Beginning Birdwatcher's Book: With 48 Stickers (Dover Kids Activity Books)

This activity book is a birding journal more than an identification guide, as just a few facts are provided for each of the 48 featured birds. Beautifully illustrated bird images are provided in the form of stickers. The idea is when a child sees an included bird, they affix the bird’s sticker to its journal page and write a few words about where and when the bird was sighted. Very young kids will need adults to help with the sightings, and additional tools—binoculars, a good birding book—would likely be needed to ensure successful birding adventures. I plan to keep this book at hand so that visiting grandkids and others can contribute to the journal, giving me a record of young visitors, as well as their bird sightings. I'll clip additional pages to the book to record birds not included. Even though the book's bird details and the number of featured birds are limited, it's a wonderful way to engage kids with birds and nature.

I bought three booklets for my 7, 4 and 2-yr-old grandchildren to use on a recent lake house visit. The 7 and 4-yr-old were very excited about the books and about finding and learning the birds. They did well to understand that the sticker is placed on the page when they actually see the birds, and they enjoyed recording the sightings and their descriptions (the 7-yr-old wrote them himself).. The 2-yr-old enjoyed putting the sticker on the page, although we adults were careful not to leave the booklets within her reach for fear of her taking all the stickers! We saw 8 or so birds in that one trip! Because we were on a lake in southeast Texas we saw several water birds that are not included, but we listed them on the blank back page. I hope the author will publish a second book of water birds such as the egret, heron, ibis, seagull and ducks (all of which we saw). I'll be first in line to buy it!

We found this book at Redwood National Park. Of all the things there, my 12 year old grandson picked this out as his souvenier and immediately started recording birds. My 8 year old grandson saw it and wanted one for his birthday and was thrilled to get it. This is not for pre-schoolers. It's an introduction to birding as well as scientific recording, noticing details, observing, developing a number of useful skills. Don't just hand it to a young child. Do the bird watching with them. If they have the wrong bird, look it up on your iphone and show them why it's the wrong bird. Honestly the complaints I'm reading are ridiculous. Be a parent! I do wish there were more of these with regional birds, sea birds, desert birds, etc. Or even flowers, trees, bugs. Possibilities are endless.

I've got a more complete review of this book at my blog, Caterpickles, but I wanted to address one of the main concerns raised by other reviewers here. Designed to be a child's first log of bird sightings, the book includes 48 birds commonly found across North America, such as the Northern Cardinal, American Crow, and Blue Jay. For the most part, the book includes birds that are relatively easy to spot and/or relatively common, such as the House Sparrow, Mourning Dove, and European Starling. On receiving the book, The Five-Year-Old and I had already spotted about half the birds in it, which made for an encouraging start. Each page provides basic information about two birds, including their common and scientific names, size, the type of nest they build, the number of eggs they lay, their favorite food, and general information about their range. There's also space for your child's own observations, including the date they spotted the bird, what time and where they saw it, and any other comments they want to make about it. Some reviewers have raised the point that the birds included in the book favor people who live in the Northeast, and that if you live in other parts of the country, you're out of luck. So I spent some time looking at the ranges of the birds in the book. Roughly half have ranges that span the entire U.S. Several others, such as the Scarlet Tanager, Black-capped Chickadee, and Turkey Vulture, only appear in certain parts of the country (the East, North, and South, respectively). Two birds, the Snowy Owl and the Bald Eagle, are going to be a challenge for any child to find (outside of zoos) due to the sporadic, and in the case of the Snowy Owl, seasonal, nature of their appearances in the United States. Folks who live in the Rocky Mountains are going to fare the worst with this book, as several of the bird ranges exclude the Rocky Mountains. Still, no matter where you live in the country you're going to have to do some traveling if your child wants to spot all the birds in their natural habitat. Fortunately, this 24-page book is slim and light enough to slip into your child's backpack or travel bag. Even if your child is not the sort of person to get fired up about birdwatching on vacations, the ranges for most of the birds are so extensive that the odds are your child will be able to spot and make notes on at least half of the birds without leaving their home state.

My daughter (7) loves utilizing the stickers of this book when she spots a new bird. It is educational and has been a great way for her to spend time with her grandmother.

My 6yo daughter loves this book. We bought it with a new pair of binoculars and plan to go bird watching. I like how this focuses on local birds and you can add a sticker once you find a particular species. A great start to bird watching. Would def. recommend.

Perect for a young lad to begin his brid watching journey

It was a great way for kids to have sticker fun and learn about birds. Grandkids were fascinated with the book and eager to learn more

I think it's pretty good. My granddaughter loved it.

received as per description