Terns of North America: A Photographic Guide

by Cameron Cox

A full-color photographic guide to these captivating and challenging birds

This is the essential identification guide to the terns, noddies, and skimmers of North America. Covering every species and featuring hundreds of high-quality color images, this book is the ideal companion for anyone interested in this charismatic but sometimes challenging group of seabirds. Detailed species accounts describe the size of each bird as it appears in the field along with structure, behavior, flight style, vocalizations, subspecies, and North American and worldwide ranges. An incisive introduction lays out a remarkably simple approach to identification that focuses on key elements and addresses how to avoid getting bogged down in the variability of appearance. This state-of-the-art guide also provides additional in-depth coverage of the two most challenging groups of terns, Sterna terns and crested terns, aiding field identification while also highlighting the beauty and elegance of these marvelous seabirds.

Genres: Birds

208 pages, Paperback

Published October 24, 2023

About the author

CAMERON COX has been an avid birder for nineteen years. Now a product specialist for Leica Sport Optics, he spent his late teens and twenties traveling as a "bird bum" to all corners of North America, from southern Mexico to the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea. Birds led him repeatedly to Cape May, New Jersey, and it was while counting hawks and waterbirds at Cape May that he realized that identifying distant waterbirds on the wing was fun and challenging, leading to the inspiriation for this book.

Reviews

[Stephen Dunstan · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a lot to like about this guide. The introductory chapters are lucid and also show a bit of a sense of humour. The coverage of all species is comprehensive, as you'd probably expect when 18 species are covered in just over 190 pages. Like some other US guides (e.g. Gulls Simplified) it includes quizzes to consolidate learning. The photographs are generally excellent.

In terms of areas of potential improvement I don't agree with the other reviews that say a tern topography section is required, you can get that from plenty of other books. I would highlight the following though:

- it's a bit confused in places as to whether it's a field or a coffee table book of photographs. There are several full page images that don't need to be reproduced like that. The best example of all is a picture of two Brown Noddy on page 179 where the bottom three quarters of the image are completely redundant but there are others.
- the quiz questions are a bit tricky to cross reference to the answers. They are numbered in the answer page and it would have been far better if these numbers were used where they are asked in the main body.
- there are some proof reading issues, for example an image which is claimed to show Sanderling with the terns but doesn't have any Sanderling on it.
- as the above point suggests non tern species are included in pictures and referred to in the text, but they are not included in the index at all. In some circumstances it's possible to confuse gulls and terns in particular and I just think the index could have been more comprehensive without a massive amount of additional effort.

But it's a good guide to North American terns, which include some knotty identification challenges including in particular the Common / Arctic / Forster's / Roseate group.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book and immensely helpful. Just a few points keep it from getting 5 stars from me:

1) I understand the reasoning, but I could use some clearer field marks. Size and structure are handled well, but a few pointers (or a few not tucked into photo captions) would be helpful.

2) Comparison pics could have better descriptions, especially early on when the target species is next to a bird we haven't encountered yet. (The Sterna Tern Identification section does this very well, but this approach throughout the species accounts would be of value.) It's one of the few times I've looked at photos in a guide and been confused even when reading the caption, but maybe that's me.

3) It could use an intro/terminology section. If you're reading a tern field guide, you might know what tertials are, but most field guides offer a little more clarity on such things.

4) Range maps would be useful, although I do like the descriptions of range.

I think most of these come down to space limitations, and none of them are major complaints. Terns are difficult, but even a first run through this book is helpful, and I'm sure repeated studies and regular referencing will prove to be beneficial.

If nothing else, both the photographs and the knowledge on display in this book are remarkable.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book, really helpful, upbeat descriptions and explanations with great pictures. I'm giving it 4 stars only because it commits that cardinal sin of so many birding photography identification books and refuses to add even a postage stamp sized distribution map so that I have to read through and decipher the range description which isn't helpful when you've got a tern annoyingly circling and you're trying to sort out if the bird you think it is even breeds or migrates within a thousand miles of you. My birding book pet peeve!

[Caitlin]

Some very funny descriptions in here! I took great amusement from least terns in mixed-species flocks being described as, “like a misplaced group of nervous grade school children at a high school”. Least terns are quite squawky, but they really are just little guys at the end of the day!