bird watch

[winterbadger]

Meant to mention that recent weeks have seen me discover that catbirds reside in profusion in the Maryland suburbs.

In the last week I've also seen a mocking bird (near our apartment) and an American goldfinch (in Springfield, VA).

None of these folks are particularly rare; I'm just enjoying seeing them. :-)

Comments

[brithistorian.livejournal.com]

One of these days I'm going to have to get a bird book and start learning to identify different breeds of birds, so I can stop coming home from walks with bird lists that look like this:

Black birds: 13
Brown birds: 11
Ducks: 7
Red-winged blackbirds: 1

[winterbadger]

I can heartily recommend Stokes Beginner's Guide to Birds (I assume you still count as Eastern, thought hey also do a Western) as a nice basic, easy to use starter guide. They do a field guide too, which I've not seen. Of course, Roger Tory Peterson is the classic. I like David Sibley's books; he does an Eastern birds guide. And National Geographic, Smithsonian, National Wildlife Federation all have guides too...

Good sites include

http://www.audubon.org/
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/
http://www.birding.com/
http://www.americanbirding.org/
http://www.abcbirds.org/
http://www.birdingonthe.net/

[brithistorian.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the recommendations. I've been hitting the websites, and I've made a list of the books for next time I go to the bookstore.