Sheffield author’s ‘Birds of New England’ is a guide for beginners and experts alike | Books

SHEFFIELD — For Zach Adams, birding isn’t about getting every identification right — it’s about having fun.

“You’re going to be wrong. Everybody gets bird identification wrong. I get it wrong all the time, and I laugh at it. I’m a pretty goofy, jolly birder when I’m out there. Having fun while birding is pretty important to me,” said Adams, who published “Birds of New England,” a 528-page volume packed with full-color photographs and practical tips for birders at every level.

Adams, who lives in Sheffield, recently joined Trout Unlimited in the Berkshires after four years with Mass Audubon. He has also worked with National Audubon and the Northwest Connecticut Land Trust.

“I’ve been taking photos for over 10 years. I’ve always enjoyed writing, and I was an environmental educator for a long time,” Adams said in a separate interview with The Eagle. “I don’t want to say I was only doing bird education, but it was probably 60 to 70 percent of everything I was doing. So, [writing a field guide] kind of folded in everything I like to do together.”

The guide includes “The New England Birding Tour,” a list of standout locations in each New England state known for their diversity of birds and ecosystems, as well as their ease of access. In Massachusetts, Adams highlights Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, Race Point National Seashore, Arcadia Wildlife Sanctuary and Bartholomew’s Cobble.

He also offers practical advice for beginners. Thinking of buying binoculars? Try a secondhand pair before investing in a new set.

“My first pair of binoculars was borrowed from my dad,” he said with a laugh. “The important thing isn’t the price — it’s that you can zoom in and see the birds up close.”

Adams will be on hand for an author talk 4 p.m. Aug. 22 at the Mason Library, 231 Main St., Great Barrington, and Nov. 8 at the 9th annual Berkshire Natural History Conference at the Williams College ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance, 1000 Main St., Williamstown.

Adams recently took time to meet with The Eagle over Zoom and answer a few of our questions about writing a field guide and about birding in general. His answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity. 

1 How does one come to write a field guide?

It was through a co-worker of mine, when I was at Mass Audubon, who helped connect me with Timber Press, which has a whole series of field guides. They were reaching out, looking for someone to write a field guide. I got an email and responded within 30 minutes — it was probably more like 30 seconds. I had to go through the whole process with them; submit my writing samples and photography. It’s one of those things that kind of just happened, but I also didn’t hesitate to help make it happen.

2 How did you start birding?

I guess you can think about it in two ways. I think about starting birding when I started my life list, which was in college, but I started learning about birds in third or fourth grade. I was always around birds. I was in a really good area for birding growing up. It was always around me. And then I had to learn birds for the Envirothon team in elementary school. [Evirothon is a nationwide team-based competition that tests knowledge in soils and land use, aquatic ecology, forestry, wildlife and environmental issues.] I just happened to be the person who could remember the bird songs. That was when I was first called the “bird guy.” It just kind of stuck with me. I did Evirothon in middle and high school.

3 What kind of advice do you have for people who are just starting out birding?

I suggest to people that it’s really about repetition with birds. I say, get overwhelmed by birds. Put yourself in a situation where you are seeing and hearing more birds than you can identify all at once. Because A, it’s okay if you can’t identify all of them, but B, it makes you focus a little bit. What that does is it builds a really important birding skill of focusing in on one sound, but it also makes you remember what you already know. And then, it builds on your ability to hear other things or see other things, picking one other thing at a time. It’s just building the tools in your toolbox over time.

4 How do you make a field guide accessible to all levels of birders?

Making things accessible to people. I think that’s my first nature — how I would explain it to people. I write kind of colloquially. I write how I speak. I try to use language that’s not Latin-based jargon around bird parts. I try to break it down simply, so that bird parts make sense. And, I try to do it comparatively too. I tried to do it in ways that will help people remember how to identify by shape. Like, when it comes to greater and lesser scaup, greater scaup is when the bird’s head shape is round like a G. Lesser scaup is lump, like an L. So built in there is how to remember different head shapes.

I feel like the longer you have been birding, the less likely you are to pick up a field guide. But at the same time, the longer you have been birding, the likelihood of you owning multiple field guides goes up. And the reason for having multiple field guides is that every person who writes about birds does it a little differently. One person might write this and another person might write that, and together, it helps with your ID. It’s kind of like a picture. One picture of a bird is helpful, but 500 pictures help even more.

5 Are there any birds that have eluded you? That are a goal to get on your lifelist? 

One that has eluded me a little bit is the great grey owl. That is a bird that doesn’t show up very often. That is a far northern owl that will ‘irrupt’ [move outside its typical range] in some years and end up sometimes in New England. I don’t remember the last time one was around. When I was in school in the Adirondacks, there was one that showed up when I just started birding. It was my first spring birding, and one was just 30 minutes from the college. It was Easter, and I had decided to cook an Easter meal for all my friends. I remember I was in the student kitchen and I had just pulled the ham out of the oven. I was holding the ham in my hands, and my friend, who had gotten me into birding, ran into the kitchen and said, “There’s a great grey owl down the road.” I didn’t know what to do. I said, “I can’t go.” I never saw it. That one is high on my list. 

READ IT

“Birds of New England: A Timber Press Field Guide” by Zach Adams

Published by Timber Press

528 pages

$29.99