--- product_id: 235199 title: "The Sibley Guide to Birds, 2nd Edition" price: "€ 77.48" currency: EUR in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.gr/products/235199-the-sibley-guide-to-birds-2nd-edition store_origin: GR region: Greece --- # Detailed multi-angle illustrations Comprehensive 810+ bird species Precise range & migration maps The Sibley Guide to Birds, 2nd Edition **Price:** € 77.48 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Summary > 🦅 Unlock the full spectrum of US birdlife—don’t just watch, know every feathered friend! ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** The Sibley Guide to Birds, 2nd Edition - **How much does it cost?** € 77.48 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.gr](https://www.desertcart.gr/products/235199-the-sibley-guide-to-birds-2nd-edition) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Key Features - • **In-Depth Species Details:** Half to full-page entries with multiple angles and regional variations for expert-level birding. - • **Maps Where You Need Them:** Range and migration maps integrated directly with species info—no flipping through indexes. - • **Visual ID Made Effortless:** Grouped bird sections with side-by-side female plumage comparisons for quick, confident identification. - • **All US Birds, Plus Rare Finds:** Covers every common and rare bird seen in the US, including exotic parrots and rare migrants. - • **Collector’s Essential, Not Pocket-Sized:** Heavy, thorough guide perfect for home reference or gifting, ideal for serious birders who want it all. ## Overview The Sibley Guide to Birds, 2nd Edition is the definitive, richly illustrated field guide featuring over 810 bird species found in the US, including rare and exotic varieties. With detailed multi-angle illustrations, integrated range maps, and expert ID tips, it’s the ultimate resource for serious birders seeking comprehensive coverage beyond pocket guides. ## Description “Undoubtedly the finest guide to North American birds.”—Guy McCaskie, Birding The publication of The Sibley Guide to Birds, First Edition quickly established David Allen Sibley as the author and illustrator of the nation’s supreme and most comprehensive guide to birds. Used by millions of birders from novices to the most expert, The Sibley Guide became the standard by which natural history guides are measured. The highly anticipated second edition builds on this foundation of excellence, offering massively expanded and updated information, new paintings, new and rare species, and a new, elegant design. The second edition of this handsome, flexibound volume offers a wealth of improvements and updates: • All illustrations reproduced 15 to 20 percent larger for better detail. • Includes nearly 7,000 paintings digitally remastered from original art for enhanced print quality. • Expanded text includes habitat information and voice description for every species and more tips on finding birds in the field. • More than 600 new paintings, including illustrations of 115 rare species and additional paintings of common species and regional populations. • More than 700 updated maps of ranges, showing winter, summer, year-round, migration, and rare ranges. • 85 bird family pages now cross-referenced to species accounts. • Revised taxonomic order and most current common names for every species. The Sibley Guide to Birds, second edition, brings the genius of David Allen Sibley to the world once again in a thoroughly updated and expanded volume that every birder must own. Review: Classic - Beautiful and very informative. An absolute classic and the best guide to birds, for artists as well as birders. Review: Love this book! - This guide includes pretty much every bird you can reasonably expect to see in the US, and some you can't. It even has a section for exotic parrots that people tend to keep, and many of the different sections have entries for rare migrants. There are birds in here with range descriptions like "seen three times in the US", things that aren't exactly likely to be seen. But they've been seen, so they're in here. I love that. It means the bird I saw is pretty much guaranteed to be in here, so if nothing stands out at first, I should look through again. The different sections have birds of similar appearances grouped together. That's really helpful, because it makes it easier to compare the options directly. Each section starts with a page or two showing all the birds in that section compared to each other, with the females on display, since they're harder to ID. Then each bird gets, on average, half a page vertically of its own. It shows male and female plumage, and usually the bird from multiple angles. Birds with more regional variation have more space, usually the full page. A few birds, like the fox sparrow, have two pages to themselves. The illustrations are nice to look at, and are good to see all the details on. The book points out specific details for ID, and in many places, tells you how to figure out if your bird was one species or another, closely related species. The type might be too small if you have older eyes. I'm not sure. My eyes are pretty good. I don't think they could make the type much bigger, without sacrificing either layout, size of illustrations, or detail of text. The only downside to this book is that it's pretty heavy. It's not anywhere naer pocket-sized. I'm sure either version of the half-a-country book would be much lighter, but I live in Texas, so neither of those would cover all the possibilities. So, I have a heavy book, because I wanted something thorough. I'd much rather have lots of detail and options, in a book I can't bring along, than much more limited options in a book I can carry. I'll take pictures and ID them at home, or flip through the book beforehand so I can try to recognize things later. The latter works better with more distinctive birds, though, like the black-throated sparrow. Its entry calls its markings "unmistakeable", and that's real hard to argue with! Anyway, get this guide. If you find yourself wanting a smaller, pocket guide, get a smaller guide also, and then you have this one for rarer or more unusual things that won't be in the smaller guide. ## Features - Sibley Guide To Birds, 2nd Ed ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #3,637 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #2 in Ornithology (Books) #8 in Bird Field Guides | | Customer Reviews | 4.8 out of 5 stars 2,826 Reviews | ## Images ![The Sibley Guide to Birds, 2nd Edition - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71JciSaRkqL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Classic *by D***E on May 9, 2026* Beautiful and very informative. An absolute classic and the best guide to birds, for artists as well as birders. