Yesterday I received the brand new, "Gulls of the Americas" by Steve N.G. Howell/Jon Dunn, Peterson Reference Guide. This is quite a book! -- hard cover, definitely not a field guide as it is quite a bit larger and quite heavy, and with lots and lots of color photos inside. There are pages and pages of each bird in each cycle, standing, and flying, both from above and below. There are almost 300 pages of plates, each page having 4-5 pictures per page. For instance, Glaucous-Winged Gull pictures start on page 235 and ends on page 243. There are a total of 41 pictures of this species. Pages 300-500 are the Species Accounts. This includes range maps, identification summaries, and field identification sections. The book's Introduction is 46 pages which includes sections on field identification of gulls, and a lengthy section on topography and appearance.
The front inside flap says the guide "...brings together identification criteria for the 36 species of gulls that occur in the Americas - 22 that breed in North America, 10 that breed in South America, and another 4 that have occurred as visitors from the Old World. The 1,160 photographs were selected to show a representative range of plumages..."
I'm far from knowing much about gull identification, that is why I purchased this book, and so I won't weigh in on how accurate this book is. For everyone who has a birder's library, this should be your next addition. And at $23.10 at amazon.com, it is a steal!
And, maybe by this winter I will have enough time to study this book so I can actually identify some gulls !!
