Finding Information

on New York State Birds

By Joyce Miller, Instruction Librarian

Adirondack Community College, Queensbury NY 12804

http://www.sunyacc.edu/~millerja

As a birder, I get lots of questions about identifying birds. (That's a Cedar Waxwing depicted above, by the way!)

Here are some selected sources to help you get started:

Books:

These are a few of the many books on birds at the ACC Library. If you live in the Warren, Washington or Saratoga County area, you may get a community borrower card to borrow the circulating books. Stop by the library to use the reference books.

*Bull's Birds of* *New York* *State*	Reference QL 684.N7 B833 1998
*The Atlas of Breeding Birds in* *New York* *State*	Reference QL684.N7 A84 1988
* *Birds of* *New York* *State* (by Bob Budlinger)	Circulating QL 684.N7 B82 2005
* *The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of* *Eastern North America* (by David Sibley)	Circulating QL 681 .S564 2003
*A Field Guide to the Birds: Eastern and Central* *North America*	Circulating QL674 .P48 1980
*A Guide to Bird Behavior* (Stokes Guide)	Circulating QL 698.3 .S75 1985
Birds: A Visual Guide	Circulating QL 674 .B84 2006
*A Guide to the Nests, Eggs, and Nestlings of North American Birds*	Circulating QL675 .B16 1997

* These could be handy for home use to identify birds in your backyard. They are available at local bookstores. You may also want to consider Eastern Birds: A Guide to Field Identification by James Coe (2001), part of the Golden Guides series from St. Martin's Press.

Bird calls:

Here are some bird song pages:

Quick Guide to Bird Songs (from Baltimore Bird Club)

http://www.bcpl.net/~tross/cn/cn9608a.html/

Lists phonetic, mnemonic descriptions of common species' songs, from Baltimore Bird Club.

Sites with Birdsongs
http://www.math.sunysb.edu/~tony/birds/links.html

Links to bird songs around the world.

Animal Behavior Archive

http://www.animalbehaviorarchive.org/loginPublic.do

Sound and video catalog from the Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Also see the Web sites listed below. You may also want to get a guide to bird songs, such as Richard Walton’s CD, Birding by Ear: Eastern and Central North America, part of the Peterson series.

Magazines:

These magazines cover wildlife topics are in the ACC Library: Scientific American, Nature, National Parks, National Wildlife, Natural History, and many more.

The organizations below offer informative newsletters and other publications as part of their membership dues.

Web sites:

Some recommended birding Web sites are below:

All About Birds

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/

From Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology. Range maps, identification tips, songs, equipment, more. “Gear Guide” link leads to information on buying binoculars.

Project FeederWatch
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw/

Also from Cornell, on the annual survey of birds visiting feeders in the winter. What to feed birds, how to identify them, much more.

E-Nature

http://enature.com/home/

Click “Birds” field guide for information, songs, migration, more, about individual species. Also, online field guides for wildlife, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, seashells, spiders, insects, butterflies, wildflowers, trees.

Barbolink’s World

http://home.earthlink.net/~barbolink1/BrdLnks/

Large, comprehensive birding site by a Saratoga County birder.

Birding in the Adirondacks
http://www.adkbirds.com
New site from Adirondack Regional Tourism Council with maps showing locations of bird sightings in the Adirondack Park.

Life Histories of North American Birds
http://birdsbybent.netfirms.com/
Selected from "species biographies by Arthur Cleveland Bent and his collaborators and published in a twenty-one volume series between 1919 and 1968 by the United States Government Printing Office."

WhatBird

http://identify.whatbird.com/mwg/_/0/attrs.aspx

Identify North American birds step-by-step by their attributes, choosing color, habitat, food, bill characteristics, more to narrow the possiblities; 900+ birds in database. Commercial site by Mitchell Waite; many ads also.

Birding organizations:

Hudson Mohawk Bird Club

http://hmbc.net/

Hudson-Mohawk Bird Club web site; group, based in Capital District, offers field trips, monthly programs, newsletter, more in the 11-county area surrounding Albany.

Southern Adirondack Audubon Society

http://www.audubon.noncommercial.org/

Local Audubon chapter for Warren, Washington and Saratoga counties in New York State. Monthly meetings in Glens Falls; newsletter.

Audubon Society of the Capital Region

http://www.capitalregionaudubon.org/

Albany-area Audubon chapter; site lists chapter's programs, field trips, reports, projects.

New York State Ornithological Association

http://www.nybirds.org/

State-wide birding organization. Species checklists, breeding bird surveys, Rare Bird Alerts, publications, more.

American Birding Association

http://www.americanbirding.org/

North America’s largest birding organization; good ABA Sales office and publications.

Created April 2006; last updated June 2008

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