A lively curiosity has spread among all classes of thinking people as to the names of the birds they see, what they feed on, and something of their coming and going, with the result that the demand for bird books has become very great. - T. Gilbert Pearson, editor, Birds of America, 1917.

Birds present an inexhaustible source for learning, enjoyment, and original research. They are a gateway to a deeper familiarity with whole ecosystems, and are well-known indicator species for the health of the environment we all share.

There is no substitute for learning about birds from the birds themselves, spending time with them in the field, observing them inconspicuously as they conduct their lives. Books, too, can be an important resource, because they distill centuries of work by others, help us to think systematically about what we discover, put our small-scale observations into a larger and more orderly context, and make possible vicarious experiences we shall never be lucky enough, or long-lived enough, to undertake otherwise.

Because birds, with their various and changing plumages, many vocalizations, and fascinatingly diverse behaviors, are often so strikingly different that our first impulses are often to learn how to tell them apart, and how to associate a given species’ appearance with its voice, behaviors, and preferred habitat. Field guides provide shortcuts to learning how to recognize the regular forms in which our bird life appears, and they form the basis of any ornithological library.

Choosing among the many excellent guides available is a quite personal matter. In general, beginners are well advised to begin slowly, using a field guide that treats the birds they are most likely to see. Folks who mostly watch birds in their back yards may benefit at the outset from guides to the several dozen species most likely in their area. Eventually these elementary guides are outgrown. Careful observers will soon begin to recognize groups of species---woodpeckers, or raptors, or waterfowl—as distinctive, and grow curious about related birds they see elsewhere. Birds seen on vacations far from home, or even at a picnic in a local park, will induce curiosity that may not be satisfied with an entry-level guide.

As for a complete field guide to Ohio's birds, there is really only one good choice, and we are fortunate it is an excellent one: Birds of Ohio, by J. S. McCormac and G. Kennedy (Lone Pine Press, 2004, 360 pp). Well-illustrated and full of helpful features (range maps, histograms of seasonal occurrences, best sites, checklist, glossary of terms, etc.), it covers Ohio's bird species in considerable detail, and is all the more attractive for a lively text laced with intriguing and authoritative information.

Because there are all levels of specificity in North American field guides---they vary from brief treatments of hundreds of species seen over the entire continent to book-length treatments of a group including only a few species---and serve many levels of expertise that are attained as knowledge is gained, it’s a good idea to borrow, study, and try out some of the many guides at your local library to see which is best for you at your current state of expertise. You probably won’t want to get along on borrowed books, however; you’ll want them constantly at hand for consultation, and you’ll probably want to write notes in them. Get one that appeals to you, and be prepared to step up to a more advanced one as your expertise grows. You can pass along your outgrown guides to others who follow you along the path.

There is seemingly no end to field guides, with scores to choose from once you reach a certain level of familiarity with birds. At some point, however, sharpening your skills at identifying birds will lead you to wondering about other things for the species you’ve learned to tell apart. Do they nest in Ohio? Where in the state are they most likely to be found? Are they migrants, and if so when do they usually show up, and when do they usually leave? How common are they? Have their numbers or their ranges changed over time? Field guides, because they are generalized treatments, are less often helpful in answering questions such as these. For help, you must turn to state and local works on birds, books that will inform you about the local status of birds you’ve learned to identify.

The best acquisition for an Ohioan’s ornithological library, after you’ve supplied yourself with field guides, is likely to be a copy of what’s often called just “Peterjohn”:

Peterjohn, B.G. 2001. The Birds of Ohio. The Wooster Book Co., Wooster, OH (637 pp). This lengthy but reasonably priced work treats Ohio’s birds with range maps, descriptions of preferred habitats, overall abundance, distribution across the state, status as breeders only or migrants only or as permanent residents, and a historical perspective on all the preceding factors. Extensively researched and carefully compiled, this book is indispensable for any serious student of Ohio’s birds, and is available in good book stores and from the publisher.

A very useful companion volume is Peterjohn, B.G., and D. L. Rice. 1997. The Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas. Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Natural Areas and Preserves (416 pp). Now out of print, the Atlas remains available on line on the Division of Natural Areas and Preserves’ web pages at www.dnr.state.oh.us/dnap/OhioBirding/BreedingBirdAtlas/BreedingBirdAtlas.htm. The Atlas employs data from years of surveys across the state to describe life history detail, abundance, and distribution of our breeding species. Though a number of aspects of the breeding birds of Ohio have changed since its publication, it remains a basic reference.

