Library Closing: The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh will be closed on Monday, December 8, 2008 for Staff Development Day

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Bird Watching

Databases

Birds of North America Online   Library Access   NO Remote Access
Detailed scientific information, images, audio and video for the 716 species of birds nesting in the USA and Canada.

 

Audubon's Birds of America   Available to Everyone
The University of Pittsburgh has mounted the engravings John James Audubon’s Birds of America on its Digital Library website.

 

Browse the Catalog

For additional books, browse the catalog under the subjects:

 

Selected Books

 
Dooley, Sean
The Big Twitch: One man, one continent, a race against time : a true story about birdwatching
QL677.5.D66 2005
In 2002, Dooley set out to break the record for the most birds spotted throughout the Australian territories in a single year. The effort to track down more than 700 species takes him from a sooty owl sitting on a tree branch in the early hours of New Year's Day to a blue-faced parrot finch climbing a blade of grass on Christmas Eve.
 
Kaufman, Kenn
City Birding: True tales of birds and birdwatching in unexpected places
QL677.5.C548 2003
Over a dozen first-rank birding writers and ornithologists, including Paul A. Johnsgard and James Gorman, contribute a quirky piece of material each to build this prose nest. They take a sidelong view of themselves as well as their subjects in the "unexpected places," which are mostly urban-many in the New York City area.
 
 

Web Sites

  • Audubon Society
    Audubon's mission is to conserve and restore natural ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife, and their habitats for the benefit of humanity and the earth's biological diversity.
  • BirdingOnThe.Net
    A directory of online resources in birding
  • BirdSource
    a partnership between the National Audubon Society and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology that tracks birds to define bird ranges, populations, migration pathways, and habitat needs.
  • BirdNet
    BIRDNET provides information about ornithology, the scientific study of birds. The site is a service of the Ornithological Council, a public information organization involving ten North American professional ornithological societies.
  • Birder's World Magazine
    including web links, birding events and art shows, selected articles from the print publication by Kalmbach Publishing Co.
  • Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology
    This is probably the premier bird laboratory in the United States. Includes an "All About Birds" section: "The Ultimate Resource for Birds and Birding on the Web" with information about feeding, attracting, and watching birds.
  • North American Bird Conservation Initiative: United States
    NABCI is dedicated to promoting and advancing integrated bird conservation in North America.
  • North American Bluebird Society
    A non-profit conservation, education and research organization, that promotes the recovery of bluebirds and other native cavity-nesting bird species.
  • Partners in Flight
    Partners In Flight is a cooperative effort involving partnerships among federal, state and local government agencies, philanthropic foundations, professional organizations, conservation groups, industry, the academic community, and private individuals to conserve the bird population and its habitat in the Americas.

International

  • BirdLife International
    ife International is a global Partnership of conservation organisations that strives to conserve birds, their habitats and global biodiversity, working with people towards sustainability in the use of natural resources. BirdLife Partners operate in over one hundred countries and territories worldwide.
 

Pittsburgh Resources

 

Pennsylvania

  • Bluebird Society of Pennsylvania
    an affiliate of the North American Bluebird Society. Learn about the eastern bluebird, hear its song, get plans for a bluebird house.
  • Hawk Mountain Sanctuary
    Located along the Appalachian Flyway in southeastern Pennsylvania, scenic Hawk Mountain Sanctuary offers visitors an outstanding experience in nature observation with its mountaintop vistas and thrilling migration of nearly 20,000 hawks, eagles and falcons. Hawk Mountain is a 2,380-acre nature preserve straddling the Kittatinny Ridge that was established in 1934 as the world's first refuge devoted to the protection of birds of prey.
  • Pennsylvania Audubon Society
    Includes their newsletter, events, a list of publications, etc.
  • Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology
    They eventually hope to create a state-wide guide to birding resources by county.
 

Nearby States

Since birds don't know about political boundaries, information from West Virginia and Ohio are usually applicable to Western Pennsylvania.