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WFC 50: Natural History of California Wild Vertebrates

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:


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.