Knockknees posted:

My husband and I just went up to Horicon Marsh in Wisconsin for a weekend of casual birdwatching.

Horicon Marsh is the largest freshwater Marsh in the US and has a ton of birdlife. We went on our own on trails as well as going on a guided boat tour.

Highlights were tons of Kingfishers, Egrets, White Pelicans, and Blue Herons. I didn't know about the Spotted Sandpiper or the Eastern Kingbird before, and now I do. I also know how to tell apart 3 different kinds of swallows, when I used to only know the Barn Swallow. We saw 2 out of the 6 nesting Eagles in the Marsh. When we were on our own, we also spotted a swan (probably a trumpeter) hanging out in a crowd of Canada Geese. It's the wrong time of the year for swans, and even then they aren't too common, so it was a special sighting but it made me wonder what that swan's story was!

I also saw tons of songbirds (wrens? thrushes? warblers?) I don't have any idea what they were because I am terrible at those kinds of birds but it was really nice just to watch them flit around and listen to them sing.

Anyway, having a guide was great. As a very casual bird watcher, I learned a lot!

I want to get more into it, and I'd like a book to flip through at home - but having trouble deciding what to get. Obviously Sibley's is top of the line when it comes to number of illustrations - but is there any book that is known for having lots of words and information about behavior/habitat/nesting/quirky facts and so on? I'm a sucker for stuff like that.