"The Field Guide to Chinese Birds" is a manual written by British ornithologist John MacKinnon, describing 1,329 species of birds, accompanied by color illustrations and distribution maps. The textual descriptions provide very helpful background knowledge and information, including the birds' colors, shapes, sizes, calls, main distribution locations, and migration patterns. The content is excellent, but the biggest issue is the poor layout; the text descriptions and images are separated, making it cumbersome to find descriptions based on images. To read the text descriptions, one has to flip back to the corresponding page to find the images, and images of birds from the same family may be spread across different pages. The order of the bird illustrations is also not entirely arranged according to their numbers and classifications. I hope future editions can place the text and images together. In fact, some bird texts and images are together, but they are all in black and white, and images of birds without color feel less useful. Perhaps the publisher aimed to reduce the cost of color pages or shorten the length, but this arrangement is not conducive to searching and querying.
I have very little knowledge about birds; I only know some common species, such as magpies, doves, sparrows, crows, domestic pigeons, mandarin ducks, mallards, and swans. Through this book, I learned about some classifications of birds, such as magpies and crows belonging to the order Passeriformes and the family Corvidae, sparrows belonging to the order Passeriformes and the family Passeridae, and doves and domestic pigeons belonging to the order Columbiformes and the family Columbidae. Mandarin ducks, mallards, and swans all belong to the order Anseriformes and the family Anatidae.
Additionally, I gained some understanding of several subfamilies under the Accipitridae, such as vultures, eagles, and hawks. The Accipitridae raptors are commonly referred to as eagles, while large Accipitridae raptors are generally called eagles. I also have a further understanding of owls; owls do not belong to the Accipitridae but to the order Strigiformes, with large species like the Eurasian Eagle-Owl reaching up to 90 centimeters in length, while smaller ones like the Little Owl are only 20 centimeters.
Due to a lack of practical observation experience, this book needs to be referenced after seeing real birds to confirm the information, which will deepen my understanding. I am considering getting a telescope or a telephoto lens to see more birds and better understand their characteristics.