Gulls Simplified: A Comparative Approach to Identification

Gulls Simplified is a useful book for the birder trying to better figure out gulls. I like the authors perspective - I can tell you what gull species this is and why, but I don't care what cycle gull it is! The comparative pictures are most useful, especially if the common gulls in your area are Herring Gull, Ring-billed Gull, Greater Black-backed Gull and Laughing Gulls - i.e. you bird east of the Mississippi.If I was looking for one book on identifying American Gulls, this is the book I would buy and I have all the gull identification books.However, this book has one significant weakness - most of the comparative teaching pictures are all for the common gull identification issues east of the Mississippi. While the western gulls - Western, Glaucous-winged, Thayers and California are covered, the teaching is always to compare these species with a Herring Gull, which is not the common west coast gull, and the teaching points need additional extrapolation. As a result, for the west coast birder, this book is not as useful a tool as for an east coast birder.I am starting to find this to be a common weakness as more photographic-type identification guidebooks like this that are published in this genre - the focus of the guidebooks are the ID problems for the mid-Atlantic to New England birder which gets A coverage while other regions such as the south and west get B- coverage. If you have not guessed, I am a west coast birder. Maybe books like this need chapters on common west coast and east coast ID issues to improve these issues, or include a coauthor who lives in a zone other than New England or the mid-Atlantic.

While this book tries to use a different approach to identify gulls, I found it to be as difficult to understand as other gull field guides. At 2 years into birding, I am a relative newbie and can still be overwhelmed by highly technical language. After seeing an Iceland (Thayer's) Gull recently, I referred to the book to understand how such gull would be differentiated from a Herring Gull. I quote: "the extensive white mirror on the underside of the outer primary on the far wing would eliminate Herring Gull." Huh? It would have been helpful to have arrows and annotations on the accompanying picture (Iceland Gull 15, p. 126) or to have "mirror" and "far wing" illustrated in the anatomical drawings on pages 10 and 11. This may be a good field guide for birders who have mastered the intricacies of the ornithological language, but still too difficult to grasp for newer birders. The information seems thorough and there are a lot of pictures of each gull species. Looking forward to the "Plain English guide to Gulls."

Just got the book. I believe I have every book possible on Gull id ... and still have problems. Looking at the book I think it will help fill the gaps for difficult to ID birds. It would also be in my top choices if I could only have one book on North America Gulls (what a sad world that would be).Two things stand out ... 1st those of you who have other Peter Dunne's books know he has the unique ability to be clear and complete. Peter Dunne's write-ups are not made confusing by a lot of superfluous erudites (he makes clear the key ID features); and, the write ups are not so overly simplified that they are not helpful for difficult IDs. A nice balance which I think carries over to this book. In a sense Peter Dunne always hits it just right for me. For Gulls this is important because they are among the more complex to simply describe (many plumages, close similarity of many species, confounding subspecies and Hybrids etc). It is this aspect where many Gull books have issues. They still exist with this book ... but Peter Dunne does a really good job at trying to clarify what is confusing. (for a chuckle read the sections on Thayer's Gull) and to make my point on clarity see photograph/captions on page 128.2nd those of you who have seen Kalson's books can appreciated the photography ... it is beautiful and he selects really helpful photographs for ID purposes. The book is worth the price just to see the beauty of the pictures.Anyway I'd highly recommend the book.Amelia Island, Florida 11/17/2018

I was slightly taken aback when I opened the book and saw how much text it had, thinking yikes this does not look "simplified"...BUT, the detailed text and photos are apparently exactly what I needed to actually learn gulls!! I am enjoying reading the text and descriptions of the gulls and Pete Dunn's interesting way of describing the gulls is sticking with me. I LOVE the quizzes he has throughout the book and I am so happy to say that I am actually passing my quizzes and correctly ID'ing gulls! I own other gull guides and never felt confident with gull ID, but now I'm ready to challenge myself and go test out my new knowledge! Thanks Pete!

This is a detailed, well-illustrated treatise on full identification. It covers all gulls found in North America, including rarities, so it covers most gulls of the world. It describes juvenile, sub-adult, and adults in both breeding and non-breeding plumages. It uses photographs rather than illustrations, often showing multiple species in one photograph to allow direct comparisons. You would be hard-pressed to find a better resource for the very difficult task of figuring out just what species you are looking at. Now if it could just get the damned things to stand still at the right angle...

Just arrived today and I’ve only read the first chapters. It looks fabulous and very well designed. The photos are extremely clear and the descriptions are easy to understand. The authors approach seems easy to follow and there is a great sense of humor displayed throughout. I can’t see any birder being disappointed with this purchase!

I bought this book back in November and found after a few months that its just alright. However its a gull book and if you gull,then this is another book for you. I'm sure we haven't seen the end of the subject. I would like to see a really good western book along the lines of Birds of Prey of the West.

The book is interesting - a different approach to gull identification and ageing from the classical plumage based approach. If you are into gulls, classics such as PJ Grant's book remain useful as ever.The two stars are not for the book though, but for the Kindle edition. When oh when oh when will kindle stop passing off what are essentially pdfs as Kindle editions? They are impossible to read. One enlargesa fixed page, where the text does not rearrange. So sometimes you either scroll across line after line or squint to read what can be impossibly small type.Furthermore, I challenge anyone to highlight text in a usable manner with these books. The highlighted text will stray uncorrectably into the next line, and if you try to correct it you may well find all of the page above suddenly go highlighted, submerging the text you have already marked out. That means you erase the whole highlight and start again - sometimes only for it to happen again.Kindle, must you really waste our time and money like this? It kills any continuity from reading as your reading becomes a chore trying to navigate your way around these and other obstacles instead of enjoying the content.Kindle does not even have the decency to tell us when a book is faux-Kindle rather than true Kindle. Do you really hold your readers in such contempt?

I love all birds, and go every day to a field to watch the crows, sea gulls and many others. This is a fantastic addition to my books on animals and birds. I wanted in particular to identify the 3 types of gull in this field. Not sure I have done so correctly, but it's been great fun trying!

A really useful, value for money book, for anybody interested in the subject area

Gulls Simplified is a nicely produced sturdy softcover from Princeton Press. All the regularly occurring species are covered. Rare species are given minimal coverage, for example Slaty-backed Gull. The book is aimed at the species level. It will help you identify an Iceland Gull, but if you're looking for detailed information on separating Kumlien's from Thayer's gulls, you're going to need one of the more advanced texts.

Une aide précieuse pour aider à l’identification de nos Laridés. Les photographies facilitent l’apprentissage.