The new Crossley ID Guide to Eastern Birds has arrived (complete review on my Birdchaser blog). It does a better job than most covering urban birds, including free-roaming parrots. The great museum-diaorama type illustrations of birds in their wild haunts include images of at least 185 individual parrots of 28 parrot species. It is kind of hard to tell exactly how many birds are in some of the illustrations because in addition to individuals, flocks of birds–including flying birds–are also depicted (how many birds are shown in the plate below, for example?). Crossley ID provides overall good coverage of the more established and frequently found parrots (Monk Parakeet gets a 2/3 page spread, three others get a half page), while 17 species are shown without full written details. I especially like the diorama of the Red-crowned Parrot, as it gives a good feel for what it is like to experience a flock gathering before going to roost for the evening. The Green Parakeet plate (below) does a similarly nice job. Not all field guides take the time to show the urban parrots that birders are likely to find, so I was happy to see Crossley do a good job. As Crossley mentions in the book, noisy parrot roosts are “a great spectacle” and well worth checking out if you have them in your area, or taking time to see when on vacation in places like Florida, California, or South Texas.
