Use of acoustic monitoring to estimate occupancy of the Antioquia Brushfinch (Atlapetes blancae), a critically endangered species, in San Pedro de los Milagros, Antioquia

The Antioquia Brushfinch (Atlapetes blancae) is a range restricted bird limited to a plateau in the Central Andes of Colombia, just 45 minutes from the city of Medellín, Colombia. This species was described in 2007 by a British ornithologist based on three museum specimens collected in 1971 by the brothers of a Christian organization committed […] Read More

OC bimonthly news brief March-April 2023

The Ornithological Council is pleased to provide this bimonthly report covering activities in March and April 2023. The Ornithological Council’s mission is to: Our work focuses on animal welfare issues, permits, research funding, and other policies that affect ornithologists and ornithological societies. We greatly appreciate your support. Please contact Laura Bies with questions or concerns […] Read More

Birds of East Africa (Second Edition)

This is the second edition of this highly successful field guide. The first edition appeared in 2002 and was entitled Field Guide to the Birds of East Africa. There has also been a shift in publisher from T & AD Poyser to Helm Field Guides in the Bloomsbury Publishing stable. The guide covers Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. This hits rather a ‘sweet spot’ in terms of geographical coverage, with the other relevant major field guides covering either smaller or larger areas... Read More

Field Guide to the Birds of the Dominican Republic and Haiti

Hispaniola, the second largest island in the West Indies, provides habitat to 318 species of resident and migratory birds. This high species richness is related to the island’s diverse ecosystems and a complex geological history resulting from the merging of different land masses approximately 9 million years ago, as well as climatic changes in the Pleistocene that facilitated speciation. These events played a role in the evolution of 34 endemic species including six endemic genera... Read More

Video nest monitoring to aid recovery of island birds

The conservation of birds on oceanic islands is particularly challenging. These species may have inherently small population sizes, inhabit limited ranges, and be vulnerable to changes in the predator community. As explorers and settlers inevitably arrived, they altered habitats and introduced new predatory species. These changes led to drastic reductions, and occasional extinctions, in island […] Read More

The Compact Australian Bird Guide

The first comprehensive guide to Australian birds was Neville Cayley’s (1931) What bird is that? The illustrations were rather poor by modern field guide standards and the text was limited, but the book became a best seller and was the only comprehensive guide available for several decades. More recently, several excellent field guides to Australian birds have been published, including the two-volume A Field Guide to Australian Birds by Peter Slater (1970, 1974), A Field Guide to the Birds of Australia by... Read More

The origin and distribution of birds in coastal Alaska and British Columbia: the lost manuscript of ornithologist Harry S. Swarth

Harry Swarth (1878-1935) was a prolific ornithological explorer, curator, collector, and thinker. In 2019 his grandson Christopher found a manuscript that Swarth had completed shortly before his death. The unedited manuscript, which is based on over 1,000 days of rugged expeditions to southeast Alaska and adjacent British Columbia between 1909 and 1934, forms the core of this book. Read More

Field Guide to North American Flycatchers: Empidonax and Pewees

For many North American birders and ornithologists, the field identification of Empidonax flycatchers and their pewee cousins has long been one of the most difficult ID puzzles. Over the past six decades a range of top museum specialists, banders, and birders have spilled considerable ink on the subject in the scientific literature, field guides, and magazine articles, but this book is the first field guide to focus specifically on this often-perplexing group of flycatchers. Read More