For all those who have liked Richard Crossley’s unconventional approach to presenting his subjects in his three previous guides about the birds of eastern North America, of Britain and Ireland, and raptors respectively, it is entirely reasonable to assume that his most recently published fourth guide – The Crossley ID: Waterfowl – will also be received with similar appreciation and enthusiasm.
Not long after The Crossley ID Guide: Eastern Birds was first published, enthusiastic early adopters of its revolutionary new visual learning method for mastering the art of field identification began asking “When is the next volume going to be published?”
Two original Well-read Naturalist reviews – those of Richard Crossley’s “The Crossley ID Guide: Raptors” from Princeton University Press and Derek Niemann’s “Birds in a Cage” from Short Books – appear in the July / August 2013 edition of Bird Watcher’s Digest.
What if there was a different approach to learning how to identify species in the field? One that relied not on formal logic but rather some of the more recent discoveries from the field of cognitive science? One that built its foundation on an understanding of how we think and process information rather than on the simple amassing and proof testing of that information itself?