Raptors can be a challenge to identify, particularly because of their variability, but with practice it becomes easier and clearer. Numerous identifiation guides are available for the raptor enthusiast, hawk watcher, or biologist to use in the fild, as a reference on a library shelf, or now as an app on a smart phone. The new Birds of Prey of the West is a complement and update to Wheeler’s 2003 book Raptors
of Western North America, now out of print (reviewed by David Lukas in Western Birds 34:252–253, 2003). At fist glance, this new version has the feeling of a standard fild guide, but deeper reading reveals that this is a fild guide for the advanced raptor enthusiast.