With its original publication in 2000, The Sibley Guide to Birds was hailed as "undoubtedly the finest guide to North American birds" (Birding). It became a standard by which other natural history guides were measured, and this flexibly bound Second Edition offers widely expanded and updated information, new and rare species, 600 additional paintings by ornithologist David Allen Sibley, and an elegant redesign in which all of the nearly 7,000 illustrations have been reproduced 15 to 20 percent larger.