Even more focused are a number of excellent book-length treatments of birds of certain locales in Ohio. These are not field guides for identification purposes, but treatments of the local status of the local bird species. The most useful and accessible of them are listed below.

Kemsies, E. and W. Randle. 1953. Birds of Southwestern Ohio. Edwards Bros., Ann Arbor. 74 pp. This estimable work is out of print, and in some ways out of date, though it will always be of considerable historical interest. As a description of the current state of the local avifauna, it has been largely supplanted by the following work.

Styer, D. 1993. Birds of the Oxbow. C.J. Krehbiel Co., Cincinnati. 229 pp. Though limited somewhat by the range of habitats in the relatively small area covered, this exemplary treatment furnishes excellent data on 276 species: abundance, dates of occurrence, nesting status, etc., along with a few natural history details. Now out of print, it remains available.

Mathena, C., J. Hickman, J. Hill, R. Mercer, C. and B. Berry, N. Cherry, and P. Flynn. 1984. The Birds of Dayton. Landfall Press, Dayton. 189 pp. Updating Blincoe’s The Birds of Dayton and the Central Miami Valley of 1964, this work usefully summarizes Blincoe’s accounts for each species, then adds important data from the ensuing twenty years. Out of print, but available.

Anderson, M., E. Durbin, T. Kemp, S. Lauer, and E. Tramer. 2002. Birds of the Toledo Area. Ohio Biological Survey, Columbus, OH. 183 pp. In an update of Campbell’s 1968 work of the same name, five of the area’s experts present accounts of 357 species known from the area; included are useful site guides for birding and remarks on habitat changes in the region.

Williams, A.B. 1950. Birds of the Cleveland Region. Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland. 215 pp. An excellent compilation of older records of birds in the area, but of course no longer current and hard to find; see the following entry, however.

Rosche, Larry. Birds of Cleveland. Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland. Local expert Rosche updates Williams’s work with changes and additions to the local bird life over the intervening fifty-four years. Yet to be released as of this writing, this promises to be an indispensable work treating the region.

If your interests extend to the history of our knowledge of Ohio’s bird life, and changes over time among bird populations as humans have altered their habitats and killed them, some central references are:

Kirtland, J. P. 1838. Report on the Zoology of Ohio. Second Annual Report, Geologic Survey of the State of Ohio, pp. 157-200. The most complete and authoritative treatment of Ohio’s bird life in the early days by a local contemporary of Audubon, and a rare publication that is found in only a few libraries. This and a related early Kirtland works are hard to find, and were reprinted in The Ohio Cardinal; they are available by clicking here.

Wheaton, J.M. 1882. Report on the Birds of Ohio. Ohio Geological Survey Bulletin 4:187-628. An exhaustive treatment, and a treasure-trove of lore at the time; an interesting chronological bibliography of Ohio’s birds concludes the work. Available in larger libraries, as well as in the used-book trade.

Dawson, W.L. 1903. The Birds of Ohio. Wheaton Publishing Co., Columbus. Two vol., 671 pp. Illustrated, and a version aimed at a wider public than the preceding, Dawson’s prose animates accurate and interesting species accounts. In larger libraries, as well as in the used-book trade.

Trautman, M.B. 1940 The Birds of Buckeye Lake. Univ. Mich. Mus. Misc. Publ. No 44. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor. 466 pp. This fine work remains of considerable value despite the passage of years, which have brought the near-eradication of many of the wild areas in which Trautman worked on birds at Buckeye Lake. A seminal study of Ohio birds in the modern era, it makes clear the extent to which bird numbers have declined since. Also out of print.

Another interesting work from Trautman, unfinished at his death, will be published soon by editor R.L. Stuckey: The Birds of Western Lake Erie treats 223 species of birds the author observed and studied over decades of work in the area, and is enlivened by personal anecdote and observations of notable occurrences. Details will be offered at this web site upon its release.

Other authorities of bygone years whose work is always worth consulting in periodicals and pamphlets include ornithologists like Lynds Jones, Lawrence Hicks, and Frank Langdon; for further references to these and other authors, see the Annotated Bibliography.

There are a number of popular works treating the ecology, behavior, and general natural history of North American birds that are valuable in learning more about Ohio’s bird life. Three of the most useful of the widely available publications are the following.

