Field Guide to the Birds of China, authored by British ornithologist John MacKinnon, documents 1,329 bird species. Each entry features color illustrations and distribution maps, accompanied by concise descriptions offering invaluable background knowledge and details—including plumage, shape, size, vocalizations, primary habitats, and migration patterns. The content is excellent, but the biggest issue is the poor layout. The text descriptions and illustrations are separated, making it cumbersome to locate the corresponding description for a given image. To find the illustration for a description, one must flip back to earlier pages based on the page number. Furthermore, images for birds within the same family may be scattered across different pages, and the sequence of color plates does not strictly follow the numerical or taxonomic order. It is hoped that future editions will place the text and illustrations together. While some bird entries do feature paired text and images, these are only in black and white. Colorless illustrations significantly diminish their utility. This may reflect the publisher's efforts to reduce costs or page count, but such layout severely hampers reference and lookup efficiency.
My bird knowledge is limited to common species like magpies, turtle doves, sparrows, crows, pigeons, mandarin ducks, mallards, and swans. Through this book, I learned about bird taxonomy: magpies and crows belong to the Corvidae family under the Passeriformes order; sparrows belong to the Passeridae family under the same order; turtle doves and pigeons belong to the Columbidae family under the Columbiformes order; and mandarin ducks, mallards, and swans all belong to the Anatidae family under the Anseriformes order.
Additionally, I gained some understanding of the subfamilies within the Accipitridae family, such as vultures, eagles, and harriers. Birds of prey in the Accipitridae family are commonly referred to as hawks, while large members are generally called eagles. I also deepened my knowledge about owls—they do not belong to the hawk family but rather the Strigiformes order. Large owls like the Ural Owl can reach 90 centimeters in length, while small ones like the Horned Owl are only about 20 centimeters.
Due to a lack of hands-on observation experience, this book still requires consulting it after seeing real birds to confirm details, which will deepen my understanding. I plan to acquire binoculars and a telephoto lens to observe more birds and better understand their characteristics.