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Love this book! *by A***R on April 20, 2021* This guide includes pretty much every bird you can reasonably expect to see in the US, and some you can't. It even has a section for exotic parrots that people tend to keep, and many of the different sections have entries for rare migrants. There are birds in here with range descriptions like "seen three times in the US", things that aren't exactly likely to be seen. But they've been seen, so they're in here. I love that. It means the bird I saw is pretty much guaranteed to be in here, so if nothing stands out at first, I should look through again. The different sections have birds of similar appearances grouped together. That's really helpful, because it makes it easier to compare the options directly. Each section starts with a page or two showing all the birds in that section compared to each other, with the females on display, since they're harder to ID. Then each bird gets, on average, half a page vertically of its own. It shows male and female plumage, and usually the bird from multiple angles. Birds with more regional variation have more space, usually the full page. A few birds, like the fox sparrow, have two pages to themselves. The illustrations are nice to look at, and are good to see all the details on. The book points out specific details for ID, and in many places, tells you how to figure out if your bird was one species or another, closely related species. The type might be too small if you have older eyes. I'm not sure. My eyes are pretty good. I don't think they could make the type much bigger, without sacrificing either layout, size of illustrations, or detail of text. The only downside to this book is that it's pretty heavy. It's not anywhere naer pocket-sized. I'm sure either version of the half-a-country book would be much lighter, but I live in Texas, so neither of those would cover all the possibilities. So, I have a heavy book, because I wanted something thorough. I'd much rather have lots of detail and options, in a book I can't bring along, than much more limited options in a book I can carry. I'll take pictures and ID them at home, or flip through the book beforehand so I can try to recognize things later. The latter works better with more distinctive birds, though, like the black-throated sparrow. Its entry calls its markings "unmistakeable", and that's real hard to argue with! Anyway, get this guide. If you find yourself wanting a smaller, pocket guide, get a smaller guide also, and then you have this one for rarer or more unusual things that won't be in the smaller guide. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Excellent once again, but improved throughout. *by J***F on March 13, 2014* Don't let some initial lukewarm reviews stop you from getting this wonderful guide. It's greatly expanded and improved in nearly every respect. It's packed with much more information on ID, behavior and distribution. There are more illustrations per species and coverage of many more rare species has been added. The range maps are updated and improved. In a number of the plates the colors are noticeably darker and richer than those in the first edition. This is intentional and in almost all cases this is a welcome improvement (i.e. Accipiters, thrushes and male Redhead which were too bright/pale in the first edition). A very few species are a little too dark for my taste (such as Pink-footed Goose and White-faced and Glossy Ibis), however I don't see any illustrations so dark that they lose needed detail. I've found the illustrations- with very few exceptions- are extremely accurate and lifelike, in typical Sibley style. In most cases the newer paintings blend seamlessly with the older and retouched artwork. Nits to pick? On a few birds the reds and oranges aren't quite right. The male Scarlet Tanager is a deeper red than it should be and the Chipping Sparrow's rust cap looks brownish, while the male Rose-breasted Grosbeak's red breast is a shade too deep and dark. But to emphasize, this is the case in only a very few illustrations. Overall the new edition more accurately portrays its subjects than the first edition (which was already pretty darn good). There are perhaps a dozen paintings out of a total of over 900 species and 7000 illustrations that don't perfectly represent a particular bird in question (and for the most part these appear to be relatively minor color corrections needed the scanning/printing process). That's a tiny percentage of "errors" and I can't see where any of these very minor issues affect the usefulness of the guide. Nor do they affect the identification of the species involved- with the possible exception of Chipping Sparrow. Most of the plates in this second edition are no darker (or barely so) than in the first edition. There are a few minor labeling errors which will be corrected in subsequent printings, but considering the scope of this book they are truly minimal and don't warrant much in the way of complaints. Obviously no guide is perfect, but I really can't find anything significant to fault in the new Sibley. On the other hand, I can find plenty to praise. The quality of the paintings and printing in many cases is noticeably improved over my first edition. In fact, after looking through the new guide and then going back to the old one, I found myself even more appreciative of the changes. The excellent first edition (which I am a big fan of by the way) now looks generally overly bright and washed out by comparison. It took me just a bit of time to adjust to the deeper/darker colors in the new edition, but I'm very pleased with almost all of them. In nearly every case they accurately depict the way birds look in the field. Another plus is the layout and general appearance of the new edition. It's cleaner and more comtemporary. The amount of text is greatly expanded and very helpful. There is so much information packed into this edition. Tips on ID (and similar species ID pitfalls), range, vagrancy, behavior are many. I can definitely understand why some have a problem with the comparatively small narrow font (though for me- at 53- this is not an issue). On the other hand a large and darker font could detract from and take attention away from the images of the birds themselves. I find it to be just visible enough without distracting from the illustrations. Clearly however, this is a matter of personal preference. I find this second edition to be a second remarkable achievement by David Sibley. What you are getting is worth many times the asking price. An absolute must have for any active birder or anyone interested in North American birds. The new standard. UPDATE: I've heard of variations in printing resulting in wild variations in color reproduction. I've been able to look at three different copies of the guide (two in local bookstores and my original from amazon). The colors- in these three copies at least- were essentially identical, and all looked good to me. ## Frequently Bought Together - The Sibley Guide to Birds, 2nd Edition (Sibley Guides) - The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America: Second Edition (Sibley Guides) - The Sibley Birder's Life List and Field Diary (Sibley Birds) --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.gr/products/235199-the-sibley-guide-to-birds-2nd-edition](https://www.desertcart.gr/products/235199-the-sibley-guide-to-birds-2nd-edition) --- *Product available on Desertcart Greece* *Store origin: GR* *Last updated: 2026-05-31*