their Natural History, Status, and Distribution, also coauthored by Edward C. Beedy and illustrated by Keith Hansen (University of California Press, 2013).