Hawks and Owls of the Great Lakes Region and Eastern North America

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

Hawks and Owls is a companion volume to Warblers and Sparrows and
Finches, the admirable guides Chris Earley published in 2003. They are
aimed at birders who have mastered the basics but need help with
families of birds that can be confusingly similar.

I must confess to being reduced to a duffer’s panic whenever I
encounter a raptor, never knowing whether to look first at the tail,
breast, or wing-shape, and all too often failing to get clear views of
any. Earley’s book will be especially useful to those who share this
reaction. “When looking at hawks,” he writes, “resist the urge to
start flipping through this guide. Watch the bird first.” Easier said
than done, of course, but excellent advice that I shall endeavour to
follow.

Because Earley is focusing on a limited number of species—22 hawks,
11 owls, plus 6 vagrants—he has plenty of space to provide helpful
detail. All the hawks and several of the owls are illustrated by colour
photographs showing them both in flight and at rest. In addition, there
are numerous “comparison charts”—concise side-by-side photos of
birds in similar positions. Moreover, these include shots of adults and
first-year birds, males and females, and even commonly occurring morphs
(colour variants), where identification can be especially difficult.

All these guides are attractive to read and handle, compact, and easy
to use. Any birder within reach of the Great Lakes region and eastern
North America will find this one invaluable.