Gulls Simplified: A Comparative Approach to Identification

I like this beautiful book. It shows a different way to learn about gull identification. I recommend it to anyone who wants to try to identify these birds.

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'm a Florida birder who bought this book to improve my ID skills with West Coast gulls. Having read the sections on California and Mew Gulls, I'm already sure this will be very helpful. As Dunne notes, a plumage-centric approach to ID works much better with warblers than gulls, so he focuses on comparative features outside plumage. I also enjoy the mixed species photos and quizzes, which were very helpful to me in The Shorebird Guide (also featuring Karlson's fine photography). Please note this book covers ALL North American gulls, including rare visitors like Kelp and Ivory Gulls. Bravo! Highly recommended.

The book is great. My memory, not so much. Still, if you start birding with the most common gulls you see and regularly apply what you learn herein, you will become adept at ID'ing gulls near and far. It's also a good book to leave out as an interest piece for guests. That cover photo is gorgeous, even for someone like me who typically prefers more color.

I love this book. Great book, easy to use information and photo comparisons. It's made gull photography and ID so much easier. My file of gull photos labeled needs ID, has grown much smaller.

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.

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...