Birds Resources
Bird Identification Guides
The majority of field or identification guides to birds are only in print with just a few available for online licensing. Below are a few of the online options. For locating the print field guides, search the UC Davis Library Catalog using the following useful subject headings:
- Birds - California
- Birds - identification
- Raptors - identification
- (Subject) Birds AND (Subject) Field Guides
As is seen above, field guides often have the Subject subheading/subcategory of “identification” which can be combined with a subject term you are interested in such as “water bird*”.
An excellent field guide series for California is published by the University of California Press and called the “California Natural History Guides” series.
Search by title for “California Natural History Guides” to view this series in the UC Davis Library Catalog:
-
UC Library Search
Sign in (via top right corner) with your UC Davis login for full access to available features, including loan periods, online book renewals, and the ability to request items that are in storage or checked out to another borrower.
- Birds of the World (Formerly Birds of North America) This link opens in a new windowA powerful ornithology database that brings together scholarly content written by ornithologists from all over the world for 10,824 avian species. Species descriptions provide: identification, distribution, habitat, migration, diet/foraging, sounds/vocal behavior, behavior, breeding, demography, conservation, IUCN conservation status, and systematics. Also includes maps, images, media, and sounds/vocalizations. Birds of the World combines information formerly available in: Birds of North America, The Handbook of Birds of the World, Neotropical Birds, and Bird Families of the World. It also includes information, media and sounds from: Macaulay Library, eBird, Internet Bird Collection, Oriental Bird Club Image Database. Additional info on source content.
- All About Birds: California2022. Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “The perfect guide to the birds of California, from the #1 birding website AllAboutBirds.org … the All About Birds Regional Guide Series brings birding enthusiasts the best information from the renowned Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s website, AllAboutBirds.org …. These definitive books provide the most up-to-date resources and expert coverage on bird species throughout North America. … It presents full accounts of 218 bird species commonly seen in [California]; beautiful photographs of male, female, and immature birds, as well as morphs, and breeding and nonbreeding plumage (so you can ID birds all year long); current range maps; … The California edition [includes] … descriptions of 218 bird species, including four photos for each bird chosen specifically for better ID and sourced from the Macaulay Library (a collection of bird photos from citizen scientists).”
NOTE: search the databases BIOSIS Previews or Zoological Record (in the Databases section) for locating bird journal literature. BIOSIS Previews will have comprehensive literature for well studied species including those which may be model organisms for laboratory studies. Zoological Record is useful for animals mainly researched in the wild via field studies and also organisms that are rare or highly endangered.