Ehrlich, P., D. Dobkin, and D. Wheye. 1988, The Birder’s Handbook: A Field Guide to the Natural History of North American Birds. This essential work covers breeding biology, food preferences and foraging habits, references, and essays on aspects of avian biology in a handy format for over 650 species.

Leahy, Christopher. 1982. The Birdwatcher’s Companion: An Encyclopedic Handbook to North American Birdlife. A 900+-page alphabetically-arranged treatment of a wide range of ornithological topics, accurately treated in non-technical style. A fine reference, and approachable enough for general browsing.

A good general reference work is J.R. Terres’s 1980 work, The Audubon Society Encyclopedia of North American Birds. Widely available, not too technical, and generally authoritative, this informative source is a bargain.

For those interested in learning more, individual species accounts are available for all of our birds. To some are dedicated one or more book-length treatments, and to many articles in the periodicals. The most convenient way to access in-depth information about North American birds is through two enormous compilations:

Arthur Cleveland Bent’s Life Histories appeared in 21 volumes between 1919 and 1968, covering all known species and subspecies of North American birds. Part of its charm derives from Bent’s reliance on first-hand accounts from qualified field observers. The final volume appeared after Bent’s death, edited by O.L.Austin. Published by the Smithsonian Institution as National Museum Bulletins, the original volumes are not easy to find, but have been reissued as paperbacks by Dover Publications; many volumes of the latter are widely available. Thanks to the Birdzilla web site, a searchable on-line version of this massive work is now available; this version is derived from optical character reading, and contains many small errors; careful research demands checking the text in a library.

The recently-completed Birds of North America, a joint project of the American Ornithological Society, the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, and the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, occupies eight feet of shelf space with separate accounts of 700 North American bird species, all written by academic ornithologists. Without replacing Bent’s work, it represents its modern equivalent as a reference. Because of the narrow specialization customary in university-based research, it is not uncommon to find one aspect of the biology of a given species superbly treated, but others rather less satisfactorily presented. The BNA is costly enough (~$3000) to be out of the reach of most, but is available in most well-stocked public libraries.

Useful works treating the subject of birds’ names are:

Gruson, E. 1972. Words for Birds: A Lexicon of North American Birds with Biographical Notes. For ~800 species, explains the origin and derivation of their English and scientific names. Includes brief bibliographies of ornithologists involved in the nomenclature.

Jobling, J. 1991. A Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. An accurate and reasonably complete list of ~8500 scientific names (generic and specific) of the world’s birds, describing their meaning and origin.

Mearns, B. and R. 1992. Audubon to Xantus: The Lives of those Commemorated in North American Bird Names. Out of print. The most complete collection of biographies of individuals whose names appear in the standard English names of our birds.

E.A. Choate’s 1985 The Dictionary of American Bird Names also offers biobgraphies and etymologies of bird names.

Sayre, J.K. 1996. North American Bird Folknames and Names. Bottlebrush Press, Foster City, CA. (291 pp.). Probably the most extensive collection of the often-colorful vernacular English names of birds used over the past 350 years.

Cassidy, F. G., chief editor. 1985-pres. Dictionary of American Regional English. Harvard. Multiple volumes, in progress. When complete, this monumental work will document the thousands of regional folk expressions for bird names (as well as most anything else).

There are a number of specialized sources of ornithological books. The American Birding Association sells many titles, as does the Los Angeles Audubon Society.

The Wilson Ornithological Society has an ongoing sale of used bird books. Large commercial sellers of works on birds are Natural History Book Service. Used books may be sought on any of the booksellers’ services, such as bookfinder.com.

For periodicals about birds, and for on-line versions of books and other publications, see the relevant sections in the Ornithology Links in this section of the web site.

Choosing where to stop when describing the diverse and seemingly inexhaustible world of books about ornithology is an entirely arbitrary affair. Suffice it to say that looking into the books mentioned above, especially their bibliographies, will lead you in any direction you may wish to go. There are many excellent guides to topics as diverse as molecular genetics, photography, bird houses, subspecies, falconry, avian ecology, bird conservation, archaeology and paleontology, birds in art, etc.---the list may be pursued till one is exhausted without in any way exhausting the possibilities. Browsing a good library collection, the shelves of a good book store, or surfing the web reveal innumerable avenues of research. You will learn that no one knows everything about birds. Neither will you, but you may learn to your heart’s content and never reach